Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

This week starts with Esusu, which just locked in a $50M round as rent moves deeper into the credit system. With rental data now cleared for mortgage underwriting and lenders looking for cleaner signals, Esusu is positioning itself as a core input across housing, credit, and financial identity.

Next up is Mercury, stepping beyond its startup-bank roots and into consumer banking. Backed by a $3.5B valuation and fresh capital, Mercury is betting that high-balance customers want control, transparency, and software-first banking, even if it means paying for it. Right after that comes Mesa, which quietly shut down its mortgage-rewards card, a reminder that not every elegant credit idea survives interchange math, compliance friction, and distribution realities.

The rest of the issue tracks how the stack is shifting underneath all of this. Klarna and Stripe are racing to wire commerce directly into AI agents. Student loan delinquencies are back on credit reports and starting to drag scores. BNPL is still growing, but discipline is replacing land grabs. And a divided Fed is cutting rates while signaling patience, not relief.

Different stories, same theme. Credit is getting more selective, more structured, and more dependent on data that actually holds up.

Here’s what’s happening across fintech right now.

— Carlos Caro, Founder at New Market Growth
— Nick Madrid, Co-Founder of Uncovered Media and Ghostmode

PS: To support us, please ask one colleague to subscribe!

Esusu Locks in $50M at a $1.2B Valuation as Rent Becomes Credit Infrastructure

Source: Esusu

The latest round puts fresh capital behind a much bigger ambition. Esusu is scaling Rent Reporting as a Service, pushing rent data directly into banks, credit unions, and fintech products, while expanding Esusu Pay and its identity stack after the Celeri Labs acquisition. With rental data now approved for use in mortgage underwriting, Esusu sits at the center of a policy shift that lenders have been waiting on for years.

In 2022, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led a $130M Series B, turning Esusu into one of the few Black-owned fintech unicorns and fueling nationwide scale. By then, rent reporting had moved from “nice idea” to institutional infrastructure. In 2021, a $10.6M Series A during the pandemic pushed Esusu beyond credit scores into rent relief, cementing its reputation as mission-first while landlords faced historic delinquency risk. Before that, early seed rounds between 2018 and 2019 were spent proving something radical at the time: that rent could be verified, reported, and monetized without breaking the system.

Founders Abbey Wemimo and Samir Goel both grew up watching family members locked out of credit despite paying their bills on time. They named the company after Esusu, a communal savings tradition, and built a B2B2C model where property owners pay, renters benefit, and lenders get cleaner signals.

Esusu covers over 5 million rental units and 12 million people, representing roughly $100 billion in annual lease volume. This Series C round moves beyond the initial phase of proving the value of rent reporting. Now, the goal is to make rent payments a standard input for credit, housing, and financial identity, while establishing the infrastructure needed to support that shift long-term.[Esusu]

Business-focused Fintech Mercury Makes Consumer Banking Push

Source: LinkedIn

The startup known for banking founders and startups just opened Mercury Personal to all U.S. adults, signaling a clear shift from business-only fintech to full-spectrum financial platform. The move comes months after Mercury more than doubled its valuation to $3.5B and raised $300M from Sequoia, giving it the capital and confidence to take on territory long dominated by banks.

Consumer banking brings heavier compliance, higher expectations, and real regulatory exposure. Mercury rebuilt its stack, swapped bank partners, and scaled internal compliance before opening the doors. The early results are interesting. Customers hold average balances north of $80K, pay a $240 annual subscription, and get a bundle built for control, not freebies. High-yield savings, no-fee wires, investment access, customizable permissions, and up to $5M in FDIC coverage through sweep networks.

For banks, this is familiar pressure from a new angle. Mercury is not chasing mass-market checking accounts. It targets founders, operators, and high-value customers who already use software-first tools and are willing to pay for transparency and control. If this works, the line between business banking and personal banking does not just blur. It disappears. [American Banker]

Mesa Shuts Down Credit Card That Rewarded Cardholders for Paying Their Mortgages

Mesa’s pitch was clean and intuitive. Reward people for paying their mortgage, not for flying first class.

The startup has shut down the Mesa Homeowners Card, deactivating all accounts and ending a program that tried to turn homeownership into a rewards category. Cardholders can no longer earn points, and the only exit left is a statement credit at 0.6%, a quiet ending after weeks of declined transactions and “temporary outage” explanations.

Mesa launched just over a year ago with $9.2M in funding, betting that homeowners wanted credit cards built around real-life expenses. Mortgage payments, utilities, gas, groceries, HOA fees. The idea mirrored what Bilt did for rent, but pushed it one step further. Make the biggest monthly payment count.

Rewarding mortgage payments sounds obvious, but it is tough on margins, operationally complex, and dependent on clean payment flows that card networks were not designed for. Mesa’s shutdown is a reminder that not every elegant idea survives contact with interchange math, compliance friction, and consumer expectations.

The timing matters too. Bilt has already said it plans to add mortgage rewards in its next card iteration. That puts pressure on standalone products that do one thing well but lack distribution, balance-sheet flexibility, or a broader ecosystem to absorb losses. [TechCrunch]

Audi Revolut F1 Team Reveals Official Name, Logo and Berlin Launch Date

Source: Revolut

The Audi Revolut F1 Team is now official, with a full brand reveal and immersive launch set for Berlin on January 20, 2026. This is not a passive sponsorship. Revolut is being woven directly into team operations, from Revolut Business handling financial workflows to Revolut Pay powering checkout in the team’s online store.

For fintech marketers, this is a clean example of how brand, product, and distribution converge. Formula 1 delivers reach. Revolut delivers the rails. Exclusive app-based perks, fan access, and integrated payments turn motorsport fandom into an owned channel, not just awareness.

As Revolut pushes toward 100 million customers, this partnership signals where big fintech marketing is heading: fewer ads, more platforms, and partnerships that feel closer to infrastructure than sponsorship. [Revolut]

Zilch Enters the ‘Payments Tent’ With FCA License

Source: PYMNTS

The BNPL and virtual card platform has secured a UK payment services license from the FCA, giving it the ability to build and run payment methods in-house instead of renting infrastructure. That shift matters. Owning the license means lower dependency, tighter economics, and more control over how products get built and scaled.

The timing is deliberate. Zilch is lining up Zilch Pay and its AI-driven Intelligence Commerce platform, positioning itself for a world where payments, data, and agent-led shopping blur together. Add newly secured Visa principal membership, and Zilch now has both regulatory credibility and network access. [PYMNTS]

Klarna Launches Agentic Product Protocol: The Open Standard That Makes 100m+ Products Instantly Discoverable by AI Agents

Source: Klarna

Klarna is not waiting for AI agents to figure commerce out on their own. It is giving them the map. The company just launched the Agentic Product Protocol, an open standard that makes 100M+ products and 400M live prices readable by AI agents across 12 markets. Instead of scraping or ads, agents can pull structured, real-time product data that lets them actually compare, recommend, and transact.

Discovery shifts from search results to conversations. Distribution moves from paid placement to structured access. Merchants that plug in once can surface everywhere agents operate, without rebuilding feeds or buying traffic.

This is Klarna staking a claim on the layer beneath agentic commerce. If AI becomes the interface, the winners will not be the loudest brands. They will be the ones whose data is clean, live, and ready when the agent asks. [Klarna]

Stripe Invests in Agentic Commerce Infrastructure

Source: Stripe

Stripe is trying to do for agentic commerce what it did for online payments: make it boring. The new Agentic Commerce Suite is a one-integration bundle that handles the messy parts of selling through AI agents: discovery, checkout, payments, and fraud. Instead of every merchant building and maintaining custom endpoints and catalogs for each agent, Stripe hosts the ACP endpoint, syndicates product data, and routes order events back into your existing stack.

Stripe is pushing Shared Payment Tokens (SPTs) as the “agent-safe” payment primitive: tokens scoped to a specific seller, bounded by time and amount, and trackable across their lifecycle. That is a direct response to the next fraud problem, where real agents look like bots and bad actors try to manipulate agents into risky orders. When brands like Etsy, URBN, Coach, and Kate Spade start onboarding, it is no longer a demo. It is an emerging channel, with Stripe positioning itself as the toll road. [Stripe]

More Than 9 Million Us Borrowers Miss Student Loan Payments as Delinquencies Rise

Source: Financial Times

Nine million borrowers missed a payment, and the “help” line is backed up. Since credit reporting resumed for late federal student loan payments, over 9 million borrowers have slipped into delinquency, turning student debt into the standout weak spot in household credit, according to the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Credit scores are taking the hit too, with FSOC pointing to an average near-100 point VantageScore drop among affected borrowers. That kind of damage shows up fast in auto approvals, mortgage pricing, and anything that depends on “near-prime” staying near-prime.

At the same time, the forgiveness and repayment machinery is moving like it is stuck in traffic. The Education Department’s latest court-filed status update shows a huge IDR backlog (802,000 applications outstanding) and a PSLF Buyback backlog above 80,000. In November, the department processed hundreds of thousands of IDR applications, but approved only 170 discharges, and none under ICR or PAYE, citing systems that are not yet programmed to routinely check eligibility for those plans.

Now stack on the next wave. With the SAVE plan slated to end pending court approval, millions of borrowers may have to switch repayment plans, which is likely to dump more volume into the same pipelines that are already clogged. [Financial Times] [Forbes]

TransUnion 2026 Outlook: Moderate Credit Card Balance Growth and Stable Delinquency Rates Signal Consumer Perseverance

TransUnion’s 2026 forecast calls for 2.3% YoY credit card balance growth, the smallest annual increase since 2013 (excluding the pandemic dip), with balances projected to hit $1.18T by end of 2026. That is a very different world from the double-digit surge years, and it lines up with what lenders have been signaling all year: tighter underwriting, more account management, fewer “spray and pray” approvals.

The other headline is what did not get worse. TransUnion expects 90+ DPD card delinquencies to stay basically flat at 2.57%, up just one basis point. Stability here is the story, especially with inflation still above target and unemployment projected to tick up.

But the pressure shows up elsewhere. TransUnion’s table on page 3 projects 60+ DPD mortgages rising to 1.65% and auto 60+ DPD to 1.54% by end of 2026. Translation: consumers are holding up, but the soft spots are moving around the balance sheet. [TransUnion]

AFSA Consumer Credit Conditions Index Shows Mixed Q3 Results with Optimistic Outlook

AFSA’s Q3 Consumer Credit Conditions Index slipped into negative territory for the first time in over a year, with current business conditions posting a -5.9 reading as loan demand softened and performance weakened. Subprime stress is the pressure point. Expectations for subprime loan performance over the next six months fell sharply, signaling that risk remains concentrated at the lower end of the credit stack.

The six-month forward view jumped to +20.6, the strongest since late 2024, driven by falling rates and a dramatic improvement in expected funding costs. Lenders see cheaper capital coming fast, even if near-term credit quality stays uneven.

The takeaway is familiar but important. Demand may be muted today, but easing financial conditions are resetting lender confidence. Credit is not loosening yet. It is lining up for a more selective rebound. [PR Newswire]

BNPL Keeps Growing, but Discipline Replaces the Land Grab

The CFPB’s latest BNPL Market Data Spotlight shows volume and usage continuing to climb, but at a more measured pace. From 2022 to 2023, BNPL loan originations rose 23% and dollar volume grew 26%, slower than prior boom years but still expanding. The user base hit 53.6 million consumers, up 12% year over year, with borrowers taking more loans per year and spending more per lender.

What stands out is credit performance. Late fees declined meaningfully, with only 4.1% of loans assessed a late fee in 2023, down from 5.2% the year before. Charge-offs also improved, falling to 1.83%, the lowest level in the CFPB’s five-year dataset.

Growth is shifting from new-user land grabs to deeper engagement with existing customers, paired with tighter underwriting and cleaner portfolios. BNPL is maturing into a steadier, more controlled credit product, and that changes how regulators, lenders, and partners will treat it going forward. [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau]

Divided Fed Lowers Rates, Signals Pause and One Cut Next Year as Growth Rebounds

The Fed cut rates again, but it looked more like damage control than a green light. Officials lowered the benchmark rate by 25 basis points to a 3.50%–3.75% range, marking the third straight cut. Then they told everyone to stop expecting a smooth slide downward. The Fed’s own projections still point to just one more cut in 2026, and the committee is nowhere close to aligned on what comes next.

Three dissents came from both directions, with two policymakers wanting no cut and one pushing for a larger half-point move. It was the most divided rate vote in six years, a clear sign the Fed is stuck between two problems that are moving the wrong way at the same time. Inflation is still above target, but the job market is softening and unemployment has been creeping up.

Both Reuters and NPR flagged that the Fed had to make the call without fresh government data after the shutdown delayed key inflation and jobs reports. Powell leaned into patience, saying the Fed is positioned to wait and watch rather than commit to a path.

The takeaway for lenders, operators, and anyone pricing credit is simple. Rates came down, but policy is not getting easier. The Fed is trying to hold the line, and the next move depends on what the delayed data finally says, not on what markets want to believe. [Reuters] [NPR]

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This Week’s Friday Jobs Edition:

Aven, Pagaya, Chime, SoFi, MoneyLion, Bilt, LendingClub, Upstart, OneMain, Empower, and QuinStreet are all adding talent across marketing, partnerships, product, credit, and data.

This week also includes a CTB1 exclusive for a Vice President of Marketing, a senior leadership role building and leading the marketing function end to end, with ownership across demand generation, product marketing, content, and brand as the company scales.

We are also featuring Fiat Talent exclusive roles, including Senior Product Manager, Card Spend & Rewards (Nibbles) and Founding Product Marketing Lead (Outmarket.ai), both fully remote opportunities.

👀 Explore over 60 open roles across marketing, product, data, and risk

If you are considering a change, this week’s lineup has plenty to offer.

Thanks,

— Carlos Caro, Founder at New Market Growth
— Nick Madrid, Co-Founder of Uncovered Media and Ghostmode

Note: Verified Toaster subscribers can submit jobs for free! Just email us at info@thefreetoaster.com, and we’ll add it.

Vice President, Marketing

Location: Hybrid: SF, NYC, Austin, or DC

We’re looking for Vice President of Marketing to build and lead the marketing function end-to-end: owning demand generation, product marketing, content, and brand as the company scales.

This is a hands-on leadership role with the opportunity to build a world-class marketing org from the ground up, serving both B2B customers and their end users.

Opportunity to join a fast-growing API platform redefining consumer liability connectivity, with 45M+ users, 350M+ accounts connected, $2B+ in payments processed, and backing from top-tier investors including a16z, Emergence, and YC.

Look below to learn more or apply directly via email connect@CTB1LLC.com and mention Toaster.

Senior Product Manager, Card Spend & Rewards (Nibbles)

Location: Remote (Full-Time)
Compensation: $180,000–$220,000 (with flexibility to increase for an exceptional candidate) + 0.25%–0.50% equity

Fiat Talent is recruiting on behalf of Nibbles, a pet wellness fintech building a first-of-its-kind platform that pairs a no-fee credit card with free pet insurance, automated claims, rich rewards, and pet health tools.

The Senior Product Manager, Card Spend & Rewards will own the full strategy and execution behind how and why customers use the Nibbles card. That includes designing incentives, rewards structures, behavioral mechanics, and spend-driving features that increase utilization while maintaining strong unit economics. This is a hands-on role with real ownership, reporting into product leadership and partnering closely with engineering, data, marketing, compliance, and executive teams.

This role is built for someone who has worked directly on card spend and rewards problems before and knows how to balance user behavior, economics, and execution speed in a lean environment.

The ideal candidate brings:

• Direct experience building credit card, rewards, or spend-based products, ideally at issuers or platforms like Capital One, Bilt, or similar card programs

• A strong grasp of card economics, incentives, and rewards cost modeling, with the ability to project outcomes before shipping

• A proven track record of owning high-impact product surfaces end to end, from strategy through launch and iteration

• Comfort operating in a fast-moving startup with limited resources and high expectations

• Strong cross-functional instincts and the ability to ship consistently while aligning stakeholders

This is a Fiat Talent exclusive opportunity to lead a mission-critical product area at an early-stage fintech defining a new category at the intersection of payments, insurance, and pet wellness.

Founding Product Marketing Lead (Outmarket.ai)

Location: Based in the US, San Francisco, or willing to relocate. Flexible arrangement with collaboration across time zones.

Outmarket.ai is working with Fiat Talent to bring on its first Product Marketing hire as it builds an AI platform for insurance distribution. Outmarket partners with leading brokers, carriers, MGAs, and wholesalers to place AI at the center of core insurance workflows, from production to operations.

The Founding Product Marketing Lead will define Outmarket’s narrative from the ground up. You will own positioning, messaging, and go-to-market foundations, while working directly with the founders across product, sales, customer success, and engineering. This role translates complex insurance workflows and AI capabilities into clear, compelling stories that resonate with enterprise buyers and drive adoption.

This is a true early-stage opportunity built for someone who wants to create structure where none exists and move quickly without a playbook.

