The financial technology industry has become a world of haves and have-nots.
Take San Francisco payments company Stripe, which helps millions of merchants accept credit cards, process stablecoin transactions and manage billing tasks. In 2025, it brought in $6.9 billion of net revenue and $1.2 billion of earnings before factoring in interest, tax, depreciation and amortization expenses, according to a person familiar with its finances. Revenues were up more than 30% from 2024.
That’s world-class scale and growth, but its recent valuation of $159 billion, which has afforded each of the Collison brothers a $17.5 billion fortune, means its private backers think it’s worth nearly five times Adyen, a Dutch fintech and close competitor. Unlike Stripe, Adyen is publicly traded. It processed $1.6 trillion in payments last year compared with Stripe’s $1.9 trillion. Stripe loyalists will point out that it has more business lines than Adyen and is growing faster off of a larger base. But the chances that Stripe could maintain a $159 billion valuation if it went public today are slim. Public investors value e-commerce platform Shopify at $165 billion, and it grew nearly as fast as Stripe last year and had more than double the profits. A Stripe spokesperson declined to comment.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2026/03/17/why-an-unsustainable-bubble-is-growing-inside-fintech/
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
