Last month, Varo Money achieved something it had worked three years to accomplish: it started accepting federally insured customer deposits. It was a watershed moment for the industry — coming only weeks after Varo had become the first consumer fintech company to be granted a national banking charter. But the milestone also raised questions in the industry about why it had taken so long for the US to bring fintechs into its regulatory regime, when other countries, from the UK to China, have been faster and more flexible. The answer, banking experts say, involves longstanding turf wars between regulators as well as fears that tech heavyweights such as Amazon and Facebook might move into financial services. Fintech executives point to another issue: hard lobbying by established banks that have long enjoyed the exclusive right to hold deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and lend money nationally. 

https://www.ft.com/content/0e8033e3-f633-4dc8-8a6a-f12f847eb399