The ideal candidate brings:

• Proven experience in product marketing at an early-stage B2B SaaS company

• Strong instincts for positioning, category definition, and buyer-focused storytelling

• Hands-on experience owning launches, messaging frameworks, and sales enablement

• Comfort supporting enterprise sales cycles and partnering closely with GTM teams

• The ability to simplify complex technical workflows into clear business value

You will spend time talking directly with customers, shaping launch strategy, building sales materials, and influencing how the product roadmap is communicated to the market. This role sits at the center of product, revenue, and narrative.

This is a Fiat Talent exclusive opportunity to build product marketing from day one at a company defining how AI is applied across insurance distribution.

Interested? Email us at info@thefreetoaster.com and we'll get you in touch with the hiring contact at Fiat Talent. Be sure to include your LinkedIn profile in your email.

Fiat Talent

About Fiat Talent Fiat Talent is part of Fiat Growth & Fiat Ventures. We place vetted, senior-level talent (Director and above) across Marketing, Sales, GTM, BD, Partnerships, and Product roles at fintech and fintech-adjacent startups (Insurtech, Proptech, ClimateTech, HealthTech, etc.), from seed stage through pre-IPO.

Looking to hire a key role?

The CTB1 team can help.

No retainers or upfront costs. CTB1 only gets paid if they fill your role.

CTB1 is a boutique talent and recruiting firm specializing in exclusive fintech, banking, and lending roles. Unlike typical recruiting channels, CTB1 allows job seekers direct access to Connie and Cammie, ensuring personal responses rather than getting lost in a pile of resumes. For hiring managers, CTB1 quickly identifies top-tier talent, especially for specialized roles in credit, risk, marketing, and data science. Their unique, contingency-based business model means no upfront costs—companies only pay upon successfully filling a role.

email connect@CTB1LLC.com and mention Toaster to learn more

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Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Spinwheel.

Klarna is testing paid memberships in the U.S. that feel like a premium card without a spending requirement. Socure’s Qlarifi deal aims to turn BNPL into a real-time credit system instead of a black box. Instacart’s new app inside ChatGPT shows what happens when agents own the whole trip from search to checkout.

The rest of this week’s slate is about distribution and loyalty. Capital One is using Miami Art Week as a live lab for premium perks. BHG and Engine by Gen are wiring high intent borrowers into marketplaces. Flex raised $60 million for a mid-market card, and new state-by-state credit card debt data shows exactly where balances are starting to bite.

Private credit and alternative consumer lending are getting harder to track. Regulators are turning up the heat on rewards and card programs. Fraud, self-checkout abuse, and open banking risk keep rising. If you work in lending, growth, or risk, this is a week to think about how you price credit and which channels you trust to bring customers in the door.

Here’s what’s happening across fintech right now.

— Carlos Caro, Founder at New Market Growth
— Nick Madrid, Co-Founder of Uncovered Media and Ghostmode

PS: To support us, please ask one colleague to subscribe!

With a single call to our simple, dev-friendly APIs, Spinwheel offers the only comprehensive connection to your consumers' financial accounts.

Spinwheel delivers PII, real-time, verified account data, and the ability to make payments across all major debt categories – all within your brand's experience.

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Klarna Launches Premium and Max Memberships in the U.S., Offering Lounge Access and Premium Perks Without Spending Requirements, as Americans Face $1.23 Trillion in Credit Card Balances

Source: Klarna

Klarna is taking a direct swing at premium credit cards in the U.S., rolling out paid Premium and Max memberships that stack lounge access, travel protection, media subscriptions, and 1.5–2% cashback on top of the Klarna Card without revolving debt or spend requirements. The launch lands as U.S. credit card balances sit around $1.2 trillion and higher income consumers cancel cards while leaning into BNPL, giving Klarna a shot at card-like economics on debit and installment rails instead of traditional credit.

The benefits are built to look familiar to legacy travel cards, with LoungeKey access, travel and rental coverage, and the option to convert cashback into airline and hotel rewards across partners like Air France–KLM, British Airways, Accor, and Wyndham. What is different is the entry point. Consumers start from a debit-style Klarna Card with built-in flexibility, then opt into four paid tiers that layer on subscriptions like Headspace, ClassPass, and The New York Times, putting pressure on banks and networks to defend the loyalty layer that has historically kept prime borrowers tied to premium plastic. [Klarna]

Socure Acquires Qlarifi, Establishing the First Real-Time BNPL Credit System and Setting a New Standard for Safe, Low-Cost Payments

Socure is pulling BNPL into the main credit stack by buying Qlarifi, a real-time BNPL credit database built by former Klarna and Zip leaders. The combined platform ties Qlarifi’s cross-provider repayment data to Socure’s Identity Graph and RiskOS so lenders can see loan stacking, overextension, and first-party fraud across providers in real-time. Socure says that can cut first-party fraud losses by up to 70% in a channel that already accounts for nearly 6% of U.S. ecommerce and is on track for more than $700 billion in global spend by 2028.

For BNPL providers, this looks like the first serious attempt at a purpose-built bureau for small-ticket, millisecond credit decisions. It gives trusted customers a clearer way to signal good behavior and thins out the arbitrage for heavy users who hop between apps. It also speaks directly to regulators who have been asking for more transparency on BNPL exposure and repayment performance. [Socure]

Instacart App Launches in OpenAI ChatGPT – First Company to Offer New Instant Checkout App Experience

Source: Instacart

Instacart just turned ChatGPT into a grocery checkout lane. The company is the first to launch a fully embedded Instacart app inside ChatGPT using the Agentic Commerce Protocol, letting users go from recipe ideas to a ready-to-pay cart and Instant Checkout without leaving the conversation. Instacart plugs its real-time inventory, pricing data, and retailer network into OpenAI’s interface, with Stripe handling familiar card flows and digital wallets coming next.

For AI and commerce teams, this is an early example of agents owning the full funnel, not just recommendation and search. Instacart is positioning its 1,800 retailers, 2 billion product instances, and fulfillment network as the grocery backbone for multiple AI platforms, betting that “shop through the agent” becomes a default behavior and that retailers will want access to those AI-driven baskets rather than building their own front ends. [Instacart]

Capital One Takes the Premium Credit Card Arms Race to the Next Level With Miami Art Week Perks

Source: Fast Company

Capital One used Miami Art Week as a live lab for what “premium” now means: not just higher earn rates and lounge access, but access to culture that feels rare and emotionally charged. Mirage Factory, the Alex Prager installation built with The Cultivist, plus a Diana Ross performance and a branded hotel takeover, turned one of the most gatekept weeks in American culture into a cardholder-only environment and a test of how far experiences can drive loyalty.

Behind the art is a clear strategy. Capital One now runs more than 300 branded experiences a year and talks about an “access pyramid” where points function less like savings and more like stored invitations. In a premium card market where Amex, Chase, and Capital One all compete on curated events, the question is no longer who has the richest earn table, but which brand feels most culturally fluent when a customer asks what their card actually lets them experience. [Fast Company]

BHG Financial and Engine by Gen Enhance Partnership to Connect Well-Qualified Borrowers with High-Dollar, Long Term Affordable Loans

BHG Financial is tightening its grip on high-income borrowers by deepening its partnership with Engine by Gen, the embedded marketplace now plugged into Gen’s 30 million–member ecosystem across brands like Norton, Avast, and LifeLock. BHG already uses Engine to reach prime borrowers who want large, long-term unsecured loans. The expanded deal puts BHG’s up-to-$250,000, 10-year personal loans in front of more of those users while also letting BHG embed Engine-powered marketplaces inside its own flows as a second distribution rail.

The interesting angle is that BHG now plays on both sides of Engine’s network, acting as a flagship product in the marketplace while also standing up its own white-label marketplace experiences. For Engine and Gen, it is another proof point that credit access can be pushed into security, identity, and wellness environments where consumers already log in. For BHG, it is a scale and targeting story: more high-intent leads, better matching, and a way to stay top of mind with well-qualified professionals who are shopping for large-ticket, fixed-payment loans. [Morning Star]

Bank of America is Turning the World Cup Hype into a Card Acquisition Play by Offering Access to Tickets

Source: Bank of America

Bank of America is turning World Cup hype into a card acquisition play, offering new Customized Cash Rewards and Unlimited Cash Rewards Visa applicants a shot at buying FIFA World Cup 2026 tickets if they apply between December 4 and January 5 and are approved by early February. The hooks are familiar on the surface: 6% back in a chosen category for the first year on Customized, 2% unlimited cash back on Unlimited, no annual fee, and a standard intro APR, but the real lure is a unique link that lets eligible cardholders purchase up to two match tickets from a limited pool on a first come basis. It is not a sweepstakes, just controlled access wrapped around Visa sponsorship, and it shows how issuers are using event inventory as a front-end filter and loyalty tool rather than relying only on bonus cash and points tables. [Bank of America]

Block Doubles Down on Teen Focus With Advisory Council

Block is turning Gen Z into co-designers, not just users, by launching a paid Teen Advisory Council of about 20 highly active Cash App customers who will weigh in on product design, safety, and strategy through monthly virtual sessions and quarterly in-person meetings. The group, selected from more than 2,000 applicants, fits Jack Dorsey’s long game of using teen cards, savings, Lightning payments, stablecoin P2P, and tools like MoneyBot and Cash App score to pull younger cohorts into primary relationships early, giving parents controls they like while building a base of users whose income and financial needs will grow with the network. [American Banker]

Euronet Targets Credit Growth With CoreCard Acquisition

Euronet is leaning hard into credit growth by buying CoreCard, the processor behind Apple Card, and wiring it into its Ren issuing platform so banks and fintechs can launch modern revolving credit and BNPL products without rebuilding cores from scratch. The bet is that credit, not debit or prepaid, will drive the next wave of revenue, and that institutions stuck on 30-year-old tech need a migration path that keeps the “highway” running while new exits are built. CoreCard brings proof it can handle billions of complex credit transactions, while Euronet layers in its private cloud, 680,000 payment touchpoints, and microservices so clients can start with a single program and phase into a full upgrade. For operators, this is less about another processor logo and more about whether you can ship flexible credit and installment products at scale without getting trapped in a maze of patches and one-off fintech add-ons. [Fintech Magazine]

Revolut Preps Launch of Titan ‘Ultra-Premium’ Business Card

Source: PYMNTS

Revolut is moving upmarket in business spend with Titan, an “ultra premium” Visa corporate card aimed at fast-growing companies that want both high-end travel perks and tighter control from finance. Titan bundles lifestyle and travel benefits with real-time expense and receipt management, pitching itself as a single tool that replaces the patchwork of standalone travel and spend platforms most firms still pay for. The product arrives as corporate cards shift from back-office utility to growth infrastructure, with CFOs using them to streamline workflows, tighten approvals, and move faster on new opportunities, and as Revolut itself leans into scale with more than $1 billion in annualized revenue and a reported $75 billion valuation. [PYMNTS]

Student Loan Delinquencies Among Renters Double in Early 2025

Student loan repayment is starting to show up in the rental market. TransUnion reports that the share of rental applicants who are 90 days or more delinquent on student loans jumped from 15% in January to 32% in May, with many Prime and even Super Prime renters sliding into lower credit tiers as payments restart. That shift means applicants who used to clear standard credit score cutoffs for leases are now getting screened out, even though traditional scores were built to predict loan repayment, not rent performance. TransUnion is using the data to push purpose-built resident scores and fraud tools, arguing that financial stress will drive more document tampering and income misrepresentation and that property managers need rental-specific models if they want to manage risk without shrinking their applicant pools. [TransUnion]

What The Fed’s 2025 Rate Cuts Mean For Banks And Fintech

Fed cuts are finally here, but borrowers are not feeling it yet. With the funds rate drifting lower around a 3.75%–4% range and more easing expected, banks and fintechs are still pricing loans and deposits as if they are in a higher-rate world, keeping mortgage, auto, and especially card APRs elevated while deposit costs stay sticky. Small business and consumer credit remain tight as banks nurse CRE risk and margin pressure, leaving room for fintech lenders like Upstart and LendingClub to grow originations with stricter models and selective repricing. The next year comes down to how fast deposit costs roll down, how card and auto delinquencies behave, and how quickly each side of the market is willing to reprice, which will determine whether rate cuts translate into real relief or just a slow grind of cautious easing through 2026. [Forbes]

Consumer Loans Are Getting Harder to Tally—and the Risks Harder to Gauge

Source: WSJ

Consumer credit is getting harder to see and therefore harder to price. KBW estimates private-credit funding deals for fintech lenders could support nearly $140 billion of consumer lending over the next few years, up from under $10 billion in 2024, as more BNPL and personal loans move off bank balance sheets and into opaque private structures. Bank card portfolios are skewing toward higher tier borrowers and even shrinking on average, while alternative lenders quietly pick up the rest, which helps some households stay afloat but fragments the data that usually signals stress. That split helps explain why bank credit metrics still look healthy even as retailers report more trading down and stretched shoppers. For investors, the problem is less an obvious crack and more a fog: slower government stats, scattered private performance data, and a growing slice of lending that sits outside traditional reporting all raise the odds of being surprised by consumer credit risk in 2026. [WSJ]

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Looking for your next fintech role?

Stay ahead of where the industry is hiring. The Free Toaster Jobs newsletter curates standout openings in fintech marketing, product, data, and risk each week, along with insights into the trends shaping hiring across leading lenders, neobanks, and fintech startups.

Subscribe to The Free Toaster Jobs to get the latest roles and hiring insights delivered straight to your inbox (Toaster subs that don’t opt-in won’t get the Friday jobs Edition).

Missed last week’s edition? Check out the most recent job listings here.

This Week’s Friday Jobs Edition:

Citi, Capital One, Visa, Equifax, Chime, USAA, Wells Fargo, American Express, and Credible are all adding talent across credit, product, data, and growth. Additionally, this week we feature a CTB1 exclusive for a Head of Credit Risk, a role that shapes underwriting, pricing, and automation for a fast-growing lender.

👀 Explore 70+ new openings across marketing, product, data, and risk

If you are exploring your next move, this week’s lineup has plenty worth a look.

Thanks,

— Carlos Caro, Founder at New Market Growth
— Nick Madrid, Co-Founder of Uncovered Media and Ghostmode

Note: Verified Toaster subscribers can submit jobs for free! Just email us at newsletters@ghostmode.co, and we’ll add it.

Head of Credit Risk

Location: Remote, US (East Coast Preference)

Lead the credit risk function: owning underwriting, pricing, portfolio performance, and the strategic roadmap for a fast-growing consumer lender. This role shapes the company’s credit framework, drives profitability, and advances automation and decisioning, including aggregator funnel strategy and Lightbox-based underwriting.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop and optimize credit underwriting, pricing, and portfolio strategies (incl. aggregators + Lightbox).

• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing risk analytics team.

• Manage credit performance, loss forecasting, unit economics, and competitive benchmarks.

• Build dashboards and analytics to monitor trends and emerging risks.

• Partner with Engineering/Product to implement automation and decisioning updates.

• Present strategy to Executive Leadership, Risk Committee & Pricing Committee.

Requirements:

• 10+ years in credit risk, incl. 3+ years in consumer unsecured lending.

• Deep expertise in underwriting, pricing, credit performance, structured finance.

• Strong analytical skills and experience with large datasets.

• Experience with aggregator channels and Lightbox/alt-data decisioning.

• Bachelor’s in a quantitative field (Master’s preferred).

Look below to learn more or apply directly via email connect@CTB1LLC.com, and mention Toaster.

Looking to hire a key role?

The CTB1 team can help.

No retainers or upfront costs. CTB1 only gets paid if they fill your role.

CTB1 is a boutique talent and recruiting firm specializing in exclusive fintech, banking, and lending roles. Unlike typical recruiting channels, CTB1 allows job seekers direct access to Connie and Cammie, ensuring personal responses rather than getting lost in a pile of resumes. For hiring managers, CTB1 quickly identifies top-tier talent, especially for specialized roles in credit, risk, marketing, and data science. Their unique, contingency-based business model means no upfront costs—companies only pay upon successfully filling a role.

email connect@CTB1LLC.com and mention Toaster to learn more

Stay tuned for your weekly pulse on fintech hiring, only at The Free Toaster.
It’s free!

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

NerdWallet kicked off a daily $100k drawing, a holiday push that drives sign ups, repeat visits, and a steady stream of credit curious users. Stelrix introduced an investment-backed credit card that lets people borrow against their portfolios in real time, a model that has traditionally been locked behind private bank minimums. And PayPal and Perplexity rolled out Instant Buy, a chat-based flow that links product discovery to checkout as retailers prepare for the holiday wave.

Kraken launched a card that blends fiat and crypto. The Beige Book pointed to softer consumer spending. BNPL lenders responded to broad information requests from state regulators. Treasury Prime opened an AI marketplace for bank and fintech matching. U.S. Bank tested stablecoin issuance on Stellar. Black Friday came in weaker than expected. Visa, AWS, Klarna, Cozey, Zepz, and Google Finance all made moves across payments, lending, and AI driven commerce.

