Fintech Highlights — April 2026

Regulators started paying closer attention to AI's risk to the financial system. 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent summoned leaders from major U.S. banks to discuss the cybersecurity risks posed by Anthropic's newest model, after the company said it would give a small group of organizations — including Apple and JPMorgan — early access specifically to test their defenses. It's an early sign that frontier AI capability is now squarely a banking-regulation topic, not just a tech one.

Prediction markets pushed into crypto trading. 

Kalshi announced plans to offer crypto perpetual futures — leveraged, no-expiration contracts historically confined to offshore exchanges like Binance — putting it in direct competition with Coinbase. Polymarket said it would follow with its own perpetuals almost immediately. It's a sign of how fast the prediction-market players are diversifying beyond sports and politics.

Robinhood's revenue mix kept shifting. 

The company's crypto trading revenue plunged 47% year-over-year, but record prediction-market volume — 8.8 billion event contracts traded — helped push total revenue up 15% to $1.07 billion anyway. Robinhood is preparing to launch its own prediction-market exchange with Susquehanna later this year, which would reduce its reliance on its current partner, Kalshi.

Also this month: 

• Revolut was reportedly gearing up for a secondary share sale that could value it above $100 billion, with CEO Nik Storonsky still eyeing 2028 or later for an actual IPO;
• OpenAI acquired personal finance app Hiro; and American Express acquired expense-management startup Hypercard.