The global bank announced a growth plan Tuesday (May 19) that included plans for a “reduction in corporate functions roles” of more than 15%.

Standard Chartered’s most recent annual report showed it employing a little more than 52,000 people in support services, putting the cuts at around 8,000 workers. CEO Bill Winters discussed the company’s plans in greater detail during a briefing in Hong Kong.

“It’s not cost cutting; it’s replacing in some cases lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we’re putting in,” Winters said, per multiple published reports.

The bank will have “job role reductions in favor of the machines, and that will accelerate as we go forward into AI,” the CEO added.

According to the plan released Tuesday, the bank says its next stage of growth would be “supported by a simpler, faster and more connected operating model.”

Beyond the job cuts, Standard Chartered said it is “scaling practical uses of automation, advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to streamline processes, improve decision‑making and enhance both client service and internal efficiency.”

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence offers a glimpse into banking’s ongoing embrace of artificial intelligence, where, for example, 73% of top-performing credit unions are working on new payment features with external partners.

“Financial firms are not just experimenting with AI; they’re operationalizing it at scale, and in the least visible parts of the enterprise, including the core systems that determine how work gets done,” PYMNTS wrote last week.

Additional research has spotlighted an inflection point around the move from isolated use cases to integrated systems. Financial institutions are not adopting AI more broadly but more deeply, with an emphasis on back-office functions such as compliance, underwriting, fraud detection and operational workflows.

“In that sense, the AI race is no longer just about technology. It is increasingly about execution, integration and the ability to turn potential into performance,” the report added.

“The practical challenge is not simply technical integration. Banks must determine whether external AI systems can operate inside environments governed by audit requirements, cybersecurity controls, model-risk standards and supervisory review.”

The issue is catching the notice of regulators. For example, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman warned earlier this month that AI capabilities are progressing quickly enough to warrant updated supervisory approaches.

But new findings in the May 2026 edition of the Main Street Health Index by PYMNTS Intelligence reveal that Main Street is no longer moving as one economy.  A contractor in Texas, a healthcare practice in Arizona, and a retailer in the Northeast may all technically qualify as small businesses while facing entirely different economic conditions, labor markets and consumer demand environments.

The report found that growth for restaurants and brick-and-mortar retail businesses is slowing or contracting, while healthcare providers, contractors, fitness businesses and professional services firms continue to see their growth expand. The result is a fragmented SMB economy with sharply different operating models, risk profiles and financial infrastructure needs.

To stay ahead of this shift, financial services firms and FinTech providers are increasingly rethinking their underwriting, liquidity management, and embedded financial products for the next generation of SMB clients.

End of the Main Street Monolith

The small-business economy is fragmenting into divergent sectors with sharply different growth trajectories, operating pressures, and financial infrastructure needs. Restaurants and retail, both traditionally considered foundational pillars of the small-business economy, have seen their business growth soften.

Eating and drinking establishments contracted 2.4% during the 12-month period measured by the index, while retail fell 2.0%. Restaurant wages declined 1.3%, making it the only segment in the index to post falling compensation. Retail business counts also dropped 1.9%, the steepest decline among the sectors tracked.

Fitness and recreational sports clubs, however, expanded 3.2% over the same period. Building contractors and remodelers grew 2.2%, while healthcare providers increased 2.0%. Professional services firms, including lawyers, consultants, accountants and real estate professionals, kept their spot as the highest-indexed category.

The emerging distinction between Main Street’s myriad storefronts matters because different sectors increasingly operate with entirely different cash-flow structures, borrowing needs, payroll dynamics and capital investment cycles. A contractor managing months of booked renovation work no longer represents the same credit profile as an independent retailer facing declining foot traffic. Likewise, a healthcare practice with recurring reimbursement cycles behaves differently from a restaurant dependent on discretionary spending.

The next generation of SMB finance is likely to revolve around segmentation rather than aggregation. Dynamic underwriting, sector-specific credit models, cash-flow-based lending, embedded treasury products and real-time liquidity tools are all emerging from the same realization: Main Street is no longer one economy.