Quick note before we start: We’re hosting a small Q1 dinner in NYC for consumer lending teams to compare notes on direct mail. Want to join? Reply with “DM meetup” and we’ll keep you on the list.

Here’s what’s happening across fintech right now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

— Carlos Caro, Founder at New Market Growth
— Nick Madrid, Co-Founder of Uncovered Media and Ghostmode

PS: To support us, please ask one colleague to subscribe!

NerdWallet’s Daily $100K Draw: A $2.5M Boost for Holiday Engagement and Debt Support

Source: LinkedIn

NerdWallet is running a “Debt Free December” sweepstakes that gives away $100K a day from December 1 through December 25, with 25 total winners selected at random from registered users who enter on the site. The promotion is positioned as a way to help consumers pay down debt, though winners receive cash directly rather than creditor payments and are responsible for any taxes owed. Entry is free, limited to one per person and open to U.S. residents 18 and older, with daily drawings that roll over non winning entries. The campaign doubles as a user acquisition and engagement play for NerdWallet, driving account sign ups and data collection during the peak holiday spending season. The structure also creates 25 days of recurring touchpoints, which helps NerdWallet stay top of mind as consumers search for loans, credit cards and debt payoff tools. [NerdWallet]

Credit Reinvented: Stelrix Launches the First Investment-Backed Credit Card

Source: Stelrix

Stelrix is launching what it calls the first investment backed credit card, letting everyday investors borrow against their portfolios in real time instead of selling assets or relying on traditional margin loans. Built by 21-year-old founder Colin Sahagun, the platform continuously monitors a user’s brokerage holdings and adjusts credit limits every few milliseconds, removing the minimum balance requirements and slow approval processes that have kept portfolio backed credit limited to the wealthy. Stelrix has lined up partners across issuing, compliance and payments, including HSBC, Lithic, Sightspan and CompoSecure, with a beta planned for Q1 2026 and broader rollout in Q2. The company frames the product as a way to give retail investors access to private bank style liquidity tools, with plans to expand beyond equities into crypto, real estate and collectibles as it raises its next round and scales the infrastructure. [Stelrix]

PayPal and Perplexity Launch Instant Buy Ahead of Black Friday

PayPal and Perplexity are pushing AI shopping into the mainstream with Instant Buy, a feature that turns product discovery and checkout into a single chat flow. Consumers can ask for recommendations, compare options, and purchase inside Perplexity while PayPal handles identity, fraud checks, and payments. Retailers like Abercrombie, Fabletics, Ashley Furniture, Adorama, and NewEgg stay the merchant of record, and more than 5,000 merchants are already supported through PayPal’s store sync and agent ready tools. To spark adoption during the holiday rush, PayPal is offering 50% back up to $50 on a user’s first Instant Buy purchase between Nov. 25 and Dec. 1. Early AI shopping pilots across the industry have had mixed conversion, yet the shift toward conversational search is accelerating and recent tension between Amazon and Perplexity shows how quickly platforms are protecting their turf. For PayPal, Instant Buy builds on its ChatGPT integration and signals where ecommerce is going as payments move closer to the moment a customer decides what to buy rather than the moment they click checkout. [PayPal] [PYMNTS]

BNPL’s Holiday Surge Meets a Regulatory Wake-Up Call

Source: Attorney General - Connecticut

BNPL is booming at the exact moment scrutiny is tightening. Holiday spending hit $10.1 billion from Nov. 1 to Dec. 1, the highest Adobe has ever tracked, with Klarna reporting a 45% jump in volume and Block seeing a 10% lift across Afterpay and Cash App. Adyen and Fiserv also processed more payments than last year. At the same time, seven state attorneys general sent sweeping information requests to Affirm, Klarna, PayPal, Afterpay, Sezzle, and Zip. The letters ask for underwriting policies, dispute procedures, credit reporting practices, delinquency data, and even screenshots of checkout flows. The inquiry, illustrated in the Connecticut and North Carolina letter to Affirm, reflects growing concern that rising BNPL use is outpacing consumer protections especially after the CFPB walked back its rule that would have treated BNPL like credit cards. The contrast is sharp. Demand is surging, delinquencies are climbing, and regulators are stepping in where federal standards are uneven. For fintech and lending teams, the message is clear. BNPL growth is no longer the headline. Governance and transparency are about to become the competitive edge. [Attorney General - Connecticut] [Payments Dive] [Payments Dive]

“Say Goodbye to Your Bank: Make Krak Your Everything Account”

Source: Kraken

Kraken is moving well beyond trading and positioning itself as a full alternative to traditional banks. The company launched the Krak Card, a Mastercard debit card that lets users spend from both fiat and more than 400 crypto assets with real time conversion and up to 1% cashback in local currency or Bitcoin. It pairs the card with salary deposits, global transfers, and Krak Vaults, a yield product offering up to ten percent APY through audited DeFi strategies. There are no FX fees, users can mix and match assets on a single purchase, and both physical and virtual cards are available. Kraken also secured full MiCAR authorization in the EU and continues to operate under the UK’s FCA, giving it a strong regulatory base as it pushes into everyday finance. Kraken wants to be the primary account for spending, saving, and earning, and it is building the kind of integrated, cross asset experience that puts pressure on both neobanks and incumbent banks. [Kraken] [The Fintech Times]

Fed’s Beige Book Flags Consumer Spending Slide

The Fed’s final Beige Book of 2025 paints a clear picture of consumers pulling back as the year closes. Spending was the weakest category in the entire report, with broad signs of strain among low and middle income households who are trading down, delaying purchases, and avoiding big ticket items. General merchandise, restaurants, leisure travel, and autos all saw softer demand, and the expiration of EV tax credits and reduced SNAP benefits added another layer of pressure. Lenders reported mixed activity but a shared sense of caution as borrowers rely more on debt for basic expenses and banks tighten standards. Businesses echoed the same mood. Hiring has shifted to replacement only, capital spending is being delayed, and uncertainty around tariffs, interest rates, and consumer behavior is slowing plans for early 2026. The economy is still growing, but momentum is fading. The Beige Book’s overall tone is noticeably more negative than at the start of the year, signaling an environment where resilience is narrowing and caution is becoming the default. [Federal Reserve] [PYMNTS]

Carlos sat down with Alex Johnson on the Fintech Takes Podcast to talk about how AI is changing distribution for lenders. The discussion touches on the collapse of organic traffic, the shift in acquisition costs, the rise of creator distribution, and what it means for publishers, affiliates, and fintech teams planning for 2026.

They cover:

• How AI is disrupting SEO and SEM

• What Google’s recent updates mean for lenders

• Why creators are becoming core acquisition channels

• What “GEO” could mean for the next wave of search

Listen here: Fintech Takes or The Free Toaster Podcast (reposted)

Treasury Prime Launches AI Marketplace to Transform Bank-Fintech Partnerships

Source: Treasury Prime

Treasury Prime launched an AI-powered Marketplace that uses LLM-driven matching to help banks quickly find and evaluate fintech partners aligned with their goals and risk profiles. The platform surfaces opportunities from a network of more than 3,600 fintechs and filters them by industry, funding stage, compliance appetite, and growth objectives. Banks get structured onboarding for vetted fintechs, while startups gain easier access to up to 17 bank partners through a single application. Treasury Prime positions this as the first step in a broader AI roadmap aimed at reshaping how embedded finance partnerships form and scale. [Treasury Prime]

Fast-Growing Fintech InvestiFi Partners with Sesimi to Scale Compliant Marketing

InvestiFi is partnering with Sesimi to help financial institutions produce compliant marketing content faster and at scale. The fast growing fintech will use Sesimi’s creative automation platform to deliver customizable assets with embedded disclosures and locked compliance language, reducing approval cycles and legal bottlenecks. The move reflects rising pressure on banks and credit unions to deliver personalized, omnichannel marketing without increasing regulatory risk. Both companies frame the partnership as a way to speed client onboarding, strengthen FI relationships and let marketing teams operate with fintech level agility while staying within strict compliance guardrails. [PR Newswire]

The OCC Just Removed A Major Barrier To Banks Entering Blockchain

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) just gave a practical green light for banks to finally get serious about blockchain technology. The new Interpretive Letter 1186 confirms that national banks can hold small amounts of crypto-assets for things like covering network fees ("gas fees") and testing new digital-asset platforms, resolving a major bottleneck that forced banks into "significant risks" and "operational drawbacks" before. The OCC framed this as a simple extension of longstanding bank powers, not a new departure, allowing banks to "avoid waste" and "improve efficiency". This clarity is "substantial" for both banks and their fintech partners, enabling direct, non-intermediated on-chain operations for things like custody and tokenization. Ultimately, this move removes the final operational hurdle, shifting the industry conversation from blockchain's place in banking to how quickly institutions can roll it out. [Forbes]

Visa and AWS Unite to Scale Agentic Digital Commerce

Source: Fintech Magazine

Visa and AWS are laying the groundwork for agent led commerce. Visa is bringing its Intelligent Commerce platform into AWS Marketplace, giving developers direct access to authentication, tokenization, intent capture and embedded payments designed for autonomous AI agents. Paired with AWS’s AgentCore blueprints, the setup lets agents complete full workflows like travel bookings, retail purchases and B2B payments without human intervention. Partners such as Expedia and Intuit are already experimenting, showing how quickly travel and financial platforms expect agent driven transactions to become normal. Commerce is fragmented across too many systems, and AI agents need a trusted execution layer to move from recommendation to purchase. Visa wants to be that layer, and the companies that control agent rails could end up with meaningful distribution power in the next cycle. [Fintech Magazine]

U.S. Bank Tests Stablecoin Issuance, Viewing Blockchain as ‘Alternative Payment Rail’

Source: PYMNTS

U.S. Bank is running live tests of issuing its own stablecoins on the Stellar blockchain, framing the network as a potential alternative payment rail for customers. The bank chose Stellar because it offers the controls regulated institutions require, including the ability to freeze or unwind transactions, built in asset safeguards, fast settlement and near perfect uptime. Leadership says the goal is twofold: be ready to onboard and offboard stablecoins into the banking system and be prepared to offer stablecoin based payments if client demand accelerates. Together with a new internal group focused on digital assets, custody and tokenization, the pilots show U.S. Bank positioning itself to operate on blockchain rails as soon as the market moves. [PYMNTS]

How Black Friday Became a Retail Letdown: ‘to Sustain the Ride, They Started to Dilute It’

Black Friday has lost its punch. What used to be a one–day stampede built on true doorbusters has stretched into a weeks-long promo cycle that keeps getting richer the closer you get to the holidays. Former Sears Canada CEO Mark Cohen says the event’s “integrity” is gone, and shoppers seem to agree. Online buying has overtaken stores for six straight years, foot traffic is flat, and spending across the Thanksgiving-to-Cyber-Monday window has dropped nearly 13% since 2019. Consumers are also growing wary of the discounts themselves, questioning whether the deals are real or just price resets dressed up as savings. [CNBC]

Synchrony and The Toro Company Launch New Credit Card for Financing Lawn Equipment

Source: Synchrony

Synchrony and The Toro Company are rolling out a co-branded credit card aimed at boosting sales for Toro, Exmark, Spartan and Z Turf Equipment dealers by giving customers flexible financing for lawn and landscaping equipment. The program includes digital applications, dealer support tools, and promotional financing options designed to drive larger purchases and repeat business. Synchrony is leaning on its PRISM underwriting system, which analyzes over 9,000 data points to make more accurate credit decisions and help dealers approve more qualified buyers. Dealers also get 24/7 support, marketing materials and training, positioning the card as a turnkey way to deepen customer loyalty and streamline the purchasing experience. [Synchrony]

Be sure to subscribe to stay informed. It’s free!

Looking for your next fintech role?

Stay ahead of where the industry is hiring. The Free Toaster Jobs newsletter curates standout openings in fintech marketing, product, data, and risk each week, along with insights into the trends shaping hiring across leading lenders, neobanks, and fintech startups.

Subscribe to The Free Toaster Jobs to get the latest roles and hiring insights delivered straight to your inbox (Toaster subs that don’t opt-in won’t get the Friday jobs Edition).

Missed last week’s edition? Check out the most recent job listings here.

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Spinwheel.

FICO and Plaid are pairing traditional scoring with live cash flow data through the new UltraFICO Score. The CFPB proposes limiting fair lending liability by removing “disparate impact” from ECOA, a shift that would require proof of intentional discrimination and change how lenders document and defend their credit decisions. And Made Card raised new funding to build a rewards product around real homeowner spending, including mortgage payments.

The rest of the week brought plenty of signals. Wealthfront is testing mortgages. Klarna is launching a stablecoin. OpenAI rolled out shopping research in ChatGPT. Worldpay introduced tools for agentic commerce. Cash App is piloting a real time score. And a Colorado ruling added pressure to BNPL models.

Earnings stayed solid across the board. Intuit posted strong Q1 growth led by QuickBooks and Credit Karma. Oportun logged another profitable quarter with better credit trends. Pathward finished the year with higher noninterest income. Green Dot’s embedded finance engine kept picking up speed. loanDepot narrowed its loss on stronger margins. BILL delivered steady core revenue gains and new partnerships. Better lifted revenue and continued pushing AI deeper into underwriting.

Quick note. There is no The Free Toaster Jobs Edition this week while the team takes a short Thanksgiving break. You can read last week’s issue here and subscribe to get the next one when it’s back next Friday.

One more thing before we dive in. We are planning a small dinner meetup in Q1 to connect folks in consumer lending who care about building strong direct mail programs. Likely in NYC. If you want details as we finalize plans, reply to this email with “DM meetup” and we’ll keep you posted.

Here’s what’s happening across fintech right now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

— Carlos Caro, Founder at New Market Growth
— Nick Madrid, Co-Founder of Uncovered Media and Ghostmode

PS: To support our Newsletter, please share it with one colleague!

With a single call to our simple, dev-friendly APIs, Spinwheel offers the only comprehensive connection to your consumers' financial accounts.

Spinwheel delivers PII, real-time, verified account data, and the ability to make payments across all major debt categories – all within your brand's experience.

With many happy customers, including:

FICO Partners with Plaid to Launch Next-Generation Cash Flow UltraFICO® Score

FICO, the global analytics software leader, just announced a powerful partnership with Plaid, a leading financial data network, to launch the next generation of the cash flow UltraFICO® Score. This new, enhanced solution will combine the proven reliability of the FICO Score, which 90% of top US lenders use, with real-time consumer-permissioned cash-flow data from over 12,000 financial institutions via Plaid's market-leading infrastructure. The goal is to give lenders a single, unified score for "superior consumer risk assessment" without adding operational complexity. FICO vice president Julie May noted that this partnership directly addresses the market's demand for "a broader perspective on consumer credit readiness". Lenders get an immediate boost from this solution as it offers alignment with the flagship FICO® Score, streamlined implementation, and universal compatibility. The collaboration aims to help lenders make "more confident, inclusive credit decisions through a simple and scalable solution," according to Plaid's head of partnerships, Adam Yoxtheimer. [FICO]

CFPB Wants to Eliminate Disparate-impact Claims Under ECOA

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is proposing a rule change that would stop lawsuits based on "disparate impact," a legal concept used to punish lenders when their standard policies accidentally hurt specific groups (like racial minorities) even if there was no intent to discriminate. The proposal also makes it harder to prove a lender discouraged people from applying for loans and bans for-profit banks from running special credit programs based on race or sex. The main takeaway is that if this rule passes, regulators and borrowers would need to prove a lender intentionally discriminated, rather than just showing that a bank's policy resulted in unequal outcomes. This shift aligns lending rules with recent Supreme Court decisions and significantly raises the bar for challenging unfair lending practices. [Consumer Finance Monitor]

Why We Invested in Made Card, Jump Capital

Made Card is launching a rewards credit card that aims to turn homeownership, often the biggest monthly expense, into a financial advantage for families, much like Amex did for travel or Ramp did for business spend. The core idea is simple: homeowners deserve rewards that reflect actual spending patterns, which is why Made Card offers 3X points on gas, groceries, utilities, and streaming, 2X points on home improvement and furniture, and, critically, 1X points on mortgage payments up to the total monthly card spend. The card also provides unique savings, allowing cardholders to apply points toward mortgage closing costs or refinancing through partnerships with national companies like Fairway Home Mortgage. The investors backed Made Card because it solves a "real consumer pain point" and creates a "dual-sided model" that delivers value to consumers and improves "stickiness" for industry partners like mortgage originators. The credit card serves as a "strong wedge" to build a much larger financial platform that will eventually help homeowners manage the full property lifecycle, including maintenance, upgrades, and warranties. The timing is ideal, as high mortgage rates and "rising" homeownership costs mean consumers are actively seeking financial products that give something back. [Jump Capital]

