The Infrastructure War Has Begun: Why Fintech’s Future Belongs to Those Who Own the Rails

The Real Battle: Behind the Apps

The next big fight in fintech isn’t about trading apps, flashy wallets, or who can onboard the most users.

It’s about something much deeper - the invisible infrastructure that moves money around the world.

That’s where the real power lies.

Right now, that battle is playing out in real time. Coinbase and Mastercard are both circling BVNK, a London-based company that builds stablecoin payment rails and is reportedly valued at around $2.5 billion.

On the surface, it looks like a standard acquisition, but beneath it is a much bigger story - a contest to control the architecture of the next era of global finance.

Traditional finance and digital assets, once portrayed as enemies, are now converging. Whoever builds and owns the systems that connect banks, blockchains, and regulators will effectively control how value moves across borders in the decade ahead.

1. Compliance and Innovation Need Each Other

There was a time when innovation sprinted ahead and regulators struggled to keep up. That era is ending.

The next generation of fintech leaders will be the ones who bake compliance directly into their technology stack.

The hard lesson from the last cycle - from Wirecard’s collapse to algorithmic stablecoin failures - is that scale without structure leads to collapse.

New regulatory frameworks like MiCA in Europe, the FCA’s digital oversight expansion in the UK, and proposed U.S. stablecoin legislation all share the same theme: transparency, reserves, and accountability.

The smartest fintechs embracing the complexity around regulation, seeing it not as a constraint but as a passport to institutional trust and capital access.

Today, compliance has stopped being the brakes and became the engine.

2. Stablecoins: From Speculation to Settlement

Over the years, stablecoins have evolved from crypto curiosities into core plumbing for global payments.

According to Chainalysis and the IMF’s 2025 Digital Currency Report, they now handle more than $150 billion in daily transfers. Banks and payment providers are using them for everything from cross-border liquidity management to real-time merchant settlements.

Instead of replacing traditional money, stablecoins are improving how it moves, bridging fiat systems and blockchain rails.

Projects like JPMorgan’s JPM Coin and PayPal’s PYUSD prove that regulated institutions can run digital settlement systems safely within existing financial frameworks.

This shift mirrors what happened with SWIFT in the 1970s - a niche protocol that became the backbone of international finance.

Today’s stablecoin infrastructure is heading down a similar path.

Whoever owns and operates these rails, the custody networks, compliance layers, and interoperability gateways, will effectively control the liquidity pipelines of the digital economy.

3. Finance and Crypto Are Converging - Fast

The old divide between “TradFi” and “DeFi” is dissolving.

Major incumbents - Mastercard, Visa, HSBC, BNP Paribas - are no longer asking if blockchain matters. They’re building it into their systems.

Mastercard’s Circle and Paxos pilot programs are testing stablecoin settlements inside regulated networks.

Visa’s integration of USDC for merchant payments across Solana and Ethereum shows how digital assets are being woven directly into legacy payment frameworks.

The emerging model is hybrid: licensed financial entities using programmable, blockchain-based rails to execute instant, auditable transactions.

But the real winners are the firms that can bridge the two worlds: regulatory trust with digital agility.

In short: interoperability is the new advantage.

4. The Infrastructure War Is About Ownership

Fintech’s next decade is no longer focusing on user acquisition or sleek design – but on ownership of infrastructure.

The early internet was defined by those who built the protocols: TCP/IP, HTTP, DNS. Today’s financial revolution is following the same logic. The protocols that define stablecoin interoperability, digital identity, and compliance automation will set the rules for global money movement.

Recent M&A activity tells the story:

• Coinbase’s pursuit of BVNK
• Visa’s acquisition of Currencycloud
• Mastercard’s investment in Finicity and CipherTrace
  
  

Each move is about the same thing - consolidating control of the underlying rails.

 The focus has shifted from product design to system design, from the app on your phone to the network underneath it.

Whoever owns those networks will own the future of value transfer.

5. The Quiet Rebuild Happening Now

Working with financial institutions through The Soltesz Institute, it’s clear that a major shift is already underway.

Banks, payment networks, and FinTechs are already retooling for a post-SWIFT, post-card era. The conversations have changed: it’s no longer about innovation labs or sandbox experiments – but about tokenised deposits, programmable compliance, and liquidity interoperability.

Global projects like Singapore’s Project Guardian and the Bank of England’s digital settlement pilots show that the time is now, and the innovation takes place on multiple layers.

Fintech’s next chapter will be about resilience and interoperability of the systems that make those conveniences possible.

The Strategic Horizon

A few years ago, FinTechs were about innovation but their next act is about infrastructure - and the governance that underpins it.

The world is entering an infrastructure phase, where digital identity, programmable money, and settlement networks become public utilities, often co-managed by governments and private firms.

The players who understand this, and who embed compliance, interoperability, and control at the protocol level, will shape the financial landscape for decades. Those who don’t will find themselves building apps on someone else’s rails.

The infrastructure war has already started.

The only question left is:
who will own the rails when the dust settles?