Fintech Highlights — February 2026

Stripe's valuation kept climbing without a public listing. 

The payments giant was reportedly in talks to launch a tender offer at $140 billion or higher — a sharp jump from the $106.7 billion figure floated back in October — while still showing no interest in an actual IPO. Founders Patrick and John Collison remain content letting employees and early backers cash out privately.

Traditional finance kept racing into stablecoins. 

Fidelity became the first major brokerage to launch its own stablecoin, Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD), for retail and institutional investors — a notable move from a firm that's already offered crypto trading and bitcoin/ether/solana ETFs. Separately, the newly sworn-in CFTC chair signaled the agency will build a real regulatory framework for prediction markets, directing staff to withdraw rules that had cast a shadow over event contracts on sports and politics.

Bank consolidation kept rolling. 

• Fifth Third closed its $19.9 billion Comerica acquisition (announced back in October)
• Spain's Banco Santander agreed to buy Webster Financial for $12.3 billion.
• Meanwhile, Cross River Bank — the venture-backed bank behind many fintech partnerships — began exploring an IPO of its own, which would make it the first VC-backed bank to go public in years, even as choppy markets are giving it reason for caution.

Also this month: 

• MrBeast's Beast Industries acquired family-focused neobank Step;
• Nuveen agreed to buy British asset manager Schroders for £9.9 billion, creating a combined firm managing nearly $2.5 trillion; and
• Anchorage Digital raised $100M from Tether at a $4.2B valuation.