I don’t think all of this is really related. It happens roughly at the same time, yes, but they are not tied together.
Revolut Bank started in various European markets in the last year or so. But here’s a funny detail: Revolut Bank was the deposit service for Revolut Payments. The bank was storing our money, which was then “converted” into e-money so that we could use it on the Revolut app. Revolut changed the backend, but the frontend remained an e-money based product: the app and all the services related to it.
What I am understanding now is that Revolut streamlines their operations by merging Revolut Bank and Revolut Payments.
There are indications that Revolut actively works on providing local IBANs for France.
(Many fintechs are banks, no? Bunq and N26 for example. I would still call them fintechs.)