From August 2021 through late 2025, only a small handful of U.S.-focused fintechs actually obtained full federal banking charters or similar insured bank licenses, notably Varo Bank (national bank charter in 2020), SoFi Bank, N.A. (national bank charter approved in 2022), and Square Financial Services (FDIC‑insured Utah industrial bank beginning operations in 2021).(occ.treas.gov) That limited issuance already contradicts the idea that regulators would broadly ‘king‑make’ a set of chartered fintech consolidators.

Among those chartered fintechs, the operating reality has been mixed and far from dominant consolidation:

• Varo has struggled with heavy losses, shrinking deposits, down‑round financings and leadership turnover, and has been raising capital to stay afloat rather than acting as an acquirer of others.(forbes.com) There is no evidence it has become a consolidator in consumer financial services.
• SoFi has used its bank license to support growth and has done several deals (Golden Pacific Bancorp for the charter, Technisys, Wyndham Capital Mortgage). But even after this, SoFi reports only single‑digit share in U.S. personal loans and a negligible share in home lending, i.e., it is a meaningful niche player, not a dominant industry‑wide consolidator.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Block/Square completed a very large BNPL acquisition (Afterpay), but industry coverage treats this as one major BNPL transaction among several (e.g., PayPal–Paidy, multiple Klarna deals), not as part of a broader pattern where chartered fintech banks are the primary consolidators across consumer finance.(en.wikipedia.org)

By contrast, much of the subsequent consolidation and strategic M&A in consumer/retail finance has come from large incumbent banks and from non‑bank fintechs: reports highlight traditional banks as leading fintech M&A and seizing on depressed fintech valuations to buy capabilities, with examples like JPMorgan’s acquisition and integration of Nutmeg for its retail expansion.(bankingdive.com) Regulators at the OCC have also explicitly adopted a “careful and cautious” stance toward fintech charters and partnerships, noting that the post‑2021 valuation collapse disproved expectations that fintechs would rapidly displace banks, and emphasizing bank–fintech partnerships rather than charter‑driven dominance by fintechs.(businesslawtoday.org)

Taken together, the small number of licensed fintech banks, their modest or troubled scale, and the fact that consolidation has largely been driven by incumbent banks and non‑bank fintechs rather than by this licensed subset mean the prediction that chartered fintechs would become the dominant consolidators in consumer financial services has not come true.