Read the report: Why Main Street Is Splitting: The Data Behind Small Business Winners and Losers 

Future of SMB Finance Is Fragmented but Embedded

The broader lesson is that Main Street is reorganizing around a different and new economic logic that centers on cash flow, and not the traditional balance sheet history. The shift is accelerating demand for sector-specific financial products.

Payment processors, vertical SaaS providers, and FinTech lenders already possess large amounts of operational data from the businesses they serve. That data can allow them to build lending and treasury products calibrated to the rhythms of individual industries.

The broader Main Street economy remains enormous. PYMNTS data shows Main Street businesses account for 4.3 million establishments, 38.9 million workers, and approximately $2.5 trillion in annualized wages. They represent 36% of private-sector establishments and 29% of private-sector employment nationwide.

But scale no longer means uniformity. It is several economies moving at different speeds. And financial institutions that adapt to that reality fastest may end up better positioned to define the future of small-business banking.

Storonsky also said in the memo that the FinTech company plans to offer business banking alongside retail in the new markets it enters in 2027, launch credit products for businesses next year, and add a dedicated business growth and onboarding department, according to the report.

“Many legacy banks treat B2B as a stagnant side-bet, but we are making it P0 [priority zero] to supercharge our growth and valuation,” Storonsky said in the memo, per the report.

Reached by PYMNTS, Revolut declined to comment on the report.

Revolut said in an annual report released in March that it earned record profits last year, with profits of $2.3 billion and revenues of $6 billion.

“2025 was another landmark year,” Storonsky said in a press release announcing the annual report. “We have built a diversified, resilient business that is profitable at scale, providing the foundation for our next phase of growth.”

Revolut said in its annual report that during 2025, its business customer base increased 33% to 767,000, its Revolut Business segment accounted for 16% of the company’s income, and Revolut Business made up $365 billion of the firm’s total transaction volume.

“Revolut Business was once again a key contributor to growth,” Revolut Chair Martin Gilbert wrote in the annual report. “This year, revenue increased by 53%, as more companies adopted Revolut to manage global payments, spend and financial operations in a single, integrated environment.”

It was reported in April that Revolut is targeting a valuation of $150 billion to $200 billion in its eventual public listing. Its most recent funding round in November valued the company at $75 billion, up from $45 billion in 2024.

A day before that report, it was reported that Storonsky said an initial public offering for the digital bank might not happen until at least 2028. The report said Storonsky’s comments ended speculation that the company could go public as soon as this year.

With a full banking license, Bunq would be able to offer Mexican residents full-service banking, multicurrency accounts and protected deposits under the Institute for the Protection of Bank Savings (IPAB), the company said in a Wednesday (May 13) press release.

“Bunq is designed for people who live, work and travel across borders, and as a vital hub connecting the Americas, Mexico is a natural home for us,” Bunq founder and CEO Ali Niknam said in the release. “Our users are global citizens, so they need a bank that is safe, secure and easy to use.”

The company operates across more than 30 European markets. It was recently approved for a broker-dealer license in the United States, and it applied for a U.S. de novo banking license, per the release.

When announcing its filing for a U.S. de novo banking license in January, Bunq said it was targeting “digital nomads” who live and work between the U.S. and Europe.

The company said that once the license is approved, Bunq will launch services beginning with U.S. metro areas with large expat communities. It said it can help these users quickly build credit, often a challenge for new arrivals, by accessing European financial records.

Bunq received its approval for a U.S. broker-dealer license in October. The company said at the time that this license enables its users to invest in U.S. stocks, including mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and represents the first phase of its U.S. entry.

When announcing that approval, Niknam said that for many of the global citizens the company serves, the U.S. is an important part of their lives.

“That’s why we’re excited to bring Bunq stateside and make life easy for Americans and anyone who calls it home,” Niknam said.

Bunq announced in September that as it marked the 10th anniversary of its first app launch, it had 20 million users across Europe and was the region’s second-largest neobank. There, it offers bank accounts, savings accounts, cards, stocks and cryptocurrency.

The bank will have also renovated more than 160 branches since January, it said in a Thursday (May 14) press release.

Each new Chase branch features full-service banking, extended ATM access, and relationship bankers and financial experts who can help families and small businesses with day-to-day needs and longer-term financial goals. The branches also complement Chase’s digital tools, according to the release.

