Advisory Insights

July 2025

  • The Storyline

The regulatory landscape continued its shift toward fintech-friendly policies as the GENIUS Act successfully passed in the U.S. Senate, providing clearer frameworks for digital asset operations and stablecoin issuance. This legislative milestone represents a significant step forward in establishing comprehensive crypto regulation while maintaining the current administration’s innovation-friendly approach. The bill’s passage signals growing bipartisan support for digital asset innovation and provides regulatory clarity that has been anticipated by the industry for years.

Stripe’s application to form a special-purpose bank, organized under Georgia’s authority to grant merchant acquirer limited purpose bank (MALPB) charters, was conditionally approved on June 30, 2025, making it only the third company to receive such approval. Circle has formally submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust bank, First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., while Wise filed an application on June 16 with the OCC and Ripple filed an application for a national banking charter with the OCC. 

Public markets witnessed a surge in fintech IPO activity, signaling renewed investor confidence in the sector. Circle and Chime led the charge with successful public offerings, demonstrating strong investor appetite for profitable fintech businesses. U.K. neobank Monzo demonstrated particularly impressive fundamentals ahead of its planned IPO, with revenue growing 48% to £1.2 billion and customer deposits rising to £16.6 billion, showcasing the scalability of digital banking models. The crypto sector showed particular momentum as Gemini, Sol Strategies, FalconX, and Bullish all filed for U.S. IPOs, reflecting improving sentiment in the digital asset space amid regulatory clarity. Wealthfront also confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO after growing assets to $85 billion and expanding services like direct stock purchases and bond ladders. In a notable cross-border development, U.K.-based Wise announced plans to shift its primary listing to the U.S.

Ramp crossed $750 million in annual revenue and raised $150 million at a $16 billion valuation. OatFi raised $24 million in Series A funding to develop modern credit infrastructure for B2B payments, while Noah secured $22 million to build a global stablecoin payments network for consumers and merchants. Juniper Square raised $130 million in Series D funding to expand JunieAI, its new AI copilot for real estate investment workflows.

Stripe made significant moves to enhance its crypto infrastructure, agreeing to acquire crypto wallet infrastructure provider Privy to expand its capabilities in onboarding and managing crypto users, following its Bridge acquisition last fall that positioned the company as a leader in stablecoin payment infrastructure. Robinhood finalized its $200 million acquisition of crypto exchange Bitstamp. Finance automation platform Tipalti acquired Statement to enhance its capabilities in spend management and real-time visibility.

Visa expanded its stablecoin capabilities across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, partnering with African crypto exchange Yellow Card to pilot cross-border payment use cases in emerging markets. PayPal announced plans to bring its PYUSD stablecoin to the Stellar blockchain, expanding beyond Ethereum to increase global payment reach and interoperability. Mastercard strengthened its position in the evolving payments landscape by joining Paxos’ Global Dollar Network, enabling multiple stablecoins including USDG, USDC, PYUSD, and FIUSD across its global payment ecosystem. Meanwhile, Shopify announced that it will soon allow select merchants to automatically accept USDC payments through partnerships with Coinbase and Stripe, with merchants receiving up to 0.5% cash back in the U.S. and other countries. Plaid and Experian partnered to utilize cash flow underwriting for lending decisions.

  • Network Spotlight

This month we sat down with Chris Dean, Co-founder & CEO of Treasury Prime.



Tell us a little about yourself and Treasury Prime.

I’m Chris Dean, Co-founder and CEO of Treasury Prime. I’m a software engineer and lapsed scientist who found a surprising love for banking. I spent the beginning of my career doing large AI and Machine Learning problems and then became a founder in Silicon Valley. Our last startup was acquired by Silicon Valley Bank. I ran the fintech group at SVB and used that experience when we started Treasury Prime.

We believe that banks are the central player in fintech and embedded banking – Treasury Prime’s mission is to provide banks with world class software to run those relationships.

What key challenges do you see companies facing when building embedded banking products, and how does Treasury Prime address them?

There are three main challenges when a tech company wants to provide banking services:

  1. You need to have a contract directly with the bank. If you’re making bank accounts and paying someone who is not a chartered bank, you’re going to have a problem sooner or later.
  2. You’ll need more than one bank. You can start out with just one bank, but every scaling tech company runs on multiple banks.
  3. You need to work with a good banking tech stack. Most banks aren’t good at building products, so this one is especially challenging.

By my last count, there are only 26 banks in the US that do that (good banking tech stack), and the vast majority use Treasury Prime. We can connect you to a bank (but you’re driving the bank relationship), you can use our software seamlessly between banks (we have our own private payment rails just for this purpose), and our BankOS is world class.

How do you see embedded banking evolving in the next few years, and what role will platforms play in shaping that future?

We’ve done this a hundred times, and here’s the truth: Always bet on the banks. They are the backbone of embedded finance. The margins only work if the fintech has a strong partnership with a bank that knows what it’s doing. The next few years are going to be all about banks accelerating their move to tech. More banks will be ready. More deals will get done. We are seeing a huge uptick in deals. Pay attention to stablecoins, they are not a side story. They’re becoming a major part of how money moves. Just don’t put deposits in stablecoin and you’ll be fine.

How can people get a hold of you?

Email is always reliable: ctdean@treasuryprime.com

What’s a hobby or passion that helps you unwind?

I love to be outdoors beekeeping. I enjoy building, the bees enjoy building their hives so we get along great. It can be a challenge to keep bees on the California coast, but nothing is better than watching that honey come from the first harvest.

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