Wealthfront Announces Entrance Into The Mortgage Business

Wealthfront is moving into mortgages, giving a small group of Colorado clients early access to an automated home-lending platform that promises lower rates, no sales calls, and a fully self-serve application. The product will expand to Texas, California, and more states ahead of a full 2026 rollout. Wealthfront says its software-driven model cuts origination costs, and early demand suggests its existing users, with a median age of 35 and about $310K on the platform, are ready to fold home buying into the same dashboard they use for savings and investing. It is the firm’s clearest step toward becoming a broader personal finance home rather than a stand-alone investing app. [Housing Wire]

Klarna to Launch Dollar-backed Stablecoin as Race in Digital Payments Heats up

Klarna is rolling out a dollar-backed stablecoin called KlarnaUSD in 2026, positioning it as a faster and cheaper way to move money across borders while regulators in the U.S. and Europe tighten digital asset rules. The token will run on Tempo, a payments-focused blockchain built by Stripe and Paradigm, and is part of a broader shift among major payment firms as PayPal and Stripe have already launched their own stablecoins. Klarna says its automated model will make everyday payments smoother for its largely U.S. user base, and the move marks a sharp turn toward crypto from a company whose CEO was once skeptical. [Reuters]

Introducing Shopping Research in ChatGPT

Source: OpenAI

OpenAI is rolling out a new shopping research mode in ChatGPT that builds personalized buyer guides instead of simple product answers. Users describe what they need, and the tool asks clarifying questions, searches trusted sources in real time, and returns curated picks with prices, specs, and tradeoffs. It works across categories like electronics, home, beauty, and sports, and is available on all plans for the holidays. The feature runs on a version of GPT-5 mini trained specifically for product discovery and can tailor results using ChatGPT memory for people who opt in. [OpenAI]

Worldpay Debuts Model Context Protocol to Bolster Agentic Commerce

Worldpay is rolling out support for agentic commerce with a new Model Context Protocol toolkit that lets developers plug AI agents directly into its payments stack. The MCP standard gives models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini a secure way to read data, trigger workflows, and complete actions, turning them from passive chatbots into systems that can actually perform tasks. Worldpay says nearly half of shoppers are open to letting an AI bot browse for them, and the company is pairing MCP with support for OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol so ChatGPT users can shop through Instant Checkout at participating merchants. The move positions Worldpay as one of the first major payment processors to build real infrastructure for AI-driven shopping. [PYMNTS]

Cash App Score Pilot Launches Utilizing Near Real-time Data

Source: CashApp

Cash App is piloting a new Cash App Score that updates in near real time and shows select users how their day-to-day activity affects their ability to access Cash App Borrow. The score pulls from live signals like paycheck deposits, savings balances, spending patterns, and repayment history, and the app gives personalized steps that can raise a user’s score and increase their borrowing limit. Block says behavioral data is far more predictive than traditional credit files, noting that most Cash App Borrow users have low FICO scores yet maintain strong repayment rates. The broader rollout is planned for 2026 as Cash App positions this model as a more transparent and inclusive form of credit assessment. [CashApp]

Colorado Court Ruling Puts BNPL Lending Models Under Fresh Pressure

A Colorado appellate ruling is creating new pressure for BNPL lenders by allowing the state to apply its interest-rate caps whenever either the borrower or the lending bank is located in Colorado. That change undercuts the rate-exportation model many BNPL firms rely on through sponsor banks and means fees that push effective APRs upward could now breach state limits. Providers warn this adds another layer to an already fragmented regulatory landscape, forcing tighter state-by-state pricing, more compliance staff, and more complex underwriting engines. Some BNPL firms may respond by trimming products in low-cap states or switching to more merchant-subsidized zero-percent plans as they wait to see if other states adopt similar interpretations. [PYMNTS]

Zillow Lets Renters Report Payments to Credit Bureaus

Source: Zillow

Zillow is launching CreditClimb, a $20-per-year service that lets renters report on-time rent payments to Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion and add up to two years of past payments to their file. The tool is powered by Esusu, whose users have seen average score gains of around 45 points, and aims to help renters qualify for better financing or future rentals by turning an existing monthly expense into a credit-building signal. The move comes as more renters choose to self-report payments even while landlord participation dips, suggesting growing consumer demand for credit access without opening new credit cards. [PYMTS]

Revolut Hits $75B Valuation in New Capital Raise

Revolut has hit a $75 billion valuation after a new share sale led by Coatue, Greenoaks, Dragoneer, and Fidelity, making it one of Europe’s most valuable private tech companies. The round let employees cash out and marks a sharp climb from its $48 billion valuation last year. The neobank is scaling aggressively with banking licenses across Europe and new launches in India, Mexico, and soon Colombia and South Africa, while revenue jumped 72 percent in 2024 to $4 billion and its crypto-focused Wealth division posted explosive growth. Revolut says the raise supports its goal of reaching 100 million customers by 2027 and operating in more than 30 new markets by 2030. [TechCrunch]

Green Dot to Split Fintech, Banking Units in Deals With Smith Ventures, CommerceOne

Green Dot is breaking itself in two, selling its non-bank fintech arm to Smith Ventures for $690 million while merging Green Dot Bank with CommerceOne to form a new publicly traded bank holding company. Shareholders will get $8.11 in cash plus stock in the new entity, and most of the fintech sale proceeds will go to investors and strengthening the bank’s capital base. The split also comes with a seven-year agreement that keeps the combined bank as the exclusive issuing partner for the fintech business. Both deals are expected to close in 2026 pending shareholder and regulatory approval. [MarketWatch]

Be sure to subscribe to stay informed. It’s free!

Looking for your next fintech role?

Stay ahead of where the industry is hiring. The Free Toaster Jobs newsletter curates standout openings in fintech marketing, product, data, and risk each week, along with insights into the trends shaping hiring across leading lenders, neobanks, and fintech startups.

Subscribe to The Free Toaster Jobs to get the latest roles and hiring insights delivered straight to your inbox (Toaster subs that don’t opt-in won’t get the Friday jobs Edition).

Missed last week’s edition? Check out the most recent job listings here.

This Week’s Friday Jobs Edition:

Fintech hiring picked up again this week with new roles across cards, payments, lending, and fraud. The teams at Citi, PayPal, USAA, Plaid, Synchrony, Brigit, and Insurify are also adding talent across marketing, product, data, and risk.

This week’s standout is a CTB1 exclusive for a Director of Fraud Strategy and Analytics, a role that oversees the fraud P&L and shapes defenses for a fast-growing consumer credit card business.

You will also find new product and design searches at PayPal, Visa, Brigit, and FairSquare, plus marketing and partnerships roles at Credible, Insurify, Capital One, Wells Fargo, and Aven. Data and risk hiring stays active too, with openings at Best Egg, Aven, Synchrony, USAA, and American Express.

🚨 CTB1 features an exclusive fraud strategy leadership role
👀 Explore 60+ new openings across marketing, product, data, and risk

If you’re exploring your next move, this week’s list has plenty worth a look.

Thanks,

Carlos Caro, Founder at New Market Growth

Nick Madrid, Co-Founder of Uncovered Media and Ghostmode

Note: Verified Toaster subscribers can submit jobs for free! Just email us at newsletters@ghostmode.co, and we’ll add it.

Director of Fraud Strategy & Analytics

Location: Remote, US

Ownership of the fraud P&L and set the holistic fraud strategy for a consumer credit card fintech. You’ll guide a team of analysts, enhance defenses at every customer touchpoint, and collaborate across the business to ship secure products and cut losses while keeping CX strong.

What You’ll Do

• Define and own the fraud strategy and long-term roadmap

• Manage, mentor, and grow a team of fraud analysts

• Strengthen controls across application, ATO, payment, and transaction risk

• Lead key cross-functional efforts and communicate results to senior leaders

What You Bring

• 7+ years of analytical fraud experience

• 3+ years as a people and team leader 

• Deep knowledge of card/payments fraud 

• Strong technical skills (SQL/Python) 

• Prior fintech or startup experience a plus 

Look below to learn more or apply directly via email connect@CTB1LLC.com, and mention Toaster.

Looking to hire a key role?

The CTB1 team can help.

No retainers or upfront costs. CTB1 only gets paid if they fill your role.

CTB1 is a boutique talent and recruiting firm specializing in exclusive fintech, banking, and lending roles. Unlike typical recruiting channels, CTB1 allows job seekers direct access to Connie and Cammie, ensuring personal responses rather than getting lost in a pile of resumes. For hiring managers, CTB1 quickly identifies top-tier talent, especially for specialized roles in credit, risk, marketing, and data science. Their unique, contingency-based business model means no upfront costs—companies only pay upon successfully filling a role.

email connect@CTB1LLC.com and mention Toaster to learn more

Stay tuned for your weekly pulse on fintech hiring, only at The Free Toaster.
It’s free!

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

Intuit just opened the door to a new kind of financial guidance by bringing its AI platform directly into ChatGPT through a long-term partnership with OpenAI. Klarna secured a $6.5 billion forward-flow deal with Elliott to ramp up its U.S. Fair Financing business, giving it a cheaper, scalable funding pipeline. And JPMorgan locked in paid data-access agreements with Plaid, Yodlee, Morningstar, and Akoya, a shift that could reshape how banks, aggregators, and fintechs negotiate data rights in the year ahead.

Capital One’s Discover migration is testing how much network perception still matters. Amscot and Green Dot are pushing modern banking tools into physical service centers. Credit access is tightening as rejection rates hit highs and auto delinquencies climb to record levels. CFES rolled out new lending standards that aim to bring bank–fintech partnerships onto the same compliance page. And even with the federal shutdown resolved, households and regulators are still working through the fallout.

Experian raised its outlook on steady growth, Klarna posted its strongest quarter to date, and Mastercard, FIS, FICO, Enova, and Bread Financial all reported firm spending trends and improving credit results as fintechs head into the final stretch of the year.

Here’s what’s happening across fintech right now.

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Webinar: LLM Playbook with Profound: How Financial Marketers Can Win in AI-Driven Discovery

Fintel Connect

Join leaders from Profound and Fintel Connect for an interactive live discussion on how large language models (LLMs) are reshaping digital discovery - and what it means for your acquisition strategy. Unpack what signals drive LLM visibility, the role affiliates and publishers play in this new ecosystem, and the practical steps financial brands can take today to stay discoverable and competitive.

When? Tuesday, December 2 | 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST | Microsoft Teams

You'll learn: 

• How LLMs are transforming digital discovery - and what that means for SEO and acquisition in financial services.

• Practical insights into how banks, fintechs, and affiliates can future-proof their acquisition strategies in the age of LLMs.

• The evolving role of affiliates in supporting visibility, sentiment, and performance in a “no-click” world.

• The fundamentals of achieving LLM visibility and best practices for optimizing financial content for LLM discovery.

Featuring: 

• Josh Blyskal, Answer Engine Optimization Strategy & Research, Profound

• Nicky Senyard, CEO and Co-Founder, Fintel Connect 

• Alana Levine, CRO and Co-Founder, Fintel Connect 

Whether you’re experimenting with generative AI or building your 2026 acquisition roadmap, this session will give you the practical insights-and real-world examples - to help future-proof your growth strategy and win in the age of LLMs.

Intuit and OpenAI Join Forces to Revolutionize Financial Intelligence, Powering Every Person, Business, and Dream with Personalized Experiences

Intuit, the global financial technology platform behind TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, just announced a multi-year, strategic partnership with OpenAI to revolutionize "Financial Intelligence." This collaboration will bring Intuit's AI-driven expert platform to ChatGPT, allowing users to get secure, personalized, and "actionable financial insights and recommendations" through new Intuit-powered apps inside the chat experience. Consumers can look forward to finding the best credit cards or getting personalized tax answers, while businesses will gain access to tools that "increase revenue and profitability". Intuit is deepening its commitment to AI with a new "$100M+ multi-year contract" to utilize OpenAI's frontier models in its proprietary generative AI operating system (GenOS). The goal is to power AI agents that can "understand complex questions, surfacing insights instantly, and helping to complete tasks" like forecasting cash flow or preparing taxes through natural conversation. This major partnership aims to both deepen relationships with Intuit's existing 100 million customers and extend its reach to new audiences. [Intuit]

Klarna Strikes $6.5 Billion Loan Deal With Elliott Funds to Boost US Push

Klarna, the Swedish fintech firm and one of Europe's biggest, just struck a major deal to "boost its U.S. push," agreeing to sell up to "$6.5 billion of loans" to funds managed by Elliott Investment Management over a two-year period. The agreement allows Klarna to sell a portion of its existing Fair Financing portfolio and continually transfer newly originated receivables to Elliott funds starting in October. This strategic "forward flow agreement" provides Klarna with a "capital efficient and highly scalable funding source" to rapidly expand its buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) business in the U.S.. Klarna's Fair Financing product, which lets customers spread "large-ticket purchases into fixed monthly installments," has become "significantly popular in the U.S.," seeing gross merchandise value growth of 244% compared to 139% globally. Despite selling the loans, Klarna will retain "all consumer-facing functions, including underwriting and servicing". The company's CFO stated this deal will help them "reach even more Americans who are moving on from traditional credit and choosing fairer ways to pay". [Reuters]

JPMorgan Secures Deals With Fintech Aggregators Over Fees to Access Data, CNBC Reports

JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, successfully secured deals with several major data aggregators, including Plaid, Yodlee, Morningstar, and Akoya, ensuring it will now receive payments for access to its customer bank account data. Data aggregators are intermediaries that link banks with fintech firms, which previously accessed customer data without paying, enabling apps to offer services like budgeting and payments. A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson stated that "The free market worked" and that the agreements make the open banking ecosystem "safer and more sustainable". These deals, which came after weeks of negotiation, involve the bank agreeing to a lower fee than initially proposed, while the intermediaries secured concessions on how the data requests are handled. This move is part of the ongoing debate surrounding "open banking" rules introduced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which sets standards for data sharing. [Reuters]

Capital One Debit-Card Users Aren’t All Happy After the Switch to Discover

Source: WSJ

Capital One is shaking things up by moving its debit cards from the Mastercard network over to the Discover network following its acquisition of Discover earlier this year. While Capital One is banking on "considerable savings" from using its own network, some customers aren't thrilled, feeling like the switch is a downgrade because of the perception that Discover isn't as "widely accepted." Despite analysts noting that over 99% of U.S. merchants accept Discover cards, customer concerns are cropping up on social media, fueled by sporadic issues and unfamiliarity with the network. For instance, some users can't use the new cards at certain local stores or for "certain monthly subscriptions." Capital One admits that maximizing the network benefit will require investments, especially outside the U.S. where acceptance is lower, and is actively "working to expand the Discover network and address customer concerns." One key customer frustration is that Discover's debit-card network isn't accepted for all "instant transfers" in apps like Venmo, requiring customers to find workarounds. [WSJ]

Amscot Financial Partners with Green Dot to Offer Modern Banking to Customers

Source: Amscot Financial

Amscot Financial, a financial services company offering solutions through over 230 centers across Florida, announced a new partnership with Green Dot Corporation to expand its product offerings with demand deposit accounts (DDAs). This collaboration, powered by Green Dot's embedded finance platform, Arc, will bring "secure, seamless and affordable banking" services to Amscot’s customers, which includes many of the 19 million underbanked U.S. households. The new solution offers a comprehensive banking package, featuring a DDA, a "built-in secured credit card," and access to a network of "more than 25,000 free in-network ATMs." Amscot aims to enhance accessibility to "modern, affordable banking options" that help its "hardworking Floridians" build "strong financial foundations." Green Dot, which has a "long-standing commitment to supporting low- to moderate-income consumers," is providing tools that will "simplify and enhance their financial lives." [Green Dot]

Rising Rejections and Record Auto Stress Point to a Tougher Credit Cycle

Consumers are running into more closed doors when they look for credit. The New York Fed’s October Credit Access Survey shows overall rejection rates hitting a series high at 24.8%, with more borrowers calling themselves “discouraged.” Card applications nudged up and limit-increase requests matched prior peaks, but approval anxiety is doing real damage. Even households with solid incomes think they’ll be denied, creating a gap between perceived and actual rejection odds.

PYMNTS data reinforces that split. Forty-two percent of consumers doubt they’d get a new card, even though real denial rates for general-purpose cards are closer to fifteen percent for those without active accounts. Instead of taking the risk of a new inquiry, many are leaning on existing cards, asking for larger limits, or shifting toward BNPL. The Fed notes that a growing share of applications now comes from borrowers with sub-680 scores, where rejection sits above sixty percent, which helps explain why overall denials keep climbing even as card approvals hold steadier.

