Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

Experian is making it safer to shop for credit by expanding its “No Ding Decline” feature to personal loans. Also, mortgage costs are feeling the heat as FICO implements a huge 1,500% hike on tri-merge fees. We’re also breaking down Cash App’s move into P2P installment plans, the CFPB’s shift in antidiscrimination enforcement , and American Express replacing Visa as the official payments partner of the NFL.

Lots to break down. Let’s get toasting!

Carlos Caro, Founder at NMG, Co-Founder of The Free Toaster
Nick Madrid, Co-Founder of The Free Toaster and Uncovered Media

PS: To support us, please share our Newsletter or Podcast with 1 of your colleagues!

Experian Expands “No Ding Decline” Feature to Personal Loans

Experian has officially extended its No Ding Decline (NDD) feature to personal loans, allowing users to explore financing options in the Experian Marketplace without the risk of a hard credit inquiry upon rejection. This expansion follows a significant 16% increase in personal loan usage recorded by the company in 2025, a trend mirrored by the fact that 38% of U.S. consumers now hold at least one personal loan.

By using artificial intelligence, the tool pre-aligns applicant profiles with specific lender criteria before a formal application is ever submitted. This expansion builds on the success of the NDD program for credit cards, which has already seen significant adoption.

Speaking exclusively to the Free Toaster team, Experian confirmed the program’s explosive growth.

“With NDD, more than 40% of all cards and loans acquired through our Marketplace are now coming through the NDD program,” said Rakesh Patel, Executive Vice President of Experian Marketplace.

In addition to the loan update, Experian is further diversifying its reach by integrating its Insurance Marketplace into ChatGPT. According to Patel, these strategic moves reflect a broader commitment to “meeting consumers where they are” and reducing the friction of financial discovery. (Experian)

Sponsored by Fintel Connect

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FICO Hikes Tri-Merge Fees 1,500% as CHLA Reports $540 Average Credit Cost Per Loan

FICO increased its base tri-merge credit report fee from $1.80 in 2022 to $30 for 2026. This 1,500% price hike contributed to total mortgage credit costs rising to an average of $540 per loan. The Community Home Lenders of America (CHLA) reported these findings in a Tuesday update to its 2024 White Paper. Lenders currently lack alternatives because they must use approved scoring models to sell loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The CHLA is requesting that regulators accelerate the approval of competing models such as VantageScore to reduce costs. Current rules often require lenders to pull multiple reports per borrower, which compounds price increases for first-time homebuyers. Rob Zimmer, CHLA’s Director of External Affairs, stated the organization wants to fix a monopoly that will "continue to extract more and more resources from homebuyers." (HousingWire)

Cash App Launches Pay-Over-Time Feature for Peer-to-Peer Transfers

Cash App now allows its 59 million monthly users to convert peer-to-peer transfers of $25 or more into installment plans. This feature enables users to recoup the cost of a past transfer into their balance in exchange for a flat upfront fee. Users repay the balance through weekly installments rather than revolving interest. The product applies to transactions made within the previous 30 days. This expansion follows the previous launch of pay-over-time features for debit card purchases. Eligibility for the installment feature depends on individual customer assessments and state-level regulations. (Cash App)

CFPB Finalizes Rule to Narrow Lending Antidiscrimination Requirements

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is finalizing a regulation to narrow antidiscrimination requirements for lenders by eliminating the disparate impact standard. The CFPB will now focus solely on explicitly discriminatory conduct rather than policies that result in unintentional discriminatory impacts on women and minorities. This move implements a year-old executive order from the Trump administration aimed at reducing compliance burdens and legal liabilities for banks. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is currently reviewing a final version of the rule that contains no material change from the proposal issued in November. Industry groups support the change for reducing regulatory burdens while consumer advocates claim the rule contradicts the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The timing for the formal adoption of the rule remains unconfirmed. (Reuters)

Affiliate Marketing For Deposit Accounts - With Alana Levine, CRO at Fintel Connect

In the latest episode of The Free Toaster, Carlos joins Alana Levine (Fintel Connect) to dive into the high-stakes world of deposit affiliate marketing. Discover why deposit unit economics humble even the most seasoned lenders, how younger consumers became the stickiest depositors, and how to scale to billion-dollar quarters without triggering a regulatory inquiry.

