“I’m so excited to share that we are acquiring the financial services app Step”, he said on February 9, and MrBeast made headlines worldwide.

I’m not a follower of this YouTube phenomenon to that extent that, on February 9, I not only learned about the acquisition but also discovered that MrBeast’s real name is Jimmy Donaldson. Jimmy is 27 years old, and for over 15 years, he has built the largest YouTube following globally, with 467 million subscribers according to Wikipedia.

This young man is not just an influencer, ladies and gentlemen. He has established an empire of affiliated businesses under the holding company Beast Industries, valued at $5 billion, of which he owns more than half.

What made this news noteworthy isn't just that Step has become part of a larger group, nor that a celebrity invested in it. After all, MrBeast wasn’t the first. Stephen Curry invested in the company before, and so did Will Smith (see Forbes), and Justin Timberlake, for that matter.

Has MrBeast Read “A New Ethos in Banking”?

What made this worth talking about is something else, something I’ve described in Chris Skinner’s book “Digital for Good”, and which I recycled in my own book, where I described my vision of banking in 2040. The chapter is about Leon, my son at the age of 20, who finally began contemplating whom to bank with.

This is how it ended:

“What are you looking for?” Leon’s dad asks. That sounds a lot easier than it is. Leon just wants a bank that helps him make his life more comfortable and grow a financial buffer for the future (some things never change).

“I want a bank that thinks with me”, Leon replies.

“Why don’t you stick to your current bank, give it a few more years and see where you want to go with your life?”

“What for?” Leon asked. “Of course, community banks are very much tied to the local community, and who knows where I’ll live in a few years, but this should not stop me from thinking hard about which bank to trust with my assets and my financial health, right?”

“You’re right. Maybe you could consider one of the niche players for the student community? Their services are built for people like you, and they may even guide you to another institution from the moment you no longer fit in their customer profile?You’re right. Maybe you could consider one of the niche players for the student community? Their services are built for people like you, and they may even guide you to another institution from the moment you no longer fit in their customer profile?” his dad answers.

“Community banks are no longer purely linked to geographic communities. Today, you can have a Game of Thrones bank, Tottenham Hotspur bank, Dentist Association bank, or any other bank that represents your interests, including the local university community bank.

These banks take their role seriously. Most of these banks are subsidiaries of one of the few global banks, but they do an excellent job of servicing their young clients and preparing them for adult life. Despite their ties with their shareholders, they provide well-documented suggestions on which banks to partner with next.”

Steven Van Belleghem, Customer Experience thought leader, explained the curious case of MrBeast in his post on LinkedIn as follows:

Here is why this MrBeast acquisition could become a masterclass in modern CX: Zero Friction Marketing: Traditional banks spend billions on ads to find customers. Jimmy (MrBeast) has 450M+ subscribers. His "Customer Acquisition Cost" is practically zero. He doesn't find customers; he builds a community.

The "Education First" Model: He’s not selling interest rates. He’s selling financial literacy. He noticed schools aren't teaching kids how to manage money, so he built a solution. That’s how you become a "Partner in Life."

The takeaway? In a world of AI and automation, Trust and Attention are the new gold standards.

The lines between content, community, and commerce have officially disappeared.

Are you still waiting for customers to find your bank? Or are you building a community they actually want to be part of?

People speak of this as a revolution, not only among banking professionals but also media experts. For once, it is not due to the latest technology in products and services but because of the reach of the individual who has acquired them. Community banking 2.0, coincidentally, marks 100 years since Banque Raiffeisen’s founding in Luxembourg.

Who Owns the Customer, Who Owns the Bank?

For the first time, friends active in media started approaching me on banking news.

“The biggest YouTube star owns a bank”

“A customer acquisition cost of practically zero”

“People don’t trust, but they do trust MrBeast”

Yes… and no…

To start, he didn’t buy a bank. He bought Step, a fintech app with a noble mission to strengthen young people’s financial capabilities. Step isn’t a bank; it’s a platform that provides financial management tools and opportunities to build credit with a debit Visa card that reports as a paid-on-time credit card to credit bureaus, which is essential for financial inclusion in the United States.