Source: New York Fed

Auto credit tells the other half of the story. Fitch says subprime borrowers at least 60 days late on their car loans climbed to 6.65% in October, the highest level on record. Two subprime-focused auto lenders have already gone under, and more pressure is building as household budgets stretch. Prime borrowers remain mostly untouched, but the widening split highlights where risk is accumulating. For lenders and fintechs, the signals are aligned: demand for credit is firm, access is uneven, and consumer psychology is starting to shape the market as much as underwriting. [Reuters] [PYMNTS] [New York Fed]

CFES Releases Lending Standards to Strengthen Bank–Fintech Alignment and Provide Clarity in Lending Compliance

The Coalition for Financial Ecosystem Standards (CFES), an industry-led organization, just released its new Lending Module and an accompanying Lending Checklist to "strengthen bank–fintech alignment and provide clarity in lending compliance". Developed with industry leaders like FairPlay and Upstart, these standards offer "actionable guidance" across seven critical areas, translating complex lending regulations into clear frameworks for compliance and risk management. The standards are particularly timely as they address the unique challenges of technology-driven lending, providing dedicated guidance on "model risk management, validation processes, and governance frameworks" for AI and machine learning in credit decisioning. The goal is to create a "shared understanding" between bank and nonbank lenders on effective risk management and regulatory compliance. The new module builds on CFES's earlier Core Risk & Compliance Standards by adding more detailed expectations across the entire credit lifecycle, from marketing through servicing and collections, and including eight new standards for "credit model governance" and "AI explainability". This industry-led blueprint aims to create "consistency and accountability" during a time of "shifting regulatory posture". [Business Wire]

Zilch Raises Over $175 Million to Accelerate Growth

Source: Zilch

Zilch, the London-headquartered "consumer payments platform" and the UK and EMEA’s fastest-growing fintech unicorn, announced it has successfully raised "over USD $175 million" in a mix of debt and equity. This substantial raise included the expansion of its securitization led by Deutsche Bank, with the equity portion led by KKCG and participation from BNF Capital. Zilch intends to invest the new capital into "driving greater brand visibility" through increased "above-the-line (ATL) marketing spend," further product enhancement, and the "exploration of strategic M&A opportunities". The funding follows the recent launch of two major products: Intelligent Commerce, an "AI-powered platform" that has already become one of the business’s fastest-growing revenue streams, and Zilch Pay, a one-click checkout experience set to launch in H1 2026. Since its launch in 2020, the company has amassed "over 5.3 million customers" and has processed "over £5 billion of commerce" on its mission to eliminate high-cost credit. [Business Wire]

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Looking for your next fintech role?

Stay ahead of where the industry is hiring. The Free Toaster Jobs newsletter curates standout openings in fintech marketing, product, data, and risk each week, along with insights into the trends shaping hiring across leading lenders, neobanks, and fintech startups.

Subscribe to The Free Toaster Jobs to get the latest roles and hiring insights delivered straight to your inbox (Toaster subs that don’t opt-in won’t get the Friday jobs Edition).

Missed last week’s edition? Check out the most recent job listings here.

This Week’s Friday Jobs Edition:

Fintech hiring is heating up again as lenders, card issuers, and data platforms open new seats across marketing, product, and analytics. This week’s slate brings senior roles from Credit Karma, MoneyLion, and First Citizens Bank, plus product leadership searches at SoFi, PayPal, Pagaya, and Visa.

Two major exclusives lead the lineup. CTB1 is back with a Director of Credit Strategy and Analytics for an SMB credit portfolio, and Fiat Talent is recruiting a General Manager to run PayMe, a top-ranked consumer finance app inside Kinetic’s fast-moving AI studio.

Plus, a standout subscriber submission from Credit Karma highlights a Director of Business Development for its Credit Cards vertical.

🚨 CTB1 spotlights another exclusive role in credit strategy
🚨 Fiat Talent features a founder-style GM role scaling a top finance app
👀 Explore 70+ new openings across marketing, product, data, and risk

If you’re exploring your next move in fintech growth, this week’s list has plenty worth a look.

(Note: Verified Toaster subscribers can submit jobs for free! Just email us at newsletters@ghostmode.co, and we’ll add it.)

Director, Credit Strategy & Analytics

Location: NYC, Hybrid

Lead end-to-end strategy for SMB credit products (Business Credit Card + Funding). Own underwriting, portfolio performance, economics, and risk posture while driving responsible growth. Partner with Product, DS, Finance, and Marketing to launch new credit initiatives and optimize acquisition, unit economics, and portfolio health. Manage and develop an analytics team and represent the company with bank partners and capital providers.

Requirements:

• 8–12 years in credit analytics or strategy

• Deep experience with card or lending portfolios

• Strong SQL and Python skills

• Background in credit modeling

• Proven team leadership

• Clear, confident communication skills

• Bonus: startup/fintech experience and exposure to capital markets

Success looks like:

• Profitable and durable credit growth

• Smooth, successful product launches

• Strong partnerships across teams and with external stakeholder

Look below to learn more or apply directly via email connect@CTB1LLC.com, and mention Toaster.

General Manager, PayMe (Kinetic)

Location: Brooklyn, NY (In-Office)
Compensation: $200K–$300K base + meaningful equity in Kinetic

Fiat Talent is recruiting on behalf of Kinetic, an AI-native app foundry backed by Google Ventures, Point72, and Alexis Ohanian. The team is small, fast, and known for shipping consumer apps that climb the charts in weeks, not quarters.

They’re hiring a General Manager to run PayMe, a top 15 Finance app on iOS helping users earn and claim millions of dollars. The GM owns the full P&L, product roadmap, growth engine, and user experience. You’ll launch new versions of the app, run aggressive testing across onboarding and paywalls, build engagement loops, and hire the early team as PayMe grows into a broader financial product. This role reports to Justin Silver, CEO of Kinetic, and will operate as a senior leader inside the studio.

The role is built for someone who has gone from 1 to 100 at a consumer fintech and knows how to operate like a founder. The ideal candidate brings:

• Experience owning P&L or leading product/growth at fintech names like Rocket Money, Truebill, Copilot, Monarch Money, Albert, Chime, Digit, or Dave

• A strong product and growth toolkit across experimentation, pricing, paywalls, lifecycle, and funnels

• A data-first approach and comfort running rapid tests without layers of process

• High-agency problem solving and the ability to build hands-on, not from the sidelines

• The range to shift from IC-level execution to managing a growing team

Interested? Email us at nick@fiatgrowth.com and we'll get you in touch with the hiring contact at Fiat Talent. Be sure to include your LinkedIn profile in your email.

Fiat Talent

About Fiat Talent Fiat Talent is part of Fiat Growth & Fiat Ventures. We place vetted, senior-level talent (Director and above) across Marketing, Sales, GTM, BD, Partnerships, and Product roles at fintech and fintech-adjacent startups (Insurtech, Proptech, ClimateTech, HealthTech, etc.), from seed stage through pre-IPO.

Looking to hire a key role?

The CTB1 team can help.

No retainers or upfront costs. CTB1 only gets paid if they fill your role.

CTB1 is a boutique talent and recruiting firm specializing in exclusive fintech, banking, and lending roles. Unlike typical recruiting channels, CTB1 allows job seekers direct access to Connie and Cammie, ensuring personal responses rather than getting lost in a pile of resumes. For hiring managers, CTB1 quickly identifies top-tier talent, especially for specialized roles in credit, risk, marketing, and data science. Their unique, contingency-based business model means no upfront costs—companies only pay upon successfully filling a role.

email connect@CTB1LLC.com and mention Toaster to learn more

Stay tuned for your weekly pulse on fintech hiring, only at The Free Toaster.
It’s free!

💌 From the Inbox: New Openings From Our Subscribers

Director, Business Development – Charlotte, NC (Credit Karma)

This week’s subscriber submission comes from one of the biggest names in consumer finance. Credit Karma is hiring a Director of Business Development to lead relationships across its Credit Cards vertical. The role owns partnerships with major financial institutions, guides strategy across complex cross-functional work, and manages a team focused on partner success, deal execution, and long-range growth planning.

For operators who live at the intersection of acquisition, partnerships, and consumer lending, this is a high-visibility track. The ideal candidate brings deep experience in digital marketing or lending, strong executive presence, and a record of driving partner programs that scale.

Verified Toaster subscribers can submit jobs for free!

Credit Karma

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Spinwheel.

Visa and Mastercard just agreed to a $38 billion settlement to end two decades of swipe fee battles, but merchants are still pushing back. The deal caps consumer card rates and trims fees for five years, yet many say it still favors the banks. Propel’s new partnership with Column Bank signals a bigger U.S. lending push through its CreditFresh brand, while airlines like United and Southwest are turning debit cards into loyalty engines that tie checking accounts directly to travel rewards.

Beyond that, fintechs are moving fast. U.S. Bank rolled out its Split World Mastercard with built-in pay-over-time features, Rakuten and Bilt joined forces to merge cash back with points, and Robinhood’s Gold Card is setting a new standard for how smooth an application can feel. AI is moving deeper into commerce, with Shopify and Worldpay leading the push toward more automated, personalized shopping experiences.

Earnings season told its own story. Affirm reported record revenue, Adyen and Block both posted double-digit gains, and Sezzle hit the billion-dollar GMV mark for the first time. NerdWallet, Gen Digital, Marqeta, Fiserv, and OppFi also turned in strong quarters, showing how fintechs are balancing credit quality, growth, and profit as 2025 winds down.

Here’s what’s happening across fintech right now.

PS: To support our Newsletter, please share it with one colleague!

With a single call to our simple, dev-friendly APIs, Spinwheel offers the only comprehensive connection to your consumers' financial accounts.

Spinwheel delivers PII, real-time, verified account data, and the ability to make payments across all major debt categories – all within your brand's experience.

With many happy customers, including:

Visa, Mastercard Reach $38 Billion Swipe Fee Settlement, Draw Opposition

Source: Reuters

Visa and Mastercard, the card network giants, just reached a revised $38 billion settlement with merchants who've been suing them for two decades over allegedly excessive "swipe fees". Merchants, who accused the companies and banks of violating U.S. antitrust laws, say they would still pay too much, especially to accept popular rewards cards. The new deal aims to satisfy a judge who rejected a smaller $30 billion accord last year, calling the projected merchant savings "paltry". The new settlement mandates that the card networks lower swipe fees by 0.1 percentage point for five years and caps standard consumer rates at 1.25% for eight years. Merchant groups, however, still oppose the accord, arguing it doesn't give banks an incentive to lower rates or address the issue of accepting all cards, which they say would make them "lose a lot of business". Even so, supporters, like the Electronic Payments Coalition, which includes Capital One, Chase, and Citibank, say the deal would reduce swipe fees more than a proposed Senate bill. Experts hired by the merchant plaintiffs believe ending the "upward spiral" could save merchants $38 billion by 2031. [Reuters]

Propel Holdings and Column Announce Strategic Partnership to Expand Access to Credit Across the U.S.

Propel Holdings, a fintech company that facilitates access to credit for underserved consumers, is teaming up with Column N.A., a nationally chartered bank designed to help companies build and fund new financial products. This strategic partnership, operating under Propel's CreditFresh brand and ForwardFlow line of business, will expand the company's presence in the U.S. credit market by bringing unsecured personal loans to new customer segments and additional geographies. The new product, named Freshline and provided by Column, is expected to launch in Q1, 2026. Propel plans to provide servicing and forward flow the loan economics to third-party partners. Propel's CEO, Clive Kinross, noted that Column's national footprint and modern banking platform will "dramatically accelerate" their U.S. growth. Propel has over fourteen years in enabling credit and has already helped consumers access "over two billion dollars in credit". The collaboration will allow the fintech to deepen its specialization in serving the underserved U.S. market. [PR Newswire]

Airlines Turn Debit Into the New Loyalty Engine

Source: United Debit Rewards

Two of the biggest U.S. carriers are giving debit cards a frequent-flyer twist. Southwest Airlines and United Airlines rolled out new reward-earning debit products that let customers collect miles or points on everyday spending without a credit check. Southwest’s Rapid Rewards Debit Card, built with Galileo and Sunrise Banks, lets cardholders earn points toward the Companion Pass and receive annual travel perks, while United’s MileagePlus Debit Rewards Card adds monthly mile bonuses based on account balances.

Source: Southwest Rapid Rewards

The timing shows how airlines are rethinking loyalty as a payments strategy. Credit cards still dominate high-spend travelers, but these debit launches target a wider base of consumers who want flexibility and transparency. By tying checking accounts to reward ecosystems, airlines are blurring the line between banking and travel, turning simple debit transactions into year-round engagement tools. [NerdWallet] [Galileo]

U.S. Bank Launches Split™ World Mastercard®

U.S. Bank, the parent company of U.S. Bank National Association, just launched a game-changing credit card, the U.S. Bank Split™ World Mastercard®, that automatically converts all purchases into pay-over-time plans. This new card is an alternative to traditional Buy Now, Pay Later options, offering a single solution backed by a major bank that provides consumer protections and the ability to build credit. All purchases are automatically split into a three-month payment plan with "no interest or annual fee". For larger purchases of $100 or more, cardholders can extend the payment plan to six or 12 months for a small, fixed monthly plan fee. Chris Roncari, head of product and experience for consumer and small business payments at U.S. Bank, said the Split Card is designed for consumers seeking "easy and transparent ways to fund purchases of all sizes" and expects it to be a "top choice for Gen Z consumers" who desire financial consistency. Cardholders can shop anywhere Mastercard is accepted and manage all their purchase plans with a simple and transparent dashboard in the U.S. Bank Mobile App and online banking. [U.S. Bank]

Rakuten and Bilt Launch Partnership to Power Smart Rewards

Source: Rakuten

Bilt and Rakuten have teamed up to connect two major rewards ecosystems ahead of the holiday season. The new partnership lets Bilt members convert Rakuten Cash Back directly into Bilt Points, turning everyday purchases into flights, rent credits, or lifestyle perks. For the first six months, members enjoy a 1:1 conversion rate and a 2,500-point welcome bonus for new Rakuten sign-ups through the Bilt app. The collaboration gives Bilt access to Rakuten’s massive retail network while helping shoppers stretch their spending into long-term value without changing their usual shopping habits. The timing positions both brands at the center of the holiday spending surge when consumers are most likely to chase bonus offers. It also reinforces a growing trend in fintech loyalty, where rewards platforms are competing to become the default layer for how people earn and redeem everyday value. [Rakuten]

West Palm Beach Fintech Firm To Lay Off 141 Employees Amid Funding Collapse

The fintech startup MyBambu, which focused on providing digital financial services to underserved communities, is permanently shutting down operations and laying off all 141 employees at its West Palm Beach office. CEO Douglas P. Quay announced the closure, stating the company's "sudden loss" of its primary funding source triggered the shutdown. While MyBambu initiated emergency fundraising to fill the financial shortfall, those efforts "have not yielded sufficient results to continue operations." The layoffs are hitting multiple departments—including customer care, compliance, and marketing—with 100 employees already let go on October 31st and the remaining 41 expected to be terminated by December 31st, when the office will "be fully closed." The company's collapse highlights the volatility of the startup ecosystem, especially for businesses dependent on sustained investor backing. [CBS12]

Sezzle Banks on Subscriptions to Turn BNPL Into a Billion-Dollar Q3

Source: Sezzle

Sezzle, the buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform, hit a major milestone, clocking its first "billion-dollar" quarter in Q3, with Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) jumping "58.7% year over year to $1 billion" and total revenue climbing "67% to $116.8 million". Executive Chairman and CEO Charlie Youakim is "steering back to its subscription model" after an "On-Demand" option test "diluted lifetime value," believing subscriptions are the better long-term strategy. Management is focused on growth and responsibility, arguing that consumers "prefer to use BNPL over a credit card" and view the service as a "budgeting tool". To support this, Sezzle is exploring an industrial loan company charter, which it sees as "the right long-term path" , and it exercised a "$75 million accordion" to raise its revolving credit facility to "$225 million" before the holidays. Furthermore, management pushed back on lending worries, noting credit losses are "trending toward the lower half of the company’s 2025 target range". The company raised its 2025 profit targets and introduced its 2026 adjusted EPS guidance of "$4.35". [PYMNTS]

PublicSquare to Acquire Assets of Tandym, Adding Virtual & Private Label Credit Cards to its Growing Fintech Ecosystem

PSQ Holdings, Inc. (PublicSquare), a financial technology company, announced its planned acquisition of key software assets from Tandym, Inc., a move expected to cement PublicSquare’s strategic shift into a full-stack fintech platform. Tandym offers consumer brands a white-labeled payment and credit suite, allowing merchants in the PublicSquare ecosystem to launch their own branded cards with "seamless checkout placement" and "zero-dev lift". This acquisition will transform payments into a "high-margin growth engine" by allowing merchants to reduce processing fees to "under 1%" by bypassing traditional payment rails. CEO Michael Seifert noted the new technology will help merchants target loyal customers and unlock "new recurring revenue through interchange participation". PublicSquare plans to acquire the assets for a consideration of Class A Common Stock valued at "$5.75 million" and up to "$1.0 million" in cash, expecting the deal to close in "December 2025". The company believes the private-label credit card offering will reinforce its "mission to build a resilient, values-aligned financial network". [Nasdaq]

Agentic Commerce Moves From Hype to Habit

Source: TechCrunch

AI shopping agents are quickly moving from concept to reality. Shopify reports a sevenfold increase in traffic from AI tools and an elevenfold jump in orders tied to AI-powered search since January, showing that shoppers are becoming more comfortable letting digital assistants guide their purchases. The company’s work with OpenAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot reflects how fast AI is being woven into the everyday shopping experience.