Catch us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack, or your favorite player.

Please support our Newsletter by recommending us to one of your colleagues!

And, please check out our sponsors:

• Need an affiliate marketing platform/network? Chat with Fintel Connect

• Need to improve application page conversions? Chat with Spinwheel

• Need help with performance marketing? Chat with Bulldog Media Group

• Need to grow in big marketplaces like Credit Karma? Chat with New Market Growth

• Need to hire top-tier talent in fintech or lending? Chat with CTB1

American Express Replaces Visa as Official NFL Payments Partner

American Express signed a multi-year deal to become the official payments partner of the NFL starting with the 2026 season. The financial services firm replaces Visa, which ended its thirty-year sponsorship this month. American Express cardholders gain early access to tickets for the 2026 game in Melbourne and benefits at the Super Bowl and NFL Draft. The company’s sports marketing portfolio now includes more than 50 global leagues and teams. American Express will also launch an NFL Extra Points credit card later this year issued by Comenity Capital Bank. This partnership follows existing team-specific deals with the Atlanta Falcons, New York Giants, New York Jets, and Miami Dolphins. Elizabeth Rutledge, Chief Marketing Officer, stated the partnership is a "natural extension" of the company's existing sports portfolio. (Reuters)

American Airlines and Citi Expand Partnership to Admirals Club Lounges

American Airlines and Citi are expanding their 40-year co-branded credit card partnership to include direct branding and integration across the Admirals Club lounge network. American Airlines operates a global air carrier service with 6,000 daily flights and utilizes the Citi-issued AAdvantage portfolio as its exclusive U.S. card program. Starting in April 2026, Citi branding will appear at lounge entrances in ORD, DFW, LAX, and MIA, with a full network rollout scheduled through 2026. The move links Citi card membership tiers directly to lounge access, specifically for Executive World Elite Mastercard, Globe Mastercard, and Strata Elite holders. American Airlines recently updated its lounge amenities through substantial vendor contracts with Lavazza and Champagne Bollinger. Access remains available via annual membership, oneWorld status, or $79 one-day passes. This expansion focuses on the integration of the card rewards program into physical airport infrastructure. (American Airlines)

Perplexity Appeals Court Ban on AI Shopping Agent Accessing Amazon

Perplexity asked a federal appeals court to overturn an injunction barring its Comet AI agent from accessing Amazon. The AI-powered search engine functions as a shopping assistant that automates product discovery and purchases for users. Amazon recently won a court order claiming the tool accessed password-protected accounts without authorization and ignored cease-and-desist warnings. Perplexity argues that Comet acts as a browser for the user and claims the retailer produced no evidence of actual harm like lost sales or decreased traffic. Amazon generated $68.6 billion in advertising revenue in 2025 and claims automated agents bypass the sponsored listings that drive this income. While Amazon has blocked competitors like OpenAI, its own assistant, Rufus, generated $12 billion in incremental sales last year. Walmart and Target are currently testing integrations with third-party AI tools rather than implementing bans. Recent data from PYMNTS Intelligence shows 70% of consumers are open to using AI agents for retail transactions. (PYMNTS) (Court Listener)

Royal Caribbean Group and Bank of America Launch First Tri-Branded Cruise Credit Cards

Royal Caribbean Group and Bank of America launched the Royal ONE and Royal ONE Plus credit cards to enable reward sharing across Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea. The company operates 69 ships and 3 private destinations, with plans to expand to 8 private locations by 2028 and enter river cruising in 2027. The Royal ONE card has no annual fee and offers 3X points on cruise purchases and 2X points on gas and groceries. The Royal ONE Plus card carries a $99 annual fee and increases cruise rewards to 4X points while adding 2X points on airfare and hotels. Cardholders receive travel perks including priority boarding and a $120 TSA PreCheck credit for the Plus tier. The program introduces a redemption system for onboard credits, shore excursions, and Wi-Fi packages. This tri-branded partnership replaces previous brand-specific loyalty silos with a unified rewards ecosystem. The launch follows the recent implementation of a status match program across the three cruise lines. (Bank of America)

Looking for a new role?

The Free Toaster Jobs Edition tracks where fintech teams are actually investing across marketing, product, data, credit, risk, and partnerships.

