Antoine Le Nel

🚨 JUST IN: Revolut joins Google's agentic payments protocol AP2. Contributed A2A payment flows to the protocol. The real news buried in Revolut's announcement: They didn't just join. They contributed A2A payment flows to the protocol itself. That's not supporting a standard. That's shaping one. --- Why A2A matters here: - Google built AP2 around cards. - Fine for the US. - But A2A is how Europe moves a good chunk of money. - Open banking. Faster payments. PSD2. Revolut just made AI shopping work with how Europeans pay. --- If AI agents become the checkout, whoever controls the payment rails underneath becomes a power player. That's a $500B+ prize. --- The problem: - Merchants don't want to integrate 4 different AI payment protocols. - They barely want to integrate one. - Right now everyone's "supporting everything." Visa supports Google. - Mastercard supports Google. Stripe has its own thing. Coinbase is in there. Cloudflare too. It's exhausting to track. Imagine being a merchant. So Revolut saying - we got this and we made it work for you. Is a solution. For now. --- Does this matter? Well, we're early, we have: - Multiple competing protocols - Big names picking sides - Limited Consumer adoption - Limited Merchant integration at scale Let's see if the holiday season in 2026 is an inflection point for agents buying things.

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Revolut is now Spain’s fourth-largest bank by customers. It has passed 7 million accounts. That puts it behind CaixaBank (~19–20 million), Santander (~15 million) and BBVA (~11 million), and ahead of Banco Sabadell ING, Unicaja and Bankinter. Spain is Revolut’s third largest market after the UK and France. Penetration is 15%. One in three people aged 25–34 has an account. Executives say 8 in 10 Spaniards now know the brand. New customers: 180,000–200,000 a month. Next target: 8 million by early 2027. The more intresting numbers sit underneath the league table. Savings accounts: €3.2 billion, up 80% year on year. Accounts receiving salary: up 69%. Deposits in Spain: up 62%. Revolut Business: 30,000 clients, deposits up 73%. That is the primary-bank push. Ignacio Zunzunegui told journalists it is no longer an “if” but a “when”. He also said they do not want to be “the bank that takes away”, but the one that adds value. Customer count still favours digital banks. Mortgages in Spain in 2028, the earliest, I think. Deposits remain small next to the big three banks. But payroll, savings, and business balances are all rising, which indicates clear growth of Revolut is Spain.

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🚀 What should a COO of pan European BaaS provider know? 💳🌍 We have interviewed close to 40 COOs within Europen BaaS space during the last month. Many companies are excelling in specific segments: clearing, card issuing, acquiring, payment processing, embedded lending. However, only a few providers truly offer a broader range of services combined with the relevant licenses to operate across the value chain. Paynetics and Swan stand out as promising and stable full-range providers, with top-class clients under their belt. 🏦✨ The successful exit of Vodeno to UniCredit has inspired entrepreneurs to continue building BaaS-like services and accelerate the shift toward embedded and white-label solutions. 🚀 However, the industry has not taken off as smoothly or as fast as many expected. Solaris SE is an example of the challenges the sector faces — navigating regulatory crises, continued lack of profitability, and the search for a proven, scalable business model. Railsr experienced a rather distressed sale. Other relevant European players to watch include Modulr, Banking Circle and ClearBank. Very few organizations have successfully built AI-centered operational processes — a key requirement of our client. It appears that many organizations still hesitate to fully trust AI when it comes to handling payments and making sensitive decisions concerning clients’ money. 💰 Yet, AI-driven efficiency and intelligent automation may become a decisive competitive advantage in BaaS operations. Another challenge we observe: the work-life balance expectations of many executives in Western Europe and the Nordics do not always align with the intensity required in a demanding challenger scale-up environment. Key COO competencies in this space include: Advanced technological understanding and digital infrastructure knowledge Ability to tailor onboarding processes to clients ranging from FinTechs to large corporates Impeccable organizational and analytical skills to lead and structure large operations teams Deep experience with card schemes and regulatory frameworks Proven success in scaling efficiently within high-growth environments 📊 This is a rare combination. Strategic Crossroads: Infrastructure or Pure BaaS? Should FinTechs with advanced technology focus on selling infrastructure to banks? 🏦 Or should they continue pushing the BaaS model — enabling merchants, SMEs, and retailers to offer bank-like services directly to their clients? 💳📱Which direction do you believe the European market will take? #FinTech #BankingAsAService #BaaS #EmbeddedFinance #AI #Payments #COO #Leadership