“By expanding our physical footprint, we’re ensuring more customers can access the banking services and financial guidance they need — how, when and where they want,” Tom Horne, head of branch banking at JPMorganChase, said in the release.

The new branch openings and renovation mark a continuation of a multibillion-dollar investment in its branch network that Chase announced in February 2024.

Chase said at the time that it planned to open more than 500 new branches, renovate 1,700 locations and hire 3,500 employees over a three-year period ending in 2027.

The bank said those locations would join the more than 650 branches it added over the previous five years, meaning that when the current expansion is complete, it will have added more than 1,150 branches between 2018 and 2027.

Chase said that with the new branches, it would enter new markets and expand its presence in its existing markets.

In February, Chase said it plans to open 160 new branches and renovate nearly 600 locations this year.

In its Thursday press release, the bank said: “Chase operates the largest branch network in the United States and is the only bank with branches in all lower 48 states.”

It was reported in April that the number of bank branch closures has been increasing due to banks slashing costs as they deal with competition from nonbanks and digital-only financial institutions. That report said 15% of all U.S. branch locations closed between 2015 and 2024.

However, other banks are expanding their brick-and-mortar presence.

Truist announced in August that it was set to open 100 new branches and renovate 300 more as part of an effort to cultivate relationships with affluent customers.

Bank of America said in May 2025 that it plans to open 150 new branches by the end of 2027. The bank also said it had invested $5 billion expanding and renovating its locations since 2016.

Banks can turn the payout flows of their commercial clients into a customer acquisition channel by creating a co-branded receiver account. These accounts are issued by the bank, wrapped in the commercial client’s brand and offered to the payout recipient as the fastest way to get their money, according to the report.

For recipients, a co-branded receiver account offers a solution from someone they trust—the sender—and a way to get their money fast. For senders, it offers a way to deepen their relationship with the recipient.

For banks, co-branded receiver accounts are a way to acquire customers with the help of the sender’s brand, retain the deposit and card spend, and offer a full ecosystem of savings, credit and lending products to go along with the account.

Without this offering, banks lose the opportunity to turn payout recipients into customers.

“A regional bank running $4 billion in annual disbursement volume is operating a $4-billion-a-year outbound pipeline to its competitors, a pipeline that, in many cases, isn’t even fast,” the report said. “Every payout is a deposit walking out, a customer the bank will never acquire, and an instant payout moment the bank could have owned.”

Banks adopting this strategy should first focus on category of recipients for whom the payout is income, and therefore urgently needed, and who are paid repeatedly. These recipients are most likely to readily accept a new account that will allow them to get their money faster. They are also the ones who will have the highest lifetime value, according to the report.

The report suggests that banks offer the account at the moment of payout; use the sender’s brand as the bridge to recipient trust; make the account the default in the destination-selection step; make the account useful beyond the payout; and then build the ecosystem on top.

“The first account is the door,” the report said. “Once the recipient is a customer, the bank has a funded relationship, a known earning profile, transaction history and a trusted channel, making them an unusually qualified prospect for credit cards, savings, lending and small business products.”

The approval from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will allow Revolut Trading to bring “investment, advisory and portfolio management under one roof,” Victoria Laffey, the unit’s head of operations, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS on Thursday (May 14).

The approval, the release added, will help Revolut bring more sophisticated wealth management alongside the company’s banking and payment services.

Revolut Trading says it is revamping its model to offer more competitive pricing and a wider suite of products — including managed portfolio solutions and private wealth services — to serve retail investors, private clients and “High Net Worth individuals” in one ecosystem.

“Our mission has always been to remove the friction of fragmented financial services; and we can now put sophisticated wealth management products and tools in the hands of every type of investor, helping our customers build and manage wealth with confidence,” Laffey added.

The FCA’s approval follows the recent launch of Revolut’s bank in the U.K. The company says it plans to integrate advances in artificial intelligence (AI) into its investment service, with an emphasis on improving the way customers manage their portfolios and financial decisions.

Meanwhile, a report Thursday by the Financial Times, citing sources with knowledge of the company’s plans, said Revolut is hoping to launch private banking services later this year for clients with at least 500,000 pounds to deposit.

“Private banking is an area we’re exploring as part of our ongoing efforts to expand and enhance our product offerings,” Revolut said in a statement to PYMNTS on that topic. “We have no further details to share at this stage.”