The Free Toaster Jobs

The Free Toaster Jobs curates real openings across credit, risk, product, data, and growth, with a focus on consumer fintech and lending. No noise. Just roles that signal where budgets and priorities are moving.

By Toaster Media

Other News We’re Reading and Listening to

(CFPB Supervision) CFPB Supervision Reset: What Banks and Non-Banks Need to Know (Apple Podcast)

(AI) Visa and Mastercard Deploy Agentic AI for Disputes and Global Payments (American Banker)

(Banking) Small Businesses Can Soon Enjoy New Rewards With the Prime Business and Amazon Business Credit Cards (U.S. Bank)

(Cards) Small Businesses Can Soon Enjoy New Rewards With the Prime Business and Amazon Business Credit Cards (Mastercard)

(Lending) QuickFi Enables Air-Tow Trailers National Digital Captive Finance Program (PR Newswire)

(Fintech) UiPath Launches Agentic Solutions to Strengthen Financial Crime Compliance and Accelerate Lending (UiPath)

(Mortgage) U.S. Bank Enhances Consumer Mortgage Experience for New Homebuilding in Partnership With Built (U.S. Bank)

(Credit) TransUnion Introduces TruIQ Credit Strategy Studio to Transform How Lenders Build and Launch Prescreen Marketing Campaigns (TransUnion)

(Payments) Visa Unveils New Services to Modernize Dispute Resolution Process (Visa)

(Banking) Fintech Monzo Shutting Down US Operations to Focus on UK, Europe (Bloomberg)

(Lending) Octane Partners With Suzuki to Expand Financing to Prime Customers (PR Newswire)

(Retail) SurgePays Launches Stored Value and Loyalty Platform Across Retail Network (Issuer Direct)

(AI) Nearly 80% of Americans Use AI Tools but Most Still Want Humans Making Financial Decisions, TD Survey Finds (TD Bank)

(Social Media) TikTok and Meta Eye a Bigger Role in Financial Services (PYMNTS)

(Banking) America’s #1 Choice for Banking Expands Its Lead With the Launch of Chime Prime (Chime)

(Credit Unions) 72% of Gen Z Feels Financial Strain and Credit Unions See an Opening (PYMNTS)

(Credit) Average Delinquency Rates at Top Credit Card Issuers Were Stable in February (S&P Global)

(Credit) New Study Reveals Deepening Financial Divide Between Americans With High and Low Credit Scores (Business Wire)

Spot something worth sharing with your team? Drop this week’s edition in their inbox:

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/experian-expands-no-ding-decline

Catch you next week,

The Free Toaster Team

P.S.: If you’d like to sponsor or host an event in the consumer lending community in 2026, we’d like to hear from you. The Free Toaster will be organizing & hosting curated events this year, and we’d love to work with you as a sponsor.

Deposits aren't loans. That sounds obvious, but the implications for affiliate marketing are anything but.

Alana Levine joins Carlos Caro to break down how affiliate marketing works on the deposit side of the house: different unit economics, different optimization cadence, different failure modes, and a compliance environment that will humble anyone coming over from lending.

Topics include how CP1K pricing works and why CPAs for high yield savings have more than doubled in the past year, what the application funnel looks like for best-in-class deposit products versus regional banks still figuring it out, why younger consumers are stickier depositors than boomers (counterintuitive but true), how Fintel runs daily budget pacing to hit billion-dollar quarterly deposit targets, and what a fintech needs to have figured out before touching affiliate at all.

Alana also shares her take on the publisher landscape, the emerging LLM visibility play that's changing sponsored content strategy, and why a one-basis-point rate discrepancy on a publisher page can end up in a regulatory inquiry.

If you work in lending and have always wondered how the other side operates — this one's for you.

Contact Alana at: alana@fintelconnect.com

*****

To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:

Fintel Connect

Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.

https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast

Spinwheel:

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Bulldog Media Group:

Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. 

https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/

New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.

Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.

If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Spinwheel.

SoFi adds $3.6 billion in new commitments to its loan platform business, reinforcing its shift toward a capital-light model. Meanwhile, Beast Industries’ acquisition of Step is under fire, with Senator Elizabeth Warren issuing a deadline to address concerns over youth safety and crypto expansion. We’re also looking at a new Fed study linking mobile sports betting to a spike in credit delinquencies, FICO’s latest report on falling U.S. credit scores, and Klarna doubling its credit facility to $2 billion to fuel American growth.

