This week has seen large banks and other corporate giants acquire fintechs at a zealous pace. JPMorgan announced a 49% stake in Greece-based Viva Wallet; UBS is buying Wealthfront for $1.4B; and Walmart looks to acquire two fintechs and combine them into a finance superapp called ONE.

Why should we care?
Throughout the tenuous reign of the “Frightful Five,” startups posing a threat to the market dominance of Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), or Microsoft have almost invariably been acquired by one of these giants. By and large, fintechs have been spared this power dynamic—until now, perhaps, though with different goliaths dominating their industry. Plenty of large fintechs continue to operate independently from banks or giants like Walmart, but we may be seeing the nascent stages of a more intentional consolidation of fintech services by big players like JPMorgan, UBS, and others, especially while scrappier players are relatively cheap to acquire. These three recent acquisitions also suggest that large banks and corporations will commit to a diversity of strategies. UBS, for instance, is letting Wealthfront maintain its branding and operate as a standalone business. Walmart, meanwhile, is sunsetting Even Responsible Finance Inc., one of its acquisitions, and integrating its infrastructure into its latter acquisition, ONE. These fintechs’ new owners have vocally encouraged their subsidiaries to continue operating as lean, innovative, tech-friendly teams; in the long run, this may help diversify client bases, gaining younger and savvier customers. What remains to be seen is how much independence the acquired fintechs will be granted in reality—and for how long.