Card networks operate on a completely different set of dynamics than payment processors. You need to convince banks to issue and promote your logo. If you want to become your issuer, you now need to keep credit card debt on your books, not to mention customer acquisition costs in the insane rewards-driven card market.

What is Stripe doing that BoA/Chase/Citi/Capital One/US Bank/Wells Fargo isn’t or can’t?

What are the profit margins on consumer banking? It seems like a commodity product, I expect it to be not amazing (compared to tech companies’ profit margins).

Why would giving 5% cash back solve any of Stripe’s problem? Any of the other banks can do the same now, but they obviously don’t think it’s worth it to lose that much money for customer acquisition, especially when switching costs are so low.