Lots to break down. Let’s get toasting!

— Carlos Caro, Founder at NMG, Co-Founder of The Free Toaster
— Nick Madrid, Co-Founder of The Free Toaster and Uncovered Media

PS: To support us, please share our Newsletter or Podcast with 1 of your colleagues!

SoFi Secures $3.6 Billion in Loan Platform Partnerships

Not every borrower who comes to SoFi gets a SoFi loan. Some fall outside the credit box, meaning they don’t meet SoFi’s own underwriting criteria. That’s where the Loan Platform Business comes in. Instead of a dead end, those borrowers get routed to partners through referrals or the Lantern marketplace. SoFi still earns fee income and retains the servicing relationship. The marketing spend converts regardless of whether SoFi holds the loan.

That context matters for understanding why three new LPB agreements totaling over $3.6 billion in personal loan commitments is a bigger deal than the headline number suggests. A global bank takes $1 billion, a financial services and insurance group $600 million over 12 months, and a top-five global private asset manager up to $2 billion over two years. This follows a year where the LPB pulled in over $10 billion in total commitments.

SoFi spends heavily on brand, stadium naming rights, national TV, celebrity partnerships. That spend drives significant borrower demand. The LPB is what ensures none of that demand goes to waste. SoFi originates on behalf of third parties, collects fees, and retains servicing rights without carrying the credit risk. CEO Anthony Noto framed it plainly: “By connecting strong borrower demand with institutional capital, we’re building a capital-light, fee-based business that complements our overall lending business while leveraging our existing technology platform capabilities in underwriting, pricing, marketing and servicing.”

The LPB sits inside SoFi’s Financial Services segment and is a core driver of that segment’s growth, scaling from $303 million in Q1 2025 to $456 million by Q4. In FY2025, the Loan Platform Business accounted for more than 75% of Financial Services noninterest income, making it the segment’s dominant revenue driver by a wide margin.

Three institutional partners in a single announcement reflects growing demand from asset managers for exposure to consumer credit. SoFi’s adjusted net revenue hit $3.61 billion in FY2025, up 35% year over year, with fee-based revenue growing 53%. For fintech operators building in the lending space, the model is worth studying. Serve more customers, hold less risk, keep the relationship. That’s the playbook SoFi is running. (SoFi)

We’re going deeper into the entire SoFi Lending Business, including their LPB in an upcoming issue, breaking down how the model works, what it means for personal lending distribution, and what other fintechs can learn from it. Stay tuned.

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Senator Warren Questions Beast Industries Acquisition of Step Over Youth Safety and Crypto Expansion

Beast Industries faces a formal inquiry from the Senate Banking Committee following its acquisition of Step, a financial app serving 7 million users aged 13 to 18. Senator Elizabeth Warren issued a deadline of April 3 for the company to address concerns regarding insider trading allegations involving a Beast Industries employee and the platform's planned expansion into cryptocurrency exchange services. Step currently uses Evolve Bank and Trust to provide FDIC insurance and credit cards, though Evolve recently settled a class action lawsuit for $11.9 million over a data breach. The acquisition gives Beast Industries access to a user base where 39% of the channel's 471 million subscribers are minors. Beast Industries recently accepted a $200 million investment from Bitmine to integrate decentralized finance into the platform. Warren specifically questioned the lack of a general counsel and formal misconduct reporting at the media company. Beast Industries stated it is currently examining all marketing and compliance to meet regulatory requirements. (American Banker)

The Free Toaster previously covered this acquisition in a past issue and revisited it in a recent podcast episode, breaking down Step’s stalled growth, the economics behind teen neobanks, and the risk of pushing young users toward gambling-adjacent products under monetization pressure.

