Our leadership team recently reconvened to evaluate their early 2025 predictions for the banking and fintech landscape and look at what’s coming in the six months ahead. Here are 10 key takeaways from their discussion:
Regulatory shift: The new administration has pivoted from "regulation by enforcement" to an activity-based approach, evaluating risks rather than categorizing companies. This shift includes clearer guidelines, regulatory relief measures, and supportive legislation like the GENIUS Act, creating a more favorable and predictable environment for fintechs and regulated institutions
Economic resilience: Despite initial market disruption from tariff announcements, markets have shown resilience. The 10-year Treasury yield is down 20 basis points, CPI has decreased from 3.3% to 2.9%, and consumer savings rates are improving from 4.2% to 4.5%.
Private credit boom: The private credit market has grown to approximately $6 trillion1, increasing at 10% annually. This has established a stable equilibrium in capital markets, with more long-term business planning opportunities for platforms.
Stablecoin adoption acceleration: Stablecoin transaction volume reached $710 billion2 in February 2025, a 36% year-over-year increase, with 35 million stablecoin addresses (50% YoY growth)3. The technology now extends into lending, credit products, and streamlined securitization via smart contracts. FIs are building interoperable infrastructure between traditional and digital systems, with Cross River positioned at this intersection supporting both rails.
"We sit between the interoperability of fiat and not, and that's where we think it's really exciting to provide a whole platform of services to our customers, and what we're building will allow them to work in the stablecoin world if they want to, and work in the fiat world as well."
- Hillel Olivestone, Chief Strategy Officer
IPO market resurgence: 100 companies went public in first-half 2025 (50% increase from 2024). Fintech saw major debuts with Chime, Circle, and eToro raising $3 billion collectively. Klarna, Wealthfront, and Gemini are in the upcoming pipeline. This momentum reflects improved market conditions and renewed investor confidence in high-growth companies after previous years' slowdowns.
Digital asset infrastructure: Banks and fintechs are increasingly adopting blockchain technology for treasury management, internal money movement, and customer transactions, with companies exploring crypto-backed collateralized lending and securitized wrappers for digital assets.
AI integration: Financial institutions are rapidly deploying AI for KYC processes, fraud detection, transaction monitoring, and compliance operations. In capital markets, AI is enhancing credit analysis, processing loan data, and automating warehouse lending operations.
"This administration has been crystal clear about doing away with an approach that was regulation by enforcement and really looking at regulated institutions in the fintech industry and crypto as well. They're going to evaluate the activity and the risks associated with it rather than bucketing specific counterparties or markets into different areas."
- Benjamin Melnicki, Chief Compliance Officer
Embedded finance evolution: More non-financial companies are launching financial services, requiring banks to move "up the stack" and offer additional program management services rather than just banking-as-a-service.
Federal Reserve outlook: Despite the Federal funds rate remaining at 4.25-4.50%, the curve is healthier with a steeper twos-tens curve. The panel predicts more aggressive rate cuts (potentially three) in the latter half of 2025 as the Fed recognizes its restrictive position.
Cross River's strategic focus: Cross River is enhancing its stablecoin infrastructure to support both fiat and digital asset transactions, focusing on interoperability between systems while expanding its closed-loop payment network (CRNow) to facilitate frictionless money movement between customers.
Watch the full conversation here:
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