How Wise Is Betting on Infrastructure and Brand
Wise is challenging the legacy correspondent‑bank model by building its own global payments infrastructure. The company’s Wise Platform provides APIs that let banks, fintechs and enterprises embed low‑cost international transfers directly into their products. By early 2026, Wise has launched eight direct connections to domestic payment rails, including the UK’s Faster Payments, Europe’s SEPA and Brazil’s Pix. Parallel to the infrastructure push, marketers like Scott Viohl are expanding consumer awareness of Wise as a viable alternative.
Consumer Banking Is Back in Focus – and Looks Nothing Like 2019
Leading U.S. banks are revamping consumer banking, moving beyond isolated digital savings and loan products toward integrated financial relationships. Executives stress that trust, scale, and long‑term advisory capabilities are essential to sustain engagement and profitability. By anchoring everyday deposits and...
How Huntington Modernized without Touching the Core Ft. Qolo
Huntington National Bank partnered with payments platform Qolo to launch a virtual‑account‑based product called Connected Deposits, layering modern functionality over its legacy core. The solution creates sub‑accounts that behave like real bank accounts—complete with routing numbers, inbound wires and automated...
For U.S. Bank, Embedded Finance Was Step One. The Self-Reinforcing Model Is Step Two.
U.S. Bank launched a generative AI assistant on its developer portal in early 2026 to accelerate API integration, then closed its purchase of Amazon’s small‑business credit‑card portfolio and extended home‑improvement loan terms. These actions illustrate a shift toward an embedded‑finance...
Squarespace’s Corey Zettler on Building a Financial Services Suite for Small Businesses
Squarespace has expanded from a website builder into a full‑stack fintech platform for small creators. After launching Squarespace Payments in 2023 and Capital in early 2025, the company introduced Balance, an integrated business account that provides a Visa debit card,...
The Work Beneath the Work: How J.P. Morgan, BofA, U.S. Bank, and Citi Are Rebuilding Their Internal Systems
Major U.S. banks are overhauling their internal operating platforms, shifting focus from product launches to the infrastructure that creates value. JPMorgan unveiled its American Dream Initiative, aiming to support 10 million small businesses and extend roughly $80 billion in loans over ten...
What a Bank-Client Relationship Looks Like when Banks Control the Data Behind the UX
Grasshopper introduced its Model Context Protocol (MCP) server in August 2025, partnering with digital‑banking platform Narmi to let clients feed financial data into AI tools such as Claude or ChatGPT without exposing core banking systems. MCP acts as a secure...
In the World of Stripe: Acquisitions, Agentic AI, and Stablecoins
Stripe, now valued at roughly $159 billion after a 74% jump from the prior year, is reportedly in early‑stage talks to acquire PayPal. The potential deal would give Stripe immediate access to PayPal’s 439 million active consumer and merchant accounts and its...
PayPal Doesn’t Have a Growth Problem – It Has a Positioning Problem
PayPal’s Q4 2025 results show modest top‑line growth but a stalled premium checkout segment. Net revenue rose 4% to $8.7 billion, while total payment volume jumped 9% to $475.1 billion. Branded checkout – the high‑margin engine – grew only 1% year‑over‑year, far below...
How KeyBank and Qolo Are Modernizing Corporate Treasury without Ripping Out the Core
KeyBank teamed with fintech Qolo to launch a real‑time virtual account management (VAM) platform that sits atop the bank’s legacy core. The solution gives corporate treasurers instant sub‑account creation, consolidated balance visibility and API‑driven data flows. In its first year...
How Two Gen Z Women Founders Are Making Wealth-Building Accessible
Eve Halimi and Anam Lakhani, former Wall Street interns, launched Alinea Invest in 2020. The fintech app aims to demystify investing for Gen Z, especially women, by offering an approachable, low‑threshold experience. They identified a gender‑specific white space in traditional wealth...
The Slow Death of Interchange as a Standalone Growth Engine
Interchange fees have long been the backbone of fintech revenue, offering a low‑friction, volume‑driven income stream that scales with every card transaction. Recent filings from Block, PayPal and Shopify reveal a strategic pivot: interchange is now treated as baseline infrastructure...
Why Fintechs Are Transitioning From Partners to Principals in Banking
Fintechs are moving from reliance on partner banks to seeking their own banking charters, highlighted by three high‑profile applications in Q1 2026—Affirm, Payoneer and Upstart. Direct supervision by regulators, though demanding, promises operational certainty compared with fragmented licensing. The new charter...
How Zip Turned the Most Pressing BNPL Challenge Into a Brand Advantage
Australian BNPL firm Zip launched a new brand platform, “In You We Trust,” and the accompanying “You Trust Me?” ad campaign. The campaign puts trust front‑and‑center, humorously showing Zip repeatedly affirming confidence in customers. By making trust the core message,...
The Quarterly Review: Wise’s Scott Viohl Wins Audiences Through Humor and Creator-Led Marketing
Wise’s North American marketing lead, Scott Viohl, has spent the last four months scaling the fintech’s regional footprint through its largest TV campaign to date, reaching over 80% of adults in key U.S. markets and 60% in target Canadian regions....