Writing about Revolut’s place on the FinTech landscape earlier this year, PYMNTS said the company’s results showed the importance of diversification, as its revenue mix encompasses subscriptions, payments, wealth and interest income.

This lessens dependence on any one line as the company looks to expand, including by seeking a banking charter in the U.S., the report added.

“Firms that lack that breadth may find that a charter adds cost without delivering sufficient returns,” PYMNTS wrote. “For banks and FinTechs, the competitive lines are becoming more clearly drawn, and are no longer between incumbents and apps. The jousting is between institutions that control the balance sheet and those that do not.”

Three years after CEO Jamie Dimon laid out plans to expand J.P. Morgan’s Chase brand in Europe, the U.S.’s biggest bank is readying its retail offering in the German city of Berlin, the Financial Times (FT) reported Wednesday (May 13).

According to the report, the effort has hit a series of challenges, including the need to make sure its offering complied with both European Union standards and issues specific to Germany, such as the deduction of church tax on interest income.

“It was the first time we were making the platform multi-country, multi-currency and multi-language,” Daniel Llano Manibardo, head of the retail banking effort, told the FT. 

“These initial investments are always bigger and take a bit longer than investments required to enter subsequent markets from here.”

The report describes the bank’s “entry point” for Chase, an overnight savings account, as “deliberately narrow.” Dutch bank ING, the FT added, used a similar strategy that ignored brick-and-mortar branches while building what became Germany’s third-largest retail lender.

“Savings is often the hook product — once customers join, banks can expand the product offering,” said McKinsey partner Max Flötotto.

J.P. Morgan announced plans to bring the Chase brand to Germany in early 2025, following a launch in the United Kingdom.

“It has always been clear to us that we want to introduce Chase not only in the U.K., but also in Germany and other European countries. We have ambitious plans,” Dimon said in a 2023 interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt.

“In Germany, ‘Chase’ is not yet so well known, but worldwide it is a strong brand. We are also a trustworthy bank with a strong balance sheet — and private customers know that.”

In other J.P. Morgan news, PYMNTS spoke last week with Meagan Sibbald, the lender’s head of product and general manager for real-time payments and pay by bank.

She discussed the importance of confirmation, transparency and safeguards in fostering trust in real-time transactions, leading to a shift from what Sibbald called a “send and hope” model to a “send and know” framework.

“In a send and hope model, I click the button, and I hope that those funds get to where they’re supposed to go when they’re supposed to get there,” she said. “In a send and know model, I know that the funds are going to go where they need to go, and they land in that account.”

 

The German company announced the name change Monday (May 11) along with some progress on the banking front, as it has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a full-service U.S. national bank.

Augustus said its goal is to become the first clearing bank “for the AI era,” founded on a “stablecoin and AI-native core,” as the company said in a news release.

“This approval has been driven by our core thesis: the dollar is the best product in the history of the world, with practically infinite global demand – but distribution is broken,” the company said in a Monday LinkedIn post announcing the name change. “The existing clearing model runs on legacy correspondents that are closed 115 days a year, built for humans, and take two days to settle.”

Ferdinand Dabitz, the company’s 25-year-old co-founder, will be the bank’s CEO. Augustus said this makes him the youngest chief executive of a federally-charted American bank in at least 140 years.

Joining him as the bank’s president is Greg Quarles, former CEO of Green Dot Bank, United Texas Bank, and H&R Block Bank and himself a former OCC official.

Augustus is part of a wave of FinTechs seeking banking charters from the OCC recently, a trend PYMNTS chronicled earlier this year.

“Traditionally, FinTech companies have built around banks, not as banks,” that report said. “The strategy was simple: partner for access to payments rails, deposit insurance and compliance infrastructure; don’t built it from the ground up yourself.”

That model brought with it speed but left companies dealing with fragility, as sponsor banks could alter terms, and regulators could reexamine guidance. In addition, public scrutiny increased following high-profile failures revealed the limitations of banking-as-a-service.

However, receiving a charter is “not a monolith,” that report said, as de novo charters in the U.S. apply to  range of banking business models. Each are covered by different regulators, operate under different statutes and carry with them a variety privileges. While the headlines can blur these lines, the operational consequences are far from vague, the report added.

