The biggest financial services stories of 2024 ranged from a U.S. bank-fintech failure that left depositors unable to access accounts to major changes in European banking and payments. This globally framed selection weighs each story’s reach, consumer or market effects, structural significance and lasting policy relevance. It is an editorial ranking, not a definitive list of the year’s only important developments.
1. Synapse’s collapse exposed risks in bank-fintech partnerships
In the United States, the failure of Synapse, a financial technology provider working with banks, left thousands of depositors unable to access accounts, according to the FDIC’s statement on the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s 2024 Annual Report. The immediate harm was a stark reminder that consumers can experience a service as one product even when several companies handle its technology, records and banking functions.
The FSOC report also warned that bank-fintech arrangements were becoming more frequent and complex. The episode put a spotlight on the need for clear records, effective controls and defined responsibilities among partners. The report describes the systemic and consumer-protection concerns; it does not resolve individual depositors’ claims.
2. Capital One’s agreement to acquire Discover put card networks in focus
Capital One and Discover announced an all-stock agreement on February 19, 2024, combining a large consumer banking and card-issuing business with a payment network. That made the proposed transaction relevant not only to the companies’ customers and shareholders, but also to competition in the U.S. card market.
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Discover’s 2024 Form 10-K described the deal’s valuation as $35.3 billion, calculated using Capital One’s share price on the last trading day before the announcement. The filing said the transaction was pending at the end of 2024. That is the status reflected in the cited year-end evidence; it should not be read as a statement of the deal’s later status.
3. U.S. banks showed resilience while vulnerabilities persisted
The FSOC’s 2024 Annual Report offered a more nuanced picture than a simple “bank crisis” narrative: it said the U.S. banking industry continued to show resilience, while identifying risks that warranted attention. Those concerns included commercial real estate and credit-card loan portfolios, multifamily loans, and prolonged unrealized losses on securities.
Resilience and vulnerability are not mutually exclusive. The report’s significance was its focus on areas where losses or financial pressure could still test banks, rather than a claim that the entire industry was either in crisis or free of risk. The U.S. Treasury’s December 6, 2024 release quoted Secretary Janet L. Yellen: “The prosperity of the U.S. economy and the American people depend on the stability of the U.S. financial system.”
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4. The European Union adopted a new banking rule package
The European Union formally adopted and published its revised Capital Requirements Regulation and Capital Requirements Directive—the EU banking package—in the Official Journal on June 19, 2024, according to the European Central Bank’s Annual Report 2024. The package marked a major step in the EU’s banking rulemaking, while the practical details and timing of implementation remained important questions for banks and supervisors.
One timetable needs to be kept distinct from the package’s adoption: the ECB said EU implementation of Basel market-risk rules was postponed until January 2026. That was a separate market-risk schedule, not a postponement of the banking package’s formal adoption.
5. Instant euro payments grew in the Eurosystem’s TIPS system
The ECB reported that the daily average number of euro instant payments in TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) rose by 72% in 2024. TIPS is a Eurosystem service for settling instant payments in central bank money; the figure describes activity in that system, not every instant payment in Europe or worldwide.
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The increase made payment infrastructure a consequential part of the year’s financial-services story. It reflects growing use of this particular settlement service, rather than a measure of all digital payments or a claim that every European payment became instant.
6. The digital euro moved into preparation, not public launch
In 2024, the Eurosystem moved onward with a two-year preparation phase for the digital euro, as described in the ECB’s Annual Report. Preparation is not issuance: the digital euro had not become a currency available to the public simply because this phase began.
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The distinction matters for consumers. A project entering preparation signals continued work on the possibility and design of a central bank digital currency; it does not mean people can open a digital-euro wallet or use one to pay.
7. Fintech investment fell overall as payments deals lifted that sector’s total
KPMG estimated global fintech investment at $95.6 billion in 2024, which it described as a seven-year low. KPMG published the figure in a February 2025 release, so the reporting year is 2024 even though the estimate appeared the following year.
Payments investment moved in the opposite direction in KPMG’s estimates: it reached $31 billion in 2024, compared with $17.2 billion in 2023. KPMG tied much of the payments deal value to the majority-stake buyout of Worldpay and Nuvei’s take-private transaction. These totals reflect investment and deal activity, not venture funding alone, and are KPMG estimates rather than official regulator statistics.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.8. Futures and options activity set records amid volatile markets
The Futures Industry Association’s 2024 year review characterized activity in its markets as showing record growth. It highlighted retail trading growth in U.S. equity options and futures, crypto products and prediction markets, alongside record activity in U.S. Treasury futures and options.
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These developments pointed to sustained demand for derivatives amid market volatility, but the characterization comes from an industry association, not an independent regulator. Its review offers a view of activity across the markets it covers; it is not a regulatory finding about the risks or effects of that activity.
9. Financial supervisors kept technology and liquidity risks on the agenda
The Bank for International Settlements’ Financial Stability Institute described a wide-ranging 2024 policy agenda. Its work covered artificial intelligence, stablecoins, big tech, fintech and supervisory technology (suptech), as well as climate risks, liquidity stress testing and central-bank liquidity support.
The institute published 14 policy papers and reported 357,000 publication downloads in 2024. Those are measures of the institute’s own output and readership, not measures of how exposed the financial sector is to any of the risks discussed.
10. U.S. securities enforcement addressed emerging and familiar risks
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reported 583 enforcement actions and $8.2 billion in financial remedies for fiscal year 2024, which it called the highest amount in SEC history. These are fiscal-year figures, not totals for the calendar year. The SEC discussed cases involving alleged false claims about artificial intelligence, cyber incidents and disclosures, crypto matters, and relationship-investment scams.
Sam Waldon, Acting Deputy Director of the SEC Division of Enforcement, said in the commission’s November 22, 2024 release: “The varied enforcement actions recommended by the Division in fiscal year 2024 demonstrate the Division keeping pace with emerging threats presented by misstatements regarding artificial intelligence, fraudsters using social media to perpetuate relationship scams, and more, while maintaining its focus on evergreen investor risks such as material misstatements, deficient internal controls, and major gatekeeper failures.”
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