Source: Financial Times

That shift is reinforced by new data from Worldpay, which found that nearly half of U.S. consumers would let an AI assistant browse for them, with interest rising to 59 percent among younger shoppers. By 2030, AI agents are expected to drive more than $261 billion in online sales. Together, the findings signal a major turning point where AI-guided buying is evolving from a novelty into a normal part of how people shop online. [TechCrunch] [Worldpay]

Yodlee and JPMorganChase Strengthen Decades-Long Partnership With Updated Data Access Agreement

JPMorganChase (JPMC), a "leading financial services firm" with "$4.6 trillion in assets", and Yodlee, a "leading data aggregation and analytics platform," strengthened their two-decade partnership by amending their existing Data Access agreement. The updated agreement includes "mutual commitments and a pricing structure" and is the latest step in their "long-standing relationship". Together, the companies are focusing on developing "innovative solutions that will shape the future of open finance and financial wellness" for JPMC customers and the wider financial community. Melissa Feldsher, Head of Consumer Payments at JPMorganChase, stated that the collaboration will "help improve financial wellness solutions for our customers and the overall open banking ecosystem". Yodlee CEO Farouk Ferchichi added that the companies are "building innovative financial wellness solutions for millions of U.S. customers". [Yodlee]

From the Inside: What Robinhood’s Gold Card Gets Right About the Customer Journey

I’ve seen a lot of credit card funnels in my career, but Robinhood’s Gold Card experience set a new bar for how clean and intuitive an application can be. From the moment I got the notification that I was off the waitlist, everything moved smoothly. The app brought me straight into the application, filled in almost every field, and ran a soft pull before showing my credit limit. Within seconds, I was approved, my digital card was issued, and it was live in Google Wallet before I even left the app.

Two hours later, I was already paying for lunch with the new card. That kind of flow comes from thoughtful product work and seamless integration behind the scenes. If you work in lending or credit products, go try it yourself. It’s a great example of how a financial process can feel simple, quick, and focused entirely on the user.

— Carlos Caro

Be sure to subscribe to stay informed. It’s free!

Looking for your next fintech role?

Stay ahead of where the industry is hiring. The Free Toaster Jobs newsletter curates standout openings in fintech marketing, product, data, and risk each week, along with insights into the trends shaping hiring across leading lenders, neobanks, and fintech startups.

Subscribe to The Free Toaster Jobs to get the latest roles and hiring insights delivered straight to your inbox (Toaster subs that don’t opt-in won’t get the Friday jobs Edition).

Missed last week’s edition? Check out the most recent job listings here.

This Week’s Friday Jobs Edition:

From Experian and Visa to Chime and Credit Karma, top lenders and data giants are recruiting senior marketers, product leaders, and data scientists as hiring momentum returns this quarter. This week’s lineup includes brand and growth leadership roles at Experian, Credible, and Bankrate, along with new product openings at Visa, SoFi, and Pagaya.

Plus, Toaster subscribers shared two standout listings: Vericast’s senior marketing principal for banks and credit unions, and Brigit’s senior product manager for its lending marketplace.

🚨 CTB1 spotlights another exclusive position from its client roster
🚨 Fiat Talent shares a senior marketing role in fintech growth
👀 Explore 70+ fresh fintech jobs spanning marketing, product, and risk

If you’ve been waiting for the next wave of fintech growth jobs, this week’s list is your sign to start applying.

(Note: Verified Toaster subscribers can submit jobs for free! Just email us at newsletters@ghostmode.co, and we’ll add it.)

Director of Fraud Analytics

Location: Remote, U.S. (no sponsorship available)

Oversee the full fraud strategy for a consumer credit card portfolio, with ownership of the fraud P&L and responsibility for balancing risk mitigation, customer trust, and business growth.

• Lead and mentor a team of analysts, promoting analytical rigor, innovation, and continuous improvement in fraud prevention.

• Develop and enhance fraud controls across all customer touchpoints (from onboarding and authentication to account and transaction monitoring).

• Collaborate closely with Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Ops to ensure new features and launches are designed with strong fraud defenses in place.

• Communicate key insights, emerging risks, and strategic initiatives to senior leadership, influencing priorities and investment decisions.

• Qualifications: 7+ years in fraud or risk analytics (including 3+ years managing teams), advanced analytical/technical skills (SQL, Python), and expertise in areas like application, ATO, payment, or transaction fraud.

• Preferred: Experience scaling fraud operations and working with third-party tools, data providers, or vendors in a high-growth fintech environment.

Look below to learn more or apply directly via email connect@CTB1LLC.com, and mention Toaster.

Head of Marketing (NYC WealthTech)

Location: New York City (In-office, 5 days a week)
Compensation: $180K–$230K base + stock options + full benefits

Fiat Talent is recruiting on behalf of a New York-based wealthtech backed by top venture investors. The company combines the pace of a fast-scaling startup with the stability of a seasoned leadership team from major financial institutions.

The role focuses on building sustainable inbound demand, strengthening thought leadership, and expanding organic reach. Candidates should have deep experience in demand generation and SEO, and be ready for a hands-on execution role that blends strategy with execution.

Interested? Email us at nick@fiatgrowth.com and we'll get you in touch with the hiring contact at Fiat Talent. Be sure to include your LinkedIn profile in your email.

Fiat Talent

About Fiat Talent Fiat Talent is part of Fiat Growth & Fiat Ventures. We place vetted, senior-level talent (Director and above) across Marketing, Sales, GTM, BD, Partnerships, and Product roles at fintech and fintech-adjacent startups (Insurtech, Proptech, ClimateTech, HealthTech, etc.), from seed stage through pre-IPO.

Looking to hire a key role?

The CTB1 team can help.

No retainers or upfront costs. CTB1 only gets paid if they fill your role.

CTB1 is a boutique talent and recruiting firm specializing in exclusive fintech, banking, and lending roles. Unlike typical recruiting channels, CTB1 allows job seekers direct access to Connie and Cammie, ensuring personal responses rather than getting lost in a pile of resumes. For hiring managers, CTB1 quickly identifies top-tier talent, especially for specialized roles in credit, risk, marketing, and data science. Their unique, contingency-based business model means no upfront costs—companies only pay upon successfully filling a role.

email connect@CTB1LLC.com and mention Toaster to learn more

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💌 From the Inbox: New Openings From Our Subscribers

• Senior Principal - Bank & Credit Union Marketing - Remote (Vericast)

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This week’s submissions spotlight two distinct sides of fintech growth. Vericast is hiring a senior marketing leader to guide bank and credit union campaigns, while Brigit is expanding its marketplace product team as it scales consumer lending access.

Vericast

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This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

Fintech partnerships took center stage. T-Mobile and Capital One rolled out a new Visa card designed to turn everyday purchases into rewards, while Affirm signed a $750 million loan purchase deal with New York Life, strengthening its funding pipeline. Pagaya added another major win, securing a $500 million auto loan agreement with Castlelake as private credit firms keep expanding their role in consumer lending.

Regulators are also in focus. The Federal Reserve’s October SLOOS survey shows banks slowly easing lending standards, even as VantageScore data points to higher delinquencies and TransUnion reports a widening credit gap between super prime and subprime consumers. At the same time, the CFPB rollback under the Trump administration continues, with new court rulings reinforcing the Fed’s discretion over fintech access to payment rails.

Earnings this week underline the divide between disciplined lenders and high-growth platforms. Upstart and Dave both posted their strongest quarters yet, while Visa and PayPal delivered steady gains in payments and cross-border volume. LendingTree, OneMain, and Rocket Companies rounded out the quarter with improved margins and cautious optimism for 2026.

Here’s what’s happening across fintech right now.

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Capital One & T-Mobile Team Up On A Credit Card

Source: T-Mobile

T-Mobile, the supercharged Un-carrier, and Capital One, a major financial holding company, teamed up to launch the new T-Mobile Visa card, turning everyday purchases into T-Mobile Rewards. Cardholders get 2% in rewards on "every purchase, every day" and a whopping 5% in rewards on new phones, devices, and accessories purchased at T-Mobile. The card also gives members with eligible plans a special $5 monthly AutoPay discount on up to eight lines, a perk no other credit card can offer at T-Mobile. The card comes with no annual or foreign transaction fees, and it stacks on top of existing Magenta Status benefits with extra perks like "up to 50% off select hotels" through T-Mobile Travel. This partnership combines Capital One's deep investment in credit card innovation with T-Mobile's disruption history in financial services, aiming to give customers the "VIP treatment" they deserve. [PYMNTS]

Affirm Signs $750M Deal With New York Life

Affirm, a Buy-Now-Pay-Later payments company, just secured a new deal with New York Life Insurance, highlighting how traditional finance giants are deepening their ties with fintech lenders. Under the agreement, New York Life will purchase "up to $750 million worth of Affirm's installment loans through 2026," providing fresh off-balance-sheet financing. This funding will support "roughly $1.75 billion in annual loan volume" for the payments company. The deal extends a relationship that started in 2023 and follows a "broader trend" of insurers like Liberty Mutual Investments and PGIM moving into consumer finance, as higher interest rates make these assets more attractive. New York Life has already funneled "nearly $2 billion into Affirm’s collateral pools" since their partnership began. Affirm boasts strong credit performance, with "more than 90% of its borrowers" being repeat customers. [CNBC]

Pagaya Secures $500M Auto Loan Deal with Castlelake

Pagaya Technologies, a financial services platform that uses machine learning to assess borrower risk, just signed a "half-billion-dollar deal" to offload auto loans to private credit manager Castlelake. The agreement is a forward flow arrangement "worth up to US$500M," where the asset manager commits to purchasing auto loans as they are generated, giving the fintech immediate liquidity. This deal is the second major funding agreement this year between the two companies, following a "$2.5B deal focused on personal loans" announced earlier. CEO Gal Krubiner emphasized that Pagaya's model incorporates "rigorous dealer oversight and multiple layers of third-party verification" amid rising scrutiny in the auto lending sector. The forward flow agreement arrives as the company shows "improved financial performance," having entered "an era of profitability" in 2025. [Fintech Magazine]

Robinhood and Sage Home Loans Team Up On Mortgage Offer

Source: Robinhood

Robinhood, the financial services platform, just fully rolled out a new mortgage offer for its Gold subscribers through an exclusive partnership with Sage Home Loans, a modern digital mortgage lender. Starting immediately, all eligible Robinhood Gold subscribers can access mortgage rates "at least 0.75% below the national average," plus receive a "$500 credit toward closing costs" for new home purchases or refinances, all powered by Sage Home Loans. Robinhood Director of Partnerships Sakhi Gandhi says this new benefit, which was piloted over the summer, supports the company's mission to "democratize finance for all" and "reduce financial barriers to homeownership". Sage Home Loans CEO Mike Malloy emphasized that their goal is to help more people turn financial progress into homeownership by making the mortgage experience "simple, digital, and transparent". This collaboration highlights a major transformation in the mortgage industry, where "data-driven technology, transparency, and user experience" are rapidly reshaping how people buy and refinance homes. [Robinhood]

TransUnion Reports Credit Card Originations Increased 9% YOY in Q2 2025

TransUnion's Q3 2025 Credit Industry Insights Report revealed a "divergence in consumer credit risk," as the percentage of consumers in the "super prime" risk tier continues to rise, hitting 40.9% in Q3 2025, while the "subprime" segment has returned to pre-pandemic levels at 14.4%. This two-sided movement suggests that while many consumers are navigating the economy well, others are facing financial strain. This divergence showed up most clearly in credit card and auto lending, where year-over-year growth in both new account originations and total balances was "strongest in these two tiers". Credit card originations, driven by "super prime and subprime segments," rose 9% year-over-year in Q2 2025 for the third consecutive quarter, while unsecured personal loan originations saw a "substantial" 26% year-over-year increase. Mortgage activity also ticked up 8.8% year-over-year, but the consumer-level 60+ DPD delinquency rate "edged up" to 1.36%. Auto loan originations "rose 5.2% YoY," led by growth in the super prime and subprime tiers, but delinquency rates among newer vintages remain elevated. [TransUnion]

The October 2025 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices

The Federal Reserve’s October 2025 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS) shows that banks kept consumer lending standards mostly unchanged in the third quarter. Auto loans saw a small easing in terms, while credit cards and other personal loans stayed steady. Compared with the sharp pullbacks seen in 2020 and 2022, lenders appear to have found a cautious middle ground, maintaining credit access while monitoring repayment trends and household budgets.

Source: Federal Reserve

The survey also shows a slight increase in banks’ willingness to make new consumer installment loans. It’s a quiet but notable shift after more than a year of tightening. Even so, most banks remain selective, balancing credit growth against rising delinquency ratios and the high cost of funds. The tone of this report suggests lenders are ready to lend again, but only where performance and risk data justify it.

On the demand side, consumers continue to send mixed signals. Credit card and personal loan applications have picked up, likely driven by holiday spending and short-term liquidity needs, while auto loan demand continues to weaken as elevated rates dampen affordability. For fintechs and lenders, the message is clear: growth opportunities are strongest in short-term and revolving credit, while big-ticket financing remains a tougher sell. [Federal Reserve]

SavvyMoney Raises $225M to Accelerate Innovation for Financial Institutions

Source: SavvyMoney

SavvyMoney, a financial wellness and growth solutions provider, just raised a "minority investment" of $225 million, co-led by PSG and Canapi Ventures, with continued backing from Spectrum Equity. CEO JB Orecchia cheered the validation, noting they've spent years proving that community banks and credit unions can deliver value-driving financial wellness tools. PSG, specializing in scaling B2B software, brings its software expertise to enhance the platform's ability to drive customer engagement. Canapi Ventures contributes deep financial services expertise through its network of over 70 financial institutions, providing direct insight into banks' needs. This fresh capital will "accelerate" SavvyMoney's product roadmap and market investments, helping it better serve its core community of over 1,500 financial institutions. The company has almost doubled its institutional footprint since 2021. [SavvyMoney]

Banks’ New Consumer Credit Activity Cools, Mortgage Credit Delinquencies Increase

Source: VantageScore

Banks appear to be "reining in new lending" after a strong summer, leading to new consumer credit activity cooling modestly in September 2025, according to VantageScore's CreditGauge report. Originations "declined across all products month-over-month," with Personal Loans leading the drop, followed by Credit Cards, Auto Loans, and Mortgages. Meanwhile, Mortgage credit delinquencies rose "across all stages of delinquency" month-over-month and year-over-year. This rise was "most pronounced" in late-stage (90-119 Days Past Due) accounts, which hit their highest level since January 2020. Overall early-stage delinquencies are also rising, with 30-59 Days Past Due accounts reaching a year-to-date high and "nearing the pre-pandemic threshold" for the first time in five years. The average VantageScore 4.0 credit score "remained stable at 701" in September. [VantageScore]

Fed Cuts Rates Again, but Powell Raises Doubts About Easing at Next Meeting

The Federal Reserve approved its second consecutive interest rate cut by a 10-2 vote, lowering the benchmark overnight borrowing rate to a range of 3.75%-4%. The central bank's Federal Open Market Committee also announced it would end the reduction of its asset purchases, known as quantitative tightening (QT), on December 1st, rolling maturing mortgage securities into shorter-term bills. Despite the rate cut, Chair Jerome Powell "rattled markets" by saying a "further reduction in the policy rate at the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion," citing "strongly differing views" among officials. The committee reiterated concerns about the labor market, stating that "downside risks to employment rose in recent months," while noting that available economic activity indicators "suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace". The decision came even as the Fed lacked key economic data due to a government suspension of reports, forcing the committee to rely on "available indicators". [CNBC]

Court Backs Fed’s Power to Block FinTech Access to Payment Rails

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit backed the Federal Reserve's "full discretion" to deny master account applications, upholding the denial to Custodia Bank, a Wyoming-chartered digital-asset institution. The court's 2-1 ruling in Custodia Bank v. Federal Reserve Board concluded that the Reserve Banks are authorized to "receive deposits" but are not compelled to do so, rejecting the bank's argument that a clause in the 1980 Monetary Control Act required automatic approval. This decision validates the Fed's tiered, risk-based review framework, which applies the strictest scrutiny to firms that lack federal deposit insurance or supervision, like Custodia. The Kansas City Fed denied Custodia because its crypto-centric business model carried "undue risk" to the payment system and was "highly likely inconsistent with safe and sound banking practices". The ruling reinforces the Fed's authority to limit access to payment rails for crypto-focused or unsupervised firms, likely stalling efforts by other fintechs seeking "skinny" or limited-purpose accounts. [PYMNTS]

US Consumer Finance Watchdog Formally Kills Biden-era Bad Actor Registry

Source: Reuters

The top U.S. government watchdog for consumer finance, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), formally killed a registry for non-bank financial companies caught violating consumer laws, claiming the costs outweighed any public benefit. The registry, originally proposed under the Biden administration to help catch and deter "repeat offenders," was scrapped as part of President Donald Trump's "wholesale reduction" of the agency's legal authorities. The CFPB's cost-benefit analysis stated the offender registry merely duplicated an existing multi-state registry system and that ending it would result in only about $360 in "reduced costs per company". While "industry organizations and state regulators" supported the repeal, the advocacy group Better Markets warned the move would increase risks to consumers and lessen deterrence. Better Markets emphasized that "50 percent of the US lending market" is now held by non-banks. [Reuters]

How Trump’s Hatchet Man Is Destroying Consumer Protections

Source: Forbes

The Trump Administration, through acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Russell Vought, is systematically dismantling the agency, putting consumer protections at risk across various financial products. The administration has "permanently dismissed 22 CFPB enforcement actions," allowing "at least $120 million" due to consumers to stay in companies' pockets, with another "$240 million slated to be paid out" potentially facing the same fate. For example, the administration erased a ruling forcing Toyota Motor Credit to give customers $48 million back for sneakily including unwanted products in auto contracts. Vought, who reportedly aims to shut the agency down entirely in a few months, has seemingly halted the CFPB's supervisory examinations of large financial institutions and ordered staffers to stop much of their work, creating an "almost complete abandonment" of its obligations. Financial institutions are getting the message that there are "fewer cops on the regulatory beat," leading to less investment in consumer compliance. This rollback comes as consumer delinquencies on credit card and auto loans have risen to "12-year highs," putting vulnerable Americans at greater risk of predatory practices in areas like subprime auto lending and credit reporting. [Forbes]

US Fintech Lettuce Financial Raises $28m in Zeev Ventures-led Round

Source: Lettuce

Lettuce Financial, a US-based fintech start-up serving solopreneurs, just completed a $28 million funding round led by long-term backer Zeev Ventures to enhance its AI-powered platform for independent workers. Lettuce Financial, established in 2023, automates tax and accounting processes and provides an array of business management tools for solopreneurs, contractors, and freelancers. The new cash injection will fund platform expansion initiatives, focusing on retirement planning with Solo 401(k) and SEP IRA guidance. The company also plans to upgrade its AI services to improve "workflow and accessibility," including a voice interface that "enables solopreneurs to manage their business operations conversationally". Alongside the funding, Lettuce announced it acquired Besolo, an Arizona-based start-up focused on health and retirement benefits access, for an undisclosed sum, with Besolo's team joining to lead Lettuce's healthcare offering. [Fintech Futures]

How Will Payments Change with Revolut’s 1:1 Stablecoin Rate?