A bank charter “is not a trophy, and it certainly isn’t a product label, but it’s a public trust,” Rodney E. Hood, former acting comptroller of the currency, told PYMNTS affiliate Competition Policy International, in an interview at the start of the year.

CEO Jane Fraser framed the effort as a natural one for a bank that spent years rebuilding infrastructure and simplifying operations.

“We rebuilt the engine,” CFO Gonzalo Luchetti later said, describing the firm’s investments in infrastructure, automation and controls as foundational to Citi’s next phase of growth.

Fraser described AI as an “end-to-end” capability across the organization, while other executives’ commentary during separate presentations highlighted ambitions around “AI personal shoppers” and broader automation tied to the U.S. consumer base.

Andy Sieg, Citi’s head of wealth, described the strategy in more concrete operational terms. AI orchestration, along with “intelligently routing information and triggering actions in real time [ensure] that the right insights reach the right person at the right moment,” Sieg said. “We’re embedding AI seamlessly across our platform and partnering with true leaders like Google and Palantir to make it happen.”

Sieg added that Citi’s objective is to build “an autonomous intelligence system that enables personalized insight for every client 24/7 and at scale.”

That AI discussion extended beyond wealth management into payments and treasury services. Citi’s Shahmir Khaliq, head of services, described AI as being in the “early stages,” but pointed to instant payments and cross-border transaction capabilities as key areas where the technology could reshape client operations. His presentation referenced seven separate AI use cases tied to payments modernization and cross-border innovation.

Luchetti said Citi expects AI and automation to become increasingly important to margins. “Our approach to expense management is to maintain strong cost discipline on a tactical basis and continue to drive structural efficiencies through tech and AI automation,” he said.

Cards Strategy Shifts Toward Affluent Customers and AI Personalization

Among the business-level growth push, Investor Day centered on Citi’s U.S. consumer cards franchise, where executives argued the bank is repositioning itself around affluent consumers, co-brand partnerships and AI-enabled engagement tools.

Pam Habner, head of U.S. consumer cards, said Citi has been reducing exposure to traditional private-label retail cards while investing more heavily in general-purpose and co-branded products. Materials accompanying her discussion indicated that general-purpose cards now account for 92% of spending activity, up from 89% in 2022, reflecting Citi’s shift away from private-label cards.

Habner repeatedly emphasized the importance of premium and affluent cardholders to Citi’s broader strategy. The bank increased the share of affluent customers with incomes above $150,000 by more than 600 basis points since 2022.

Citi executives also highlighted expanded partnerships with American Airlines and Costco, alongside efforts to bring more spending activity into Citi’s ecosystem of travel, dining and rewards products. Habner described the strategy as a “virtuous cycle of growth” fueled by partnerships, customer loyalty and digital engagement.

AI again surfaced as a core theme. Habner said Citi is deploying AI models in underwriting, customer servicing, marketing and collections. “This isn’t just about playing defense and reducing expense,” she said. “It’s about playing offense, leveraging AI to win with customers and unlock top-line growth.”

She pointed to specific operational examples, including AI-driven underwriting models that increased approval rates while staying within Citi’s existing risk framework. Citi also said AI-enabled servicing tools reduced customer-service handling times and improved digital collections efficiency.

Habner also outlined Citi’s early thinking around agentic commerce. “An AI agent could automatically rebook a canceled flight and arrange transportation, paying with the card that offers the best travel benefits and protections,” she said.

Still, executives spent at least as much time discussing credit discipline as futuristic commerce models.

Habner acknowledged investor concerns around rising credit losses, saying Citi has been deliberately steering the portfolio toward higher-FICO borrowers and lower-risk general-purpose lending. “Strong risk discipline has allowed us to grow loans while stabilizing loss rates,” she said.

Luchetti reinforced that message, saying the bank’s consumer portfolio remains heavily weighted toward prime borrowers. “We are carefully managing a stable prime U.S. consumer portfolio with 85% of FICO scores greater than 660,” he noted.

He also argued that Citi’s broader transformation is beginning to show through financially. “We are confident in our trajectory,” Luchetti said. “This is a new era for Citi.”