“I want to give millions of young people the financial foundation I never had”, explained MrBeast on X.

But, let’s be clear: Step is not a bank. It does not hold a licence, nor does it have the capital or deposit insurance. Step collaborates with Evolve Bank & Trust for those aspects.

Step provides banking products, but it is not itself a bank. This is a clear example of who owns the end customer versus who owns the platform, as I also discussed in Chris Skinner’s book and mine. Step owns the end customer, about 7 million, so they say.

That also impacts customer acquisition. The customer acquisition cost will be zero for many, but the market cannot simply be equated with MrBeast's 467 million YouTube followers. The following is global; the bank is local. It is a significant difference. To reach the total market for the MrBeast brand, Step will need many more bank partnerships, similar to its partnership with Evolve Bank & Trust. That is a challenge that even Apple has avoided so far (Apple Card is only available in the United States).

Then there’s the final point: “people don’t trust banks, but they may trust MrBeast”. That is a fair comment, but given Step’s setup, people engaging with the platform to get a Visa Card, open a savings account, invest, or make payments are putting their money with a bank endorsed by the world’s biggest YouTube influencer. A bank, by the way, with a history of scandals, including the departure of a CEO who pleaded guilty to child pornography charges — quite ironic, given Step’s aim of making teenagers more financially resilient.

Nevertheless, the impact should not be neglected. Communities today are built differently from those of the past. In the far past, community banks were built by local communities or labour organisations, and now we see someone with a massive online following trying to do something about financial education and getting involved in financial services.

Time to Rethink Relevance in Banking

In the context of The Banking Scene’s themes for 2026, “Rethinking Relevance,” this also raises the question of what this means for the banking industry, specifically within retail banking.

For decades, retail banks competed on products, pricing, and distribution. Then they focused on digital capabilities. After that, on ecosystems and embedded finance. All these were essential evolutions. However, none of them automatically create a community.

MrBeast did not start with a current account. He started with stories, with generosity. He built a community with a very clear bond with his audience. Fifteen years of earning trust at scale.

Community Banking 2.0 is no longer purely about geography. It is also about affinity. About identity. About belonging to something larger than a product catalogue.

It could be a university bank, a creator bank, a football club bank, or a niche professional bank. The common denominator is not where you live, but who you are and what you care about. That does not mean that traditional banking has completely lost relevance; on the contrary.

Banking remains a regulated activity with capital requirements, deposit insurance, supervision, and risk management. None of that disappears simply because an influencer enters the scene. Step still relies on a licensed bank. The balance sheet still exists somewhere. The systemic responsibility remains very real.

But the front end of the relationship: the attention, the engagement, the emotional connection, is increasingly contestable. And that is the fight most retail banks are engaged in.

They don’t want to be the pipe of a third-party engine; they want to be the engine itself. They aim to stay in the race. However, if platforms with strong communities control the customer relationship, and banks become the regulated infrastructure behind the scenes, retail banking could turn into a utility.

In the context of “Rethinking Relevance,” this is the fundamental question we need to ask: what motivates a young person to choose you; not because their parents did or because your branch is nearby, but because they feel truly understood by you.

Is it your interest rate? Your app? Or the role you play in their life?

MrBeast buying Step is not the end of banking as we know it. It is not even necessarily a success story in the making. The geographic limitations, regulatory constraints, and economics of scaling banking partnerships are very real.

But it signals that community scales differently in a digital world, that financial education remains a powerful entry point, and that trust does not necessarily reside in traditional institutions (even if they may serve as the backbone of another trusted platform).

And truth be told… if banks become pipes that keep the engine running, we’ll need far fewer financial institutions, and price and consistency will become the main differences, which is not a bright future for most financial institutions.Retail banks should not panic, but they should reflect.

Are you waiting for customers to walk into your ecosystem?

Or are you deliberately building a community that wants to walk with you?

I hope you join the conversations at our conferences in Amsterdam on March 24 and Brussels on May 28, where we will be discussing exactly how to Rethink Relevance in banking.