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Payment routing isn’t “just another layer” in your payment stack. It’s a way to stop losing money on payment logic. Why it matters: 1)It’s a control layer above PSPs, not another provider. Orchestration doesn’t process payments itself — it decides in real time where to route each transaction (Stripe, Adyen, local acquirer, etc.) based on country, card type, amount and approval history. 2)Smart routing directly improves approval rates. -Traffic is split across providers by performance: one PSP for the US, another for Europe, another for higher-risk flows. Even a few percentage points of uplift at fintech scale means real money. 3)Automatic fallbacks protect revenue. If one PSP goes down or starts underperforming, traffic is rerouted automatically — no manual switches, no downtime losses. 4)Operations become centralized. Fees, refunds, chargebacks and reporting across all PSPs live in one place instead of dozens of spreadsheets. 5)Fraud logic becomes part of routing. Transactions can follow different paths (no 3DS, 3DS2, fallback, decline) based on risk scoring, not a single static fraud rule. 6)Market expansion becomes configuration, not a project. Plugging in a local acquirer or payment method in a new country stops being a months-long integration. 7)You can A/B test your payment stack. Compare PSPs by approval rates, costs and chargebacks — and optimize based on data, not gut feeling. Important: Orchestration amplifies what you already have. If your data and reasons for rejection aren't organized, you'll just be sending the same mess faster.

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CaixaBank obtained a MiCA licence. And will soon offer crypto services to more than 12 million users. This is how MiCA will really enter the market. Not through crypto startups. Through banks. Custody. Buy and sell. Transfers. All inside regulated banking apps. This changes the game. When banks enter crypto, the focus shifts from growth to control. From innovation to compliance. From speed to security. MiCA is not just a regulation. It is a security and operational framework. And most companies are still thinking about paperwork. Instead of thinking about processes, internal controls, access management, incident response, staff training. This is where most MiCA projects will fail. It's not a regulation but an operational framework. And that's what we do here! We help companies to get the licence. (Aaaand!)We prep companies for what comes after the licence. Give me a call if you're thinking about this.

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𝙎𝘾𝙊𝙊𝙋 👀 Revolut is close to a sponsorship deal with FC Barcelona 🤯 Setting up a direct battle with CaixaBank.. According to reports, Revolut is now in talks with FC Barcelona to become the club’s financial sponsor: https://lnkd.in/dkHrqCep The FinTech has shown strong interest, and discussions between both parties are already underway. However, Revolut is not alone. CaixaBank, which has a long-standing relationship with the club dating back to the late 1970s, is also still in the race. Although their sponsorship deal expired in June 2025, partly due to disagreements linked to a failed investment case, talks between CaixaBank and Barça have never fully broken down and are still ongoing. The sponsorship is significant: CaixaBank reportedly paid around €6 million per season under its previous deal. Other banks, such as Sabadell, are not competing due to the high costs involved. This sets up a clear battle between two very different players: 👉 CaixaBank, Spain’s largest retail bank, valued at around €71 billion 👉 Revolut, a fast-growing fintech with 6 million customers in Spain, now its third-largest market Revolut has been aggressively investing in branding and sponsorships, including becoming title sponsor of the Audi Revolut F1 team: https://lnkd.in/d5SZs9qU Now, it’s aiming for one of the most visible sponsorships in European sports: FC Barcelona. Whats next? A Pro-Tour Cycling Team? 😉 Find this helpful? [ 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 ] Anything to add about this subject? [𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁] Nice story, Marcel. Next! [ 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 ] 

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