Emailed on December 4th, 2020 in The Friday Forward

Fintech is all the rage these days but with each new major product release it seems as if the entire ecosystem is being disrupted (ie powered) by Stripe.

This week the newly minted centicorn (100 unicorns) announced it is teaming up with banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. to offer checking accounts and other business-banking services via API. The product is called Stripe Treasury.

Essentially this makes Stripe a platform of platforms. So over the next few months when everyone from your favorite shoe brand to your dog food subscription box offers you an "interest-bearing checking account," that is likely powered by Stripe.

Among the early adopters of Stripe’s new banking services is Shopify Inc., which, starting early next year, will offer Shopify Balance accounts to many of the hundreds of thousands of merchants that use its software.

Between Stripe Treasury, Stripe Capital (allows anyone to add in financing services to their platform), and Stripe Issuing (allows anyone to create charge cards for their customers), Stripe is virtually powering most of what we've deemed "fintech."

"What if Google builds it" is old news, the new question for any fintech startup is "What if Stripe..."

The baton has been passed.