New York Fed Study Links Sports Betting Legalization to Rising Credit Delinquencies

Under-40 credit card delinquencies rose 7.9% in states following sports betting legalization, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The New York Fed found that auto loan delinquencies in the same age group increased by 5.6%. While only 3.1% of the population actively bets on sports after legalization, the financial impact is significant enough to lower median credit scores by 1 point across entire counties. Data suggests that for the specific group of individuals who take up gambling, delinquencies jump by approximately 10 percentage points. Younger bettors under 40 see a 26 percentage point spike in late payments. These findings align with separate data from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel showing legalization increases bankruptcy likelihood by 10%. The authors wrote that sports betting can have dramatic implications for household financial stability as access expands through mobile apps and prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. (Bloomberg) (Federal Reserve Bank of New York)

Upgrade’s Launch of Boost Money with John Doppke, VP of Product at Upgrade

In the latest episode of The Free Toaster, Carlos and Nick sit down with John Doppke (VP of Product at Upgrade) to unpack the launch of Boost Money. Discover the strategy behind this "four-in-one" financial account and how cash-flow underwriting is powering a new era of interest-free advances.

Catch us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack, or your favorite player.

Please support our Newsletter by recommending us to one of your colleagues!

And, please check out our sponsors:

• Need an affiliate marketing platform/network? Chat with Fintel Connect

• Need to improve application page conversions? Chat with Spinwheel

• Need help with performance marketing? Chat with Bulldog Media Group

• Need to grow in big marketplaces like Credit Karma? Chat with New Market Growth

• Need to hire top-tier talent in fintech or lending? Chat with CTB1

FICO Report: Average U.S. Credit Score Falls to 714 as Student Loan and Mortgage Delinquencies Rise

FICO reported the average U.S. credit score fell to 714 in its Spring ’26 Credit Insights report. This 2-point annual decline follows the resumption of student loan payments and a rise in mortgage delinquencies. FICO provides the analytics used by 90% of top U.S. lenders to assess consumer risk. A record 48.1% of consumers now hold scores of 750 or higher. Conversely, 24% of consumers reported skipping or making less than minimum payments over the last 12 months. Gen Z led all age groups in new credit activity with 25% opening at least one new card. Interest rates influenced 77% of consumers in their timing of credit applications. Survey data shows 67% of adults incorrectly believe personal income directly impacts their score. (FICO)

Splitit Expands Card-Linked Installments to Field Sales via Splitit Go

Splitit launched Splitit Go to capture a share of the $4.6 trillion annual U.S. services market where transactions occur face-to-face. This mobile solution allows contractors, medical providers, and automotive shops to offer installment plans via smartphone or tablet. Splitit functions as a card-linked installment platform that uses a customer's existing credit line rather than issuing new loans. Merchants generate payment plans through a QR code, text, or email during in-person consultations. The system requires no new credit applications or third-party underwriting for the consumer. It integrates into existing CRMs and field service platforms through a single API. This launch moves the company's embedded payment technology from e-commerce into physical environments like showrooms and service counters. (Splitit)

Klarna Doubles Elliott Investment Management Facility to $2B to Fuel $17B in US Loan Growth

Klarna doubled its credit facility with Elliott Investment Management to $2 billion to support up to $17 billion in US loan originations over the next three years. The digital bank sells newly originated receivables to Elliott funds on a rolling basis to maintain off-balance-sheet funding. This expansion follows a period where Klarna reported that US financing volume grew significantly in Q4 2025. Under the three-year agreement, Klarna retains all underwriting and servicing responsibilities for its 118 million active users. The company currently processes 3.4 million transactions daily across retailers like Uber, H&M, and Nike. This deal provides the capital required to meet American consumer demand for financing alternatives. (Klarna)

Looking for a new role?

The Free Toaster Jobs Edition tracks where fintech teams are actually investing across marketing, product, data, credit, risk, and partnerships.

The Free Toaster Jobs

The Free Toaster Jobs curates real openings across credit, risk, product, data, and growth, with a focus on consumer fintech and lending. No noise. Just roles that signal where budgets and priorities are moving.

By Toaster Media

Other News We’re Reading

(Lending) Allied Solutions and Loquat Partner to Deliver Omnichannel Digital Onboarding and Lending (Allied Solutions)

(Lending) Harborstone Credit Union Selects Upstart for Personal Lending (Upstart)

(Cards) American Express Unveils New Graphite™ Business Cash Unlimited Card, Rewarding Business Owners With Unlimited 2% Cash Back (American Express)

(Lending) Wolters Kluwer and FairPlay AI Announce Strategic Partnership to Deliