Stripe's Payment Surge Puts Adyen, PayPal, Fiserv On Notice - AI, Stablecoins Fuel The Race

Stripe just pulled off a massive growth spurt, and the payments giants should be paying attention. According to JPMorgan analyst Tien-tsin Huang, the private fintech powerhouse processed a staggering $1.4 trillion in volume last year, a 38% year-over-year jump that left competitors in the dust.

For context, Huang highlights that Stripe's incremental volume growth alone – $400 billion – was more than a quarter of Visa Inc.’s V and Mastercard Inc.'s MA combined growth and nearly twice the annual gross payment volume (GPV) of Block Inc. XYZ, Shopify Inc. SHOP and Toast Inc. TOST combined.

Stripe's AI Play: The Payment Backbone Of OpenAI & Anthropic

If AI is the future, Stripe is already its financial backbone. Huang points out that every AI company on the Forbes AI 50 that sells online – OpenAI, Anthropic, Midjourney, Perplexity, and others – processes payments through Stripe.

He notes that these AI firms are scaling at unprecedented speeds, with the top 100 AI startups on Stripe reaching $5 million in annualized revenue within 24 months, compared to 37 months for SaaS firms in 2018.

For investors seeking exposure to this AI-driven payments boom, Huang sees potential in publicly traded payment giants. The Global X FinTech ETF FINX and ARK Fintech Innovation ETF ARKF hold stakes in key Stripe competitors like PayPal Holdings Inc PYPL, Block and Adyen NV ADYEY.

Read Also: PayPal Eyes Double-Digit EPS Growth By 2027, Teams Up With Verifone, J.P. Morgan & More

Stablecoins: The Next Big Payments Battleground

Huang also highlights Stripe's growing focus on Stablecoins, which took a leap forward with last month's acquisition of Bridge. Unlike past crypto hype cycles, Stripe sees real-world use cases: corporate treasury, remittances, and payments in low-card penetration markets.

Huang notes that PayPal's $PYUSD stablecoin is already advancing in this space, raising the question of whether Stripe's move will accelerate adoption across the industry.

With Stripe increasingly competing against Adyen, PayPal's Braintree, and Fiserv Inc.'s FI Carat, Huang sees a rapidly shifting payments landscape.

Investors should closely monitor how public fintech players respond—because Stripe's expansion isn't slowing down.

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