Revolut, the British banking app, introduced a 1:1 conversion rate for stablecoin transfers, allowing users to exchange $1 USD for exactly 1 USDC or 1 USDT in-app, with "no variation in price". This move aims to "completely eliminating the pain of going on and off-chain" and dissolve concerns about moving money between crypto and fiat. Revolut's Head of Product, Crypto, Leonid Bashlykov, says the company is bringing the same "revolution to crypto" that it brought to currency exchange years ago, with "transparent FX, no hidden markups, no crazy fees". For payments, this means users can exchange at "US$1.00 every time" and "move across 6+ supported chains (incl. Ethereum, Solana, Tron and others)". The news follows Revolut's crypto arm being granted the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) authorization by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), which allows it to begin trading in Europe. The London-based company now serves "more than 65 million customers across 38 countries" and is targeting entry into 30 new markets by 2030. [Fintech Magazine]

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This Week’s Friday Jobs Edition:

US Bank, Citi, and Capital One are growing their marketing and lending teams, while PayPal and Chime are adding roles across product and risk. The strongest movement this week is in credit and data, where fintechs are hiring analysts and product leads to refine risk models and improve acquisition performance.

Across teams, hiring points to a more integrated approach. Marketing and analytics functions are blending as growth teams link paid, organic, and affiliate efforts under unified goals. Product and data roles are also expanding to prepare for stricter lending oversight and sharper targeting.

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Head of Marketing (NYC WealthTech)

Location: New York City (In-office, 5 days a week)
Compensation: $180K–$230K base + stock options + full benefits

Fiat Talent is recruiting on behalf of a New York-based wealthtech backed by top venture investors. The company combines the pace of a fast-scaling startup with the stability of a seasoned leadership team from major financial institutions.

The role focuses on building sustainable inbound demand, strengthening thought leadership, and expanding organic reach. Candidates should have deep experience in demand generation and SEO, and be ready for a hands-on execution role that blends strategy with execution.

Interested? Email us at nick@fiatgrowth.com and we'll get you in touch with the hiring contact at Fiat Talent. Be sure to include your LinkedIn profile in your email.

Fiat Talent

About Fiat Talent Fiat Talent is part of Fiat Growth & Fiat Ventures. We place vetted, senior-level talent (Director and above) across Marketing, Sales, GTM, BD, Partnerships, and Product roles at fintech and fintech-adjacent startups (Insurtech, Proptech, ClimateTech, HealthTech, etc.), from seed stage through pre-IPO.

Senior Data Scientist – AI/ML Innovation

Location: Remote (US) or NYC office

Opportunity to join a high-impact team owning and building AI/ML models that power financial insights, forecasting, underwriting, and next-gen customer experiences. You’ll move fast from experimentation to production, working across Product, Risk, and Engineering while exploring GenAI, neural networks, and LLMs.  A perfect fit for someone who loves to experiment, build from scratch, and see their models drive real business impact!

 What you'll get to do:

• Greenfield modeling work with huge room for innovation

• Influence across the org with high visibility - your work directly shapes strategy and customer experience

• Innovate using transaction-level data, neural nets, and GenAI

What you'll bring:

• Advanced degree (PhD or Masters preferred) in a quantitative field

• 3+ years in Data Science (including PhD work)

• 2+ years in Financial Services; credit/underwriting a plus

• Strong Python & SQL; Spark/PySpark experience helpful

• Familiarity with GenAI, neural nets, and/or credit/fraud risk

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Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Spinwheel.

Fintech’s biggest players are moving fast. Barclays is buying Best Egg for $800 million to expand in U.S. lending, while PayPal plugged into ChatGPT to power instant checkout. Coinbase built a payments rail for AI agents, and Mastercard launched new fraud intelligence to keep issuers and acquirers ahead of attacks.

At Money20/20, AI took center stage as Wells Fargo, Starling, and Anthropic showed how automation is reshaping banking. DXC and Splitit teamed up to help banks fight back against BNPL.

Earnings also told a strong story. Capital One rebounded from last quarter’s loss, Citi posted solid growth across every business line, and LendingClub more than tripled profit as originations surged. SoFi hit record revenue with nearly a million new members, while TransUnion raised its full-year guidance after another quarter of steady gains in lending.

Here’s what’s happening across fintech right now.

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Barclays to Buy U.S. Lending Startup Best Egg for $800 Million

Source: WSJ

Barclays is diving deeper into U.S. consumer finance, agreeing to purchase lending startup Best Egg for $800 million. This move signals the British bank's strong appetite for the American market, despite recent questions about its American credit-card business. Founded in 2013, Best Egg operates an online platform arranging personal loans, primarily unsecured loans up to $50,000 for customers with high FICO scores, and sells most of them to asset managers. The deal, which aims to boost the bank's stock and deepen relations with asset-management clients, will be funded by selling receivables from Barclays's co-branded American Airlines credit cards. Analysts view the acquisition as a way for Barclays to replace lost business and expand in the "deep and sophisticated U.S. consumer finance market". The acquisition is set to close next year. [WSJ]

Fintech Firm Ava Raises $15.5M to Fight US Debt Crisis

https://www.meetava.com/

Fintech newcomer Ava just secured a "substantial" $15 million seed funding round, aiming to tackle America's "record-high" consumer debt crisis. Ava, an AI-powered consumer finance company, uses an autonomous app, priced at $10/month, to improve users' credit profiles and connect them with the best financial products. The platform is scaling its AI system to continuously optimize members' credit health, with a long-term goal of executing "one-click" loan origination to eliminate the "cumbersome" manual refinancing process. Ava has already gained "strong traction" since its 2021 launch, doubling revenue in 2025 and building a subscriber base of over 175,000 members. Greylock and Transform VC led the funding, praising Ava’s lender-agnostic model for "aligning fully with users’ interests" and attacking a "massive $100B market". Ava plans to use the capital to expand its teams, increase financial ecosystem partnerships, and scale its one-click loan origination product nationwide. [EIN Presswire]

Gemini Launches Solana Credit Card With Automatic Staking Rewards

Source: Blockworks

Gemini just launched a Solana edition of its Gemini Credit Card, a move that brilliantly merges traditional payments with the mechanics of decentralized finance (DeFi). The card is designed to deepen network engagement by automatically staking Solana (SOL) rewards for users, offering a juicy yield that currently stands at a "soaring" 6.77%. This new card lets users earn up to 4% back in SOL on categories like gas and rideshare, with 3% on dining and 2% on groceries. Gemini chose Solana specifically for its "high throughput and active developer ecosystem," a smart bet given that Solana rewards have been among the platform’s top-performing assets. In fact, cardholders who simply held their rewards for at least one year saw "soaring" gains "exceeding 290%". [Blockworks]

Americans Losing Grip on Debt as Delinquencies Surge and Borrowing Costs Bite

American borrowers are starting to lose their grip on debt, as delinquencies on auto loans, credit cards, and student loans are "surging" to the fastest pace in over a decade. This comes as total household debt hit a "record" $18.4 trillion in the second quarter of 2025, signaling "growing financial strain" for many families. The pain is not evenly distributed; younger borrowers in Gen Z and millennial generations are missing payments at far "higher rates" than older generations. Specifically, about 5% of auto borrowers are 90 days past due, and nearly 12% of credit card balances are now 90 days delinquent—the highest level seen since before the pandemic. Experts warn that "a gradual loss of financial control" is spreading from the margins inward, though they stress this is a "slow bleed" and not yet a repeat of the 2008 crisis. [ConsumerAffairs]

Affirm Expands Long-Standing Partnership With Wayfair

Affirm, the payment network that empowers consumers, just announced an expanded, "long-standing" partnership with Wayfair, the go-to destination for home goods. This key expansion brings Affirm's pay-over-time solution directly to the checkout across the entire Wayfair family of brands, including Joss & Main, AllModern, and Perigold. Shoppers can now select Affirm online or in-store and, if approved, see "customized" biweekly or monthly payment plans stretching up to 36 months, with rates as low as 0% APR. Wayfair is excited to offer customers even more clarity and convenience just in time for its Way Day sales event and the peak holiday shopping season. Affirm’s SVP of Revenue noted that "Home is where many shoppers choose Affirm," making this expanded partnership a natural fit to make shopping for the home easier. Affirm guarantees it never charges late or hidden fees, aligning with its mission to deliver honest financial products. [Affirm]

Mastercard Taps Jill Kramer to Lead Global Marketing and Communications

Source: Fintech News

Mastercard is making a big leadership move, naming Jill Kramer as its new Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, effective December 1, 2025. This transition aims to strengthen the company’s global brand and communications strategy, and she succeeds Raja Rajamannar, who is shifting to a senior fellow role. Kramer previously held the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer title at Accenture, where she spent a decade leading a "global, integrated, and tech-driven" marketing function. During her "decade at Accenture," the company's brand value saw a "substantial" increase, nearly doubling from US$12 billion to US$20.9 billion. Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach enthusiastically welcomed Kramer, stating that her "global perspective and deep expertise in B2B marketing will be invaluable" as the company continues to accelerate its growth and innovation. [Fintech News]

OpenAI and PayPal Team Up to Power Instant Checkout and Agentic Commerce in ChatGPT

PayPal is making a "substantial" push into the future of commerce by teaming up with OpenAI to integrate its services directly into ChatGPT. This partnership means millions of ChatGPT users will soon be able to check out instantly using PayPal's wallet, with all the benefits of its buyer/seller protections and post-purchase services. By adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), PayPal will connect its "global merchant network" of tens of millions of businesses to OpenAI, making their product catalogs discoverable and purchasable directly through ChatGPT. Essentially, PayPal is leveraging this partnership to "power payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps," according to CEO Alex Chriss. Furthermore, PayPal is expanding its own AI strategy by scaling access to ChatGPT Enterprise for its "over 24,000" employees and broadly expanding the direct use of OpenAI's APIs. [PayPal]

Payments MCP: Bringing Wallets, Onramps, and Payments to Every Agent

Source: Coinbase

Coinbase is taking a "substantial" leap toward "agentic commerce" by launching Payments MCP (Model Context Protocol), which gives AI agents the financial tools they need to act in the global economy. This "first-of-its-kind" tool lets popular Large Language Models (LLMs) like Claude, Gemini, and Codex access a wallet, onramp, and payments, all from a simple prompt window and with no API key required. Coinbase believes crypto rails, particularly stablecoins, are the "ideal payment infrastructure" for this new era, as they "move at the speed of code" and integrate seamlessly. Payments MCP is the "missing link" that bridges AI and decentralized finance, allowing agents to perform tasks like paying for compute, retrieving paywalled data, or managing lightweight business operations autonomously. To ensure safety, users can easily set spending limits and manage permissions, making it easy to experiment with autonomous payments without compromising security. [Coinbase]

Thredd Enters the Credit Space Partnering with LoanPro to Power Next-Generation Credit Capabilities

Thredd, the leading next-generation global payments processor, is diving into the credit space by partnering with LoanPro, a modern credit platform. This strategic partnership aims to offer "scalable and compliant credit solutions" across the U.S. and globally, marking a "significant milestone" in Thredd's plan to deliver full-stack embedded issuing and processing capabilities (credit, debit, and prepaid). By integrating LoanPro’s "advanced, composable credit infrastructure" with Thredd’s real-time card issuance, clients can now design, launch, and scale "differentiated credit products" with "unprecedented speed and personalization". Thredd's CEO, Jim McCarthy, noted that credit-based value propositions "drive not only more opportunities for both B2B and B2C verticals, but also generate more revenue for issuers, fintechs and enterprises". LoanPro’s Co-Founder & CEO, Rhett Roberts, added that this collaboration brings together the entire ecosystem needed to launch revolving credit products, allowing clients to personalize their offerings at scale. [Thredd]

Money20/20 USA: AI Takes Centre Stage on Opening Day

AI clearly stole the show on the opening day of Money20/20 USA in Las Vegas, as Wells Fargo, a massive bank, Starling Bank, a digital banking platform, and Anthropic, the company behind the AI model Claude, dropped some serious news about the future of finance. Wells Fargo revealed they are taking a "comprehensive" approach to integrating AI across all their banking functions, even telling their employees to "Forget about everything you know about being a banker" to truly innovate. Meanwhile, Starling Bank launched its new Scam Intelligence tool, an AI-powered fraud fighter that showed its effectiveness in testing by achieving "over a 300% increase in cancelled scam payments." Not to be outdone, identity verification company Incode unveiled its Agentic Identity solution to combat the rising threat of deepfake fraud, noting that "crime is now operating at the speed of AI." Anthropic also launched a specialized Claude for Financial Services V2, focusing on deep data integration and specialized skills like discounted cash flow analysis. These major players are demonstrating that AI is no longer a "nice to have" but is quickly becoming essential infrastructure for the entire financial landscape. [Fintech Futures]

Mastercard Debuts Threat Intelligence Solution for Issuers and Acquirers

Mastercard, the global payment technology giant, just rolled out its new Threat Intelligence solution to help issuing and acquiring banks get ahead of the payments fraud game. This savvy new offering takes Mastercard's "global network visibility" and fraud insights and smashes them together with the curated cyber threat intelligence from the Recorded Future platform. The goal is to close the communication gap between banks' security and fraud teams, arming them with the real-time, "actionable" risk insights they need to "disrupt fraudulent transactions." The platform features digital skimming intelligence, card testing detection, and weekly reports on "emerging threats," all of which help banks move toward a more proactive defense. This is a direct result of Mastercard's substantial $2.65 billion acquisition of Recorded Future, which added AI-powered analytics to its cybersecurity toolkit. Simply put, Mastercard is now looking "broadly across the entire digital interaction rather than specifically the payment" to keep consumers safe. [PYMNTS]

AI Goes Mainstream in Fintech Customer Operations

Gradient Labs and SoFi are both proving that artificial intelligence can deliver measurable results in financial services. London-based Gradient Labs, founded by former Monzo employees, has entered the U.S. market after reaching more than 32 million users in Europe with its AI agents that automate customer operations for regulated sectors. At the same time, SoFi’s Galileo-powered chatbot, Konecta, has improved service speed, reduced escalations, and increased customer engagement. Both companies show how AI is becoming a practical tool for improving efficiency, compliance, and customer satisfaction in banking and fintech. [Yahoo! Finance][Business Cloud][PR Web]

Mastercard and PayPal Join Forces To Accelerate Secure Global Agentic Commerce

Mastercard and PayPal are expanding their "longstanding partnership" to be an engine for the future of secure, seamless "agentic commerce". This collaboration centers on integrating Mastercard Agent Pay, the company's agentic payments platform, directly into PayPal's wallet. This integration will allow AI agents to securely complete transactions for "hundreds of millions of consumers and tens of millions of merchants globally" who use PayPal. The move enhances security for AI-powered shopping while significantly expanding user choice, making it easier for merchants who offer PayPal checkout to participate in AI-driven commerce without complex technical requirements. This teamwork is about pushing the "boundaries of what’s possible in commerce," enabling merchants and consumers to transact with confidence, speed, and trust in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. [Mastercard]

Federal Reserve Fintech Conference Launches AI-Driven DeFi Era

U.S. Federal Reserve Payment Innovation Conference

The U.S. Federal Reserve held its first-ever Payment Innovation Conference, dramatically signaling a shift toward digitally integrated finance and the coming era of "AI-driven decentralized finance (DeFi)". A major moment was Governor Christopher Waller introducing the concept of a "streamlined master account," which will allow regulated stablecoin issuers and digital payment firms to directly access the Fed's payment system. Key discussion highlights included the "accelerating stablecoin regulation," the "inevitable tokenization" of assets, and the vital role of integrating AI with blockchain. Amid this "substantial" institutional push, BC DEFI, an AI-driven decentralized finance platform, is being positioned at the forefront. BC DEFI uses "AI computing" to enable users to earn "up to 0.8% daily yield" and promises benefits like transparent, automated resource allocation, and near-instant cross-border payments via stablecoins. [GlobeNewswire]

DXC and Splitit Partner to Enable Installment Payments for 300+ Million Bank Account Holders

DXC Technology, a Fortune 500 technology services provider, and Splitit, the pioneer of embedded card-linked installments, just teamed up to let banks fight back against Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) platforms. Leveraging DXC’s Hogan core banking platform, which powers over "300 million" accounts, the partnership gives banks a turnkey way to offer their customers installment plans at checkout and post-purchase. This move puts banks back in control, letting them offer their own branded installment offers that appear natively at checkout or within their online portal. Crucially, the plan extends access through debit, meaning any customer with a bank account, not just a credit card, can enroll. This strategic collaboration also unlocks a predictable and "scalable" new revenue stream for issuers and targets the growing installment payment solution market. Splitit's CEO noted the partnership "resets the playing field," empowering banks to compete head-on with BNPL providers. [DXC]

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This Week’s Friday Jobs Edition:

Chime, Credit Karma, and Pagaya are building out analytics and acquisition teams, while product leaders at Intuit and PayPal are adding roles tied to lending strategy and customer insight.

