EToro Eyes The Banks

Why a Trading Platform is Looking Beyond the Trade

There is a particular moment in the life of any ambitious company when the original idea stops being enough. For eToro, that moment appears to have arrived. The Nasdaq-listed trading platform, founded in Tel Aviv in 2007 and built on the promise of democratising access to financial markets, is now eyeing something altogether more traditional: the banking licence.

It is a significant pivot, and one that speaks to a broader restlessness across the fintech sector. The era of easy money is over. Interest rates reshaped the landscape, valuations corrected, and many of the companies that once seemed destined for perpetual growth found themselves facing an uncomfortable question: what exactly is the business model when the crypto rally fades?

For eToro, the answer appears to be diversification, and it is pursuing that goal with some urgency.

Deals in the Pipeline

Speaking at the Money2020 conference, eToro co-founder and chief executive Yoni Assia confirmed that the company is working with investment bankers on two acquisitions expected to complete "soon." Both targets sit within the wealth-technology space. One is based in the United States; the other is elsewhere, though Assia declined to say where. He was equally tight-lipped on deal sizes.

What he was not shy about was the intent behind them. "We are very acquisitive," Assia told the Financial Times. "It is part of the reason why we listed." The implication is clear enough: the IPO, which landed on Nasdaq in May 2025, was never just about raising a war chest for its own sake. It was ammunition for a consolidation strategy that Assia has been signalling for some time.

The acquisitive instinct is already in motion. In April, eToro struck a deal to buy Zengo, an Israeli self-custodial crypto wallet provider, for $70 million, paid primarily in cash. The deal brings Zengo's keyless, multi-party computation wallet infrastructure into eToro's ecosystem, deepening the platform's digital asset capabilities and giving it direct ownership of a custody layer it had previously lacked. Post-acquisition, Zengo is expected to operate as a standalone product while its technology stack is gradually woven into eToro's wider platform, unlocking access to decentralised products including prediction markets and yield instruments for eToro's 40 million registered users.

The two wealth-tech deals now in the pipeline would, if completed, mark a further step in that direction, extending eToro's reach into the kind of advisory and portfolio management territory that it has not traditionally occupied. The US market, in particular, is clearly a priority.

The Banking Question

The more striking element of Assia's recent comments, however, is not the M&A pipeline. It is the suggestion that eToro may seek a banking licence, or simply buy a bank outright.

The rationale is rooted in something practical. eToro's revenues have historically been sensitive to movements in asset prices, and particularly to the fortunes of the cryptocurrency market. Since listing last year, the share price has fallen by almost 40 per cent. Widening into payments services would, in theory, provide a cushion against those fluctuations, creating income streams less vulnerable to the mood of the crypto market.

"The key is for diversification into more payments services," Assia explained, "and that could see us consider applying for banking licences in the future, or buying a bank." He was careful to frame this as a payments play rather than a lending ambition. The intention is not to become a high-street bank competing with the established giants. It is to embed eToro more deeply into the daily financial lives of its users, with payments infrastructure at the core.

The distinction matters. Lending carries capital requirements, credit risk, and regulatory complexity of an entirely different order. Payments, by contrast, offer scale and stickiness without the same balance-sheet burden.

A Regulatory Window

The timing is not accidental. In the United States, the path to a banking charter has become meaningfully easier under the Trump administration. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has been actively encouraging fintech applications, and the results are visible in the numbers. In 2025 alone, there were 18 applications to the OCC for de novo charters, a figure that roughly matched the total for the preceding four years combined.

Six companies received conditional approvals before the year was out, among them Ripple and Fidelity Digital Assets. The contrast with the Biden era is striking. Previously, with the charter route largely blocked, some firms explored buying an existing lender as a regulatory workaround. That option has become less necessary as the regulatory environment has softened, though Assia has not ruled it out entirely.

eToro is far from alone in reading this shift. Revolut, the London-based fintech, and Nubank, the Brazilian digital banking giant, have both applied for US banking charters. The question for eToro is whether it moves in the same direction, or finds its own path through an acquisition.

Assia indicated that any licensing moves could happen in the US or in other markets. That ambiguity is deliberate. The options remain open.

The Bigger Picture

For all the strategic logic, there is a human dimension to eToro's situation that should not be ignored. The company generated $216 million in net income in 2025, a 12 per cent increase on the previous year. It is not a company in distress. But it is a company conscious of what it might become if it remains too narrowly defined.

"There is going to be a big wave of consolidation," Assia said at Money2020. "Not all businesses will be able to exist as independent public businesses." He is, of course, speaking about the wider fintech sector. But the implicit message for eToro is clear. The window to acquire, to expand, and to diversify is open. The company intends to use it.

Whether that eventually means eToro holds a banking licence, owns a bank, or simply becomes a more formidable wealth platform remains to be seen. What is beyond doubt is that the company Assia built on trading has its sights set on something considerably larger.