Good seeing @TheStalwart and @tracyalloway live in London

May I gently suggest, @GreenJennyJones, without doubting your good intentions, that this sort of response is part of the problem. If you meet a specific wrong with a general virtue, you have not answered the wrong; you have stepped around it.

Revolut’s pivot: Will going full bank kill its tech-level growth and valuation? I read almost everything I can find about Revolut, but then I saw that Net Interest’s newsletter had dropped a new piece titled Revolut Unbound. I dropped my entire reading queue and started with it. Net Interest is one of the top finance Substack newsletters, written by @MarcRuby, a former hedge fund manager, seasoned bank analyst, and Bloomberg Opinion contributor. Marc and I have been following Revolut since almost the beginning, and we both have made small investments in the company. His Revolut Unbound piece is well written; it is best to read the whole thing yourself. My top takes: Marc suggests that low per-customer deposit amounts at Revolut could also be due to many customers joining rapidly and initially keeping low balances, which pulls down the overall average. Another point Marc is making: can Revolut sustain its exceptional growth and high valuation as it fully transitions from a balance-sheet-light fintech company into a real, licensed global bank — or will the constraints of banking limit or alter its upside? He writes: “One obstacle the group does face as it transitions more fully into a bank is capital. … One big difference though is valuation. … If Revolut can sustain both [rapid growth and 36% ROE], then Storonsky could be very rich.” That is a great point. Initially, Revolut tried to be balance sheet-light, as I recall, CEO Nik Storonsky said in an interview that this way the company could grow faster and command a higher valuation as a tech company rather than as a bank. Later, Nik admitted that avoiding heavier regulation was a mistake, and they are now embracing banking licences and biger balance sheets. One day, I will write my opinion piece on why I think it was a mistake. The core idea of Marc piece: Revolut has come a long way from its early days of wanting to "replace banks" with a light, non-bank model — and securing full banking licences is a unlock that gives it new capabilities (deposits, higher net interest spreads, broader lending), but it also introduces real frictions and trade-offs that didn't exist in its more asset-light fintech phase. Link to Net Interest newsletter: netinterest.co/?r=26ljc&utm_…

Another example of the Canadian Paradox cc/ @dsquareddigest

That’s four stock prices he’ll be managing. Almost as many as he has in the portfolio.

Here’s @marcruby’s debut Alphaville post, on the obvious arbitrage between disclosure-free “research” on social media and the massive burdens faced by traditional analysts. Hope it’s the first of many Rubyposts! ft.com/content/04b57c60-08b6…

The broker note moved markets. Now the Substack does. Same impact, fewer regs.

As traders say: "The market is always right"

TOMORROW AT 11AM ET🚨🎙️ @MarcRuby and @michaelbatnick dig into the rapid rise of secondaries: why private assets are staying private for longer, how liquidity is being engineered rather than waited for, and what this shift means for valuations, incentives, and risk. They explore who wins, who loses, and whether secondaries are making private markets more efficient — or just more complex.👇🔥 Click me🎦youtube.com/live/N6P4tgIJhlo

"Rubinstein is essential reading for finance geeks." Nice profile on @iimag institutionalinvestor.com/ar…

There’s a long way to go before wagers on events can rival markets that allocate capital, writes @MarcRuby (via @opinion) bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

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Founder of alternative asset firm Blue Owl reckons fears of ruptures in private credit are "like the Mandela effect of finance... just common population collective misimpression of what's going on." To explore the issue further, I'm hosting a webinar with Sayonton Roy of Citigroup.

Almost five years after the GameStop frenzy, retail traders are making their presence felt more widely in US markets, writes @MarcRuby (via @opinion) bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

As a bank CDS specialist I thought it was about time I learned about AI capex so that’s what this week’s Net Interest is about.

US consumers have rarely been gloomier but lenders’ restraint on growth and risk are keeping losses at bay, writes @MarcRuby bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…