The most notable shift is in data and credit. Fintechs are hiring analysts and modelers to refine risk, improve targeting, and prepare for a more regulated lending cycle. Marketing roles, on the other hand, are becoming more technical as teams integrate paid, organic, and affiliate channels under one roof.

🚨 A featured Fiat Talent role you won’t find anywhere else.
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👀 75 fintech and bank roles across marketing, product, data, and risk below.

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Head of Marketing (NYC WealthTech)

Location: New York City (In-office, 5 days a week)
Compensation: $180K–$230K base + stock options + full benefits

Fiat Talent is recruiting on behalf of a New York-based wealthtech backed by top venture investors. The company combines the pace of a fast-scaling startup with the stability of a seasoned leadership team from major financial institutions.

The role focuses on building sustainable inbound demand, strengthening thought leadership, and expanding organic reach. Candidates should have deep experience in demand generation and SEO, and be ready for a hands-on execution role that blends strategy with execution.

Interested? Email us at nick@fiatgrowth.com and we'll get you in touch with the hiring contact at Fiat Talent. Be sure to include your LinkedIn profile in your email.

Fiat Talent

About Fiat Talent Fiat Talent is part of Fiat Growth & Fiat Ventures. We place vetted, senior-level talent (Director and above) across Marketing, Sales, GTM, BD, Partnerships, and Product roles at fintech and fintech-adjacent startups (Insurtech, Proptech, ClimateTech, HealthTech, etc.), from seed stage through pre-IPO.

Partnerships Marketing Analyst

Location: Chicago, IL (Hybrid)

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the main point of contact for marketing partners - building, managing, and optimizing relationships to drive high-quality lead flow and revenue growth.

• Monitor partner performance and acquisition channels, using analytics and reporting to uncover insights, measure ROI, and guide optimization.

• Lead projects and oversee API integrations that enable seamless lead ingestion from partners, ensuring accuracy and efficiency across systems.

• Work closely with internal teams (marketing, compliance, tech, product) to streamline processes, reduce friction in the customer acquisition journey, and continuously improve performance.

• 1+ year of marketing and/or analytic experience required

Look below to learn more or apply directly via email connect@CTB1LLC.com, and mention Toaster.

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CTB1 is a boutique talent and recruiting firm specializing in exclusive fintech, banking, and lending roles. Unlike typical recruiting channels, CTB1 allows job seekers direct access to Connie and Cammie, ensuring personal responses rather than getting lost in a pile of resumes. For hiring managers, CTB1 quickly identifies top-tier talent, especially for specialized roles in credit, risk, marketing, and data science. Their unique, contingency-based business model means no upfront costs—companies only pay upon successfully filling a role.

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Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

Fintechs are finding new momentum in credit and lending. Karta came out of stealth with a $5.4 million seed round and the first U.S. premium credit card for global non-residents, managed entirely through WhatsApp. Visa outlined its plan to build the rails for “onchain finance,” connecting traditional lenders to decentralized markets.

Silicon Valley Bank’s new fintech report shows credit tightening and delinquencies rising, yet digital lenders may benefit as consumers look for flexible refinancing options. Citi and American Airlines rolled out a new travel rewards card, and Rakuten is evaluating a U.S. IPO for its credit card unit.

You’ll also find fresh funding rounds and Q3 results from Wells Fargo, Amex, and JPMorgan in this week’s Growth Tracker: Earnings and New Investments.

Here’s what’s happening across fintech right now.

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If you work in marketing, growth, or partnerships, this session will help you stay ahead of the curve.

Karta Officially Launches First U.S.-issued Premium Credit Card Designed for Global Non-Residents with a U.S. Bank Account

Source: Karta

Karta, the first and only U.S.-issued premium credit card designed for global non-residents with a U.S. bank account, officially launched after coming out of stealth mode and immediately partnered with "more than a dozen" U.S. financial institutions to offer the card to their high-net-worth clients. The company, which lets customers apply and get approved in minutes without needing an SSN or ITIN, is solving a common problem where non-residents with millions in the bank could not previously get a premium U.S. credit card. Karta also secured a $5.4 million seed round from Canary, Clocktower Ventures, and FJ Labs and plans to use the funds to grow its team and expand its footprint. As a premium Visa card, it offers all the expected benefits, including points, no FX fees, and the ability to build U.S. credit history. What's especially cool? Karta is the first credit card managed entirely through WhatsApp, leveraging AI agents to offer clients 24/7 service, from real-time account inquiries to fraud reporting. Finally, founders Freddy Juez and Orlando Espinoza bolstered their team by hiring Fernando Dalceggio, the former head of acquisition and new business development for AMEX International Dollar Cards. [Karta Inc.]

Exclusive: Japan's Rakuten Weighing US IPO of Credit Card Business, Sources Say

Japan's e-commerce and finance giant, Rakuten, which has a massive web of businesses including its popular credit card service, is reportedly "weighing" a potential U.S. initial public offering for its credit card unit, Rakuten Card. The company, which already listed its banking arm in Tokyo, began considering a U.S. listing last month, partly prompted by rival SoftBank's plans to list its mobile payment operator, PayPay, in the States. Rakuten Card shook up the Japanese finance sector by simplifying credit card applications and has issued more than 30 million cards in Japan. This consideration for a U.S. IPO, still in the "early stages," also includes the alternative option of a stake sale to a strategic buyer. The move aligns with a global trend of companies seeking "higher valuations" through the bustling U.S. IPO market. [Reuters]

American Airlines and Citi Launch the Citi / AAdvantage Globe Mastercard

Source: Citi

American Airlines, Citi, and Mastercard just launched the Citi / AAdvantage Globe Mastercard, a new mid-tier travel rewards credit card that redefines the category with access to premium benefits. Designed for the traveler who wants more than the occasional vacationer but isn't a frequent flyer, the card provides "over $750 in value" for a $350 annual fee. Cardmembers immediately receive four 24-hour Admirals Club Globe passes, a first for a mid-tier card, alongside a Companion Certificate redeemable for $99 plus taxes. It features an industry-leading Flight Streak bonus, rewarding cardmembers with 5,000 Loyalty Points after every four qualifying American Airlines flights for up to "15,000 additional Loyalty Points" per year, helping them achieve AAdvantage status faster. The card also offers accelerated earning across dining, rideshares, hotels, and American Airlines purchases, including "6X AAdvantage miles on eligible AAdvantage Hotels bookings". This new offering fills a gap in the existing co-branded portfolio and represents the first major product launch since the expansion of the American Airlines and Citi partnership. [Citi Group]

SVB’s Future of Fintech Report 2025: Credit Stress Creates Openings for Fintechs

Source: Silicon Valley Bank’s Future of Fintech Report 2025

Silicon Valley Bank’s Future of Fintech Report 2025 points to a shifting credit landscape. Delinquencies have climbed from pandemic lows but remain within historic ranges. The exception is student loans, where missed payments have reached all-time highs following the end of federal payment deferrals. Americans under 40 owe about 1.2 trillion dollars in student debt, more than any other debt category, and more than half report difficulty paying bills.

With finances tightening, credit quality is eroding. More accounts have been closed than opened in the past two years, and average credit scores are falling at the fastest pace since the financial crisis. At the same time, credit card rates have surged while personal loan rates have stayed relatively stable, widening the gap between the two products.

That widening spread may shape how consumers borrow in 2025. If borrowers grow more rate sensitive, fintech lenders offering personal loans, refinancing tools, or installment options may see stronger demand from households looking for practical relief. [SVB]

Visa Says It Wants to Build the Rails for Lending in ‘Onchain Finance,’ Its New Name for DeFi

Visa, the company behind the world's largest payment network, just dropped a whitepaper where it's looking to become the infrastructure for lending in the world of decentralized finance, which they've rebranded as "onchain finance". The move is all about getting institutional heavyweights like banks and private credit funds to plug into decentralized credit protocols by supplying the data, compliance, and infrastructure that make it all viable. This isn't just a pivot to institutional infrastructure, it's a recognition of the "onchain finance" market, which has already issued "more than $670 billion in stablecoin loans" since 2020, with lending activity hitting new highs in mid-2025. Visa isn't planning to issue tokens or fund loans directly; it's an infrastructure play focused on owning the "rails" like APIs and analytics. The payment network is simply looking to facilitate connections between the traditional financial world and programmable credit, much like it did for card payments. Morpho, Credit Coop, and Huma Finance are already illustrating how stablecoin-based credit is functioning at scale. [Yahoo! Finance]

Plaid LendScore: Unlocking Insights Never Used Before in Credit Scoring

Source: Plaid

Plaid, the company that securely connects consumers' bank accounts to thousands of financial apps, just launched Plaid LendScore, a new credit risk score aiming to fix the problem of outdated credit decisions. This innovative score leverages real-time cash flow and exclusive "network insights" from the company's massive platform to paint a complete financial picture of a borrower, basically telling a lender your financial story right now. Instead of solely relying on history, Plaid trained its first model, LS1, on a "nearly one billion transactions" dataset to predict the likelihood of default in the next year. The early results are already paying off big time: lenders using the score saw a "25% lift in predictive performance" and secured a "10–20% relative risk reduction" for riskier subprime and near-prime borrowers. For instance, the model can spot emerging risks, like a consumer using four or more earned wage access apps at once, which makes them 22% more likely to default—an insight the old scores miss entirely. Ultimately, Plaid is delivering "tools to assess creditworthiness with greater precision, speed, and context," expanding responsible credit access for millions in the new era of open banking. [Plaid]

Inside the Credit Card Battle to Win America’s Richest Shoppers

The battle for America's wealthiest consumers is heating up as premium credit card issuers like American Express Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. escalate their perks and fees. The intense competition played out publicly at the US Open, where both Amex and Chase built elaborate, exclusive lounges and experiences to court affluent tennis fans. Since the summer, Chase hiked the annual fee on its Sapphire Reserve card from $550 to $795, and Amex raised its Platinum card's fee from $695 to $895. Citigroup Inc. jumped back into the premium fray with the $595 Strata Elite, proving the “race for enrollment” is on with lavish sign-up bonuses and perks like private dinners, free clothes, and airport lounge access. Issuers focus on the rich because the top 10% of US households now account for nearly half of the country's consumer purchases, making them a profitable target despite paying off their balances. Furthermore, younger generations like millennials and Gen Z are a key focus, as Amex reports that 75% of new applicants for its Platinum and Gold cards are from these groups. [Bloomberg]

JPMorgan Says Consumers Are Resilient, Flags Tricolor Impact on Credit Losses

JPMorgan kicked off earnings season with third-quarter results that showed consumer and small business resilience, as debit and card sales volumes were up 9% year over year. The banking giant's Chief Financial Officer, Jeremy Barnum, said credit performance remains in line with expectations and early-stage delinquencies are stable, though the bank slightly adjusted its long-term deposit growth projections due to lower personal savings rates and "robust" consumer spending. However, the bank recorded $3.4 billion in credit costs, which included a $170 million hit in charge-offs related to the bankruptcy of subprime auto lender Tricolor Holdings. CEO Jamie Dimon admitted the Tricolor collapse was "not our finest moment" and warned about the potential for more "cockroaches," suggesting fraud played a part. Despite this one-off, JPMorgan remains "quite confident" about the overall long-term trajectory and the stability of its exposure to non-depository financial institutions (NDFIs). [PYMNTS]

‘Finances Are Getting Tighter’: US Car Repossessions Surge as More Americans Default on Auto Loans

Source: The Guardian

The US auto lending market is flashing "alarm bells" as car repossessions surge, highlighting strain in lower-income households' finances. The recent bankruptcies of sub-prime auto lender Tricolor and auto parts supplier First Brands are putting the finance industry on edge, leading JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to ominously caution analysts with the phrase: "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more." Car repossessions hit their highest level since 2009 last year, as the high cost of cars now requires 42 weeks of income to pay off, up substantially from before the pandemic. Experts view distress in auto lending as an economic bellwether, since a car is essential for working, and the rise in defaults indicates that "household finances are getting tighter." Loan operators are now offering a "massive amount" of loan modifications to delay repossessions, but this may only be buying time as consumers are stuck with loan payments they simply cannot afford. [The Guardian]

Corporate America Family Credit Union Selects Upstart for Personal Loans, HELOCs and Auto Refinance Loans

Corporate America Family Credit Union (CAFCU), a member-owned, not-for-profit financial cooperative, has teamed up with Upstart, the leading AI lending marketplace, to offer personal loans, HELOCs, and auto refinance loans to more consumers. CAFCU President/CEO Stefanie Rupert explained that the credit union is extending its commitment to financial success by partnering with Upstart for a modern, online lending experience that aims to be "more accessible, and more equitable for all." The partnership kicked off in September 2025 with personal loans via the Upstart Referral Network, which directs qualified applicants from Upstart to a co-branded CAFCU experience. The credit union will soon expand its offerings to include HELOCs and auto refinance loans, and it is already purchasing portfolios of HELOCs from Upstart’s affiliate. Michael Lock, Senior Vice President of Lending Partnerships at Upstart, is "thrilled" about the collaboration, noting that the AI-powered platform will help CAFCU offer a fast, all-digital lending experience to reach more people. [Upstart]

Credit Card Delinquencies Climb as Consumers’ Savings Dip

The latest VantageScore Credit Gauge reveals that while the average American consumer remains "credit healthy," early-stage delinquencies are climbing across all credit products, hitting 1.04% in February—the first time that figure has exceeded 1.0% in four years. Susan Fahy, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at VantageScore, noted that the situation is creating a "more pronounced" "tale of two consumers," where Superprime consumers are still spending while Subprime borrowers are finding it increasingly difficult to stay current on their payments. This credit stress comes as consumers draw down their savings to cover expenses; the personal saving rate fell from 4.1% in January to a lower 3.6% in February. Personal loan originations fell the most as lenders enacted tighter requirements, but auto loans saw a slight increase, driven by high inventory and promotions. Overall, the implication is that consumers are "drawing down their savings" to manage their debt burdens and maintain their spending habits. [PYMNTS]

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Looking for your next fintech role?

Stay ahead of where the industry is hiring. The Free Toaster Jobs newsletter curates standout openings in fintech marketing, product, data, and risk each week, along with insights into the trends shaping hiring across leading lenders, neobanks, and fintech startups.

Subscribe to The Free Toaster Jobs to get the latest roles and hiring insights delivered straight to your inbox (Toaster subs that don’t opt-in won’t get the Friday jobs Edition).

Missed last week’s edition? Check out the most recent job listings here.