Original Title: Youtube Is the Next Neobank
Original Author: Caleb Shack
Translation: Peggy, BlockBeats
Editor's Note: In the past decade, the rise of neobanks has followed a clear path: identifying "gaps" in fees, pricing, or experiences of traditional banks, establishing advantages in a single scenario, and gradually expanding into comprehensive financial services. However, this path is failing after stablecoins have accelerated the commoditization of infrastructure, as accounts themselves are no longer scarce, and the deposit layer lacks a competitive moat.
This article points out that the new starting point for competition has shifted from "product design" to "sources of revenue." When platforms can grasp users' cash flow, growth trajectories, and behavioral data, financial services no longer need to exist independently but instead become an intrinsic part of the platform. From YouTube, Uber to TikTok, these platforms that wield "income distribution rights" are gaining the ability to reconstruct banking relationships.
Under this logic, a neobank is no longer a form of institution but an embedded function. What truly determines success is not who can create cheaper accounts, but who understands where users' "money comes from."
Below is the original text:
Every successful new type of digital bank (neobank) has a starting point that is almost identical: find the areas where traditional banks charge users excessively or provide inadequate services, use this as a wedge to enter, and then gradually expand to more complete banking services.
SoFi found that pricing student loans using FICO credit scores was not reasonable for high-potential borrowers. They then shifted to assessing credit based on income growth trajectories and free cash flow, and as data continued to accumulate, this capability gradually constructed a genuine moat. Monzo, Revolut, and Starling entered the market by offering zero foreign exchange fees—at the time, most banks charged about 3% when users made overseas transactions. Nubank gained the Brazilian market with its "zero-fee credit card," while traditional banks at the time charged exorbitantly and millions had no bank accounts at all.
The path is always similar: find that "wedge," win in a narrow scenario, and then expand into full-service offerings.
Today, with the emergence of stablecoins, offering checking and savings accounts has never been easier. Infrastructure has nearly fully commoditized. This has sparked a wave of neobank startups focused on stablecoins, but most of them lack true differentiation. It is precisely this "ease" that allows them to be born rapidly, and also means that the next batch of competitors can easily catch up. In terms of a pure "deposit layer," there exists almost no competitive moat.
The first generation of fintech companies achieved success largely because they built differentiated products on top of an already commoditized "distribution layer" (the internet), thereby gaining an advantage over traditional banks. When infrastructure becomes commoditized, a new path is opened: creating new products through "bundling." Lowering the threshold for creating accounts will not lead to thousands of independent neobanks but will make "banking services" an embedded capability integrated into platforms that already control more critical resources—namely, "sources of income."
If you are a creator earning on YouTube or Twitch, your relationship with these platforms is far deeper and more data-rich than your relationship with banks like JPMorgan Chase. The platforms have real-time insight into your cash flow, understand your growth trajectory, and comprehend platform algorithm logic. They can extend credit to you in ways that traditional banks find challenging to match. This logic is equally applicable to gig platforms like Uber and Lyft, social commerce platforms like Whop and TikTok, and modern payroll service providers like Deel and Gusto.
Packing and integrating creator income with financial services is actually quite simple: the revenue creators and gig workers receive from the platform, the gross merchandise volume (GMV) generated by e-commerce platforms, and the salaries issued by companies, once completed through ACH transfers, will immediately "flow out" of the platform. Just from YouTube alone, since 2021, over $100 billion has been paid to creators, and in December of last year, stablecoin payments were supported. Whop has already generated over $4 billion in GMV and has begun extending into crypto financial services. Today, with just a few lines of code, payment processes can earn transfer fees and treasury yield, making it almost a "natural" choice for these platforms to embed these services and even extend lending based on existing data.
These companies do not need to become "banks" in a regulatory sense. What they need to do is provide "Banking as a Service"—accounts, payment cards, loans—all built upon the data they have already generated. The true "wedge" is no longer some product skill or price arbitrage, but the "revenue relationship" itself.
The next neobank is likely to be YouTube. Not because YouTube will apply for a banking license, but because the platform that "generates your income" is inherently the most suitable landing point for financial services.
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