The UK on the other hand has actively encouraged new banks and new tech. It’s had things like instant, free, payments between personal accounts for almost two decades. Contactless transactions for at least a decade, mobile banking for decades, and government mandated banking API for almost 5 years.
In short, the UK has a very active banking sector that’s been rapidly (for banks) innovating for many decades. So the environment and ecosystem are well developed for further and faster innovation.
In the U.S., it seems banks gave up on tech innovation decades ago, and decided that innovation in fees and punitive treatment of customers was their preferred approach. As a result there just isn’t an environment for new innovation, the incumbents find it much easier to crush competition, rather than compete. Why the same isn’t true in UK (which until recently had remarkably few distinct banks), is probably down to the nature of law and regulation, which gives customers lots of rights, and actively punishes banks that don’t uphold them.