A financial revolution is reshaping how money moves globally, from infrastructure to customer experience.
At Scottish Mortgage, we’re backing the companies rethinking the system from the ground up, providing meaningful exposure for our shareholders right across the value chain.
As with any investment, your capital is at risk.
From São Paulo to Singapore, a quiet financial revolution is underway. It’s not always visible, but it’s already reshaping how we live, spend and move money.
Paying with your phone, sending money abroad instantly, and opening a bank account without stepping into a branch – these once-fragmented, frustrating experiences are now seamless, intuitive, and accessible.
Behind this shift is a new wave of global companies transforming finance, not through headlines but through innovative, purposeful technology that’s quietly reshaping how money moves.
At Scottish Mortgage, we’re backing companies rethinking finance from the ground up, building faster, more inclusive systems that will define the future of finance.
Scottish Mortgage says incumbent banks are often weighed down by legacy infrastructure, which is complex, costly, and resistant to change
Building the Foundations of the Digital Financial System
While consumer-facing apps often grab the spotlight, much of the real transformation is happening behind the scenes. Infrastructure is the quiet layer – the digital plumbing that enables finance to scale, connecting customers, businesses and currencies across borders.
- Stripe, a payments technology company, is building the internet’s economic infrastructure. It provides software that enables online businesses to accept payments and manage financial operations easily. Used by millions of businesses, including by half of the Fortune 100, Stripe processed $1.4tn in payment volume last year. Its vision is to move money in the cloud as seamlessly as data, powering a more connected, scalable financial system.
- Adyen, a Dutch company with a global reach, offers a single platform that combines payments, risk management, and embedded financial services. Its simplicity, scale, and reliability have made it a critical payments partner for companies like Uber, Spotify and H&M. In 2024, Adyen processed over €1.2tn in total volume, supporting commerce both online and in-store.
- Wise is building a new network for moving money across borders, designed to make transfers instant, transparent, and eventually free. Its platform allows individuals, businesses and financial institutions to hold and convert multiple currencies with ease. With the global cross-border retail payments market currently worth over £11tn, Wise is well-placed to capture a large and still under-served opportunity.
These companies are laying the foundations of modern digital finance, building the infrastructure that makes financial services faster, smarter and more widely accessible.
Singapore-based SEA Ltd aims to improve the lives of consumers and small businesses through technology
Expanding Financial Access
Finance is one of the most powerful tools for individual and economic empowerment. Today, digital platforms are extending that power further and faster than ever, especially in emerging markets, where conventional financial institutions have long failed to reach many.
This is the democratisation of finance in action – companies using technology to lower barriers, reduce costs, and give more people access to the tools they need to participate and prosper.
- NuBank, one of the world’s largest digital banks, gives over 100 million individuals across Latin America access to banking services, often via a smartphone alone. Its model brings formal financial services within reach for tens of millions historically excluded from the traditional system.
- SEA Ltd, a Singapore-based digital platform business, aims to improve the lives of consumers and small businesses through technology. Its digital finance arm, SeaMoney, is expanding financial access in Southeast Asia through digital wallets, payments and credit. With over 28 million users and a loan book of over $5bn, it’s helping underserved populations transact and borrow in economies where formal banking remains limited.
These companies demonstrate that financial inclusion is not only a societal benefit but a powerful driver of long-term growth. By scaling access, they’re also scaling opportunity.
Transforming the Customer Experience
Incumbent banks are often weighed down by legacy infrastructure, which is complex, costly, and resistant to change. By contrast, a new generation of companies is starting with the customer and building from the ground up. These innovators are redesigning what it means to manage money in a digital world, prioritising speed, simplicity, and control.
- Revolut, a UK-based digital banking platform, is reshaping finance with an all-in-one app that combines a wide and growing range of services, from spending and saving to investing, currency exchange, and crypto. With over 50 million customers across 40+ countries, it offers a fast, flexible alternative to traditional banks, built for a digitally connected world. Revolut’s emphasis on intuitive design, instant access, and personal financial control exemplifies how customer experience is becoming a core competitive edge.
- Affirm, a U.S.-based buy-now-pay-later provider, offers a compelling alternative to traditional consumer credit through clear, interest-free instalments and upfront terms. Used for everything from everyday purchases to larger expenses, it helps users budget confidently and avoid surprise fees. With over 20 million active users and 350,000+ merchant partners, Affirm’s high repeat usage reflects a customer experience built on trust and control.
These businesses prioritise simplicity, affordability, and 24/7 access, features now seen as fundamental to modern financial services, not optional extras.
Innovating Financial Ecosystems
Leading fintech platforms are evolving into full-service ecosystems, combining payments, credit, savings, and more to meet a broader set of financial needs and drive deeper, more enduring customer relationships.
- MercadoLibre is a fully integrated ecommerce and fintech platform that creates powerful network effects by linking commerce, payments, credit and logistics in one connected ecosystem. It operates the largest digital platform in Latin America, serving over 100 million users. Its financial services arm, MercadoPago integrates digital wallets, credit, investment and insurance, creating a financial hub for consumers, entrepreneurs, and businesses of all sizes. This interconnected model reflects MercadoLibre’s evolution into a full-service ecosystem, deepening its role in users’ financial lives and strengthening long-term customer relationships.
- Ant Group, the operator of China’s Alipay super app, has built one of the world’s most advanced digital ecosystems. What began as a mobile payments solution has evolved into a platform that integrates lending, wealth management and insurance, alongside everyday commerce. It now connects over 1 billion users to more than 10,000 types of consumer services and 90 million merchants across Asia, anchoring one of the most advanced and scaled fintech ecosystems in the world.
These businesses are not simply expanding their product offerings – they are building interconnected ecosystems that strengthen over time, reinforcing user engagement and enabling broader, platform-led financial inclusion.
Alipay began as a mobile payments solution but has evolved into a platform that integrates lending, wealth management and insurance, alongside everyday commerce
Enabling Global Financial Progress
At Scottish Mortgage, we seek out companies driving structural change. We believe that progress – often enabled by technology, led by ambitious founders, and focused on solving real-world problems – is a powerful engine for long-term growth. The digitalisation of finance is a profound, structural shift reshaping how money moves worldwide, and we’re backing the companies building the financial systems of the future.
Risk Factors
The Trust invests in overseas securities. Changes in the rates of exchange may also cause the value of your investment (and any income it may pay) to go down or up.
The Trust invests in emerging markets, which includes China, where difficulties with market volatility, political and economic instability including the risk of market shutdown, trading, liquidity, settlement, corporate governance, regulation, legislation and taxation could arise, resulting in a negative impact on the value of your investment.
Important Information
This article does not constitute, and is not subject to the protections afforded to, independent research. Baillie Gifford and its staff may have dealt in the investments concerned.
The views expressed are not statements of fact and should not be considered as advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a particular investment.
Baillie Gifford & Co and Baillie Gifford & Co Limited are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The investment trusts managed by Baillie Gifford & Co Limited are listed on the London Stock Exchange and are not authorised or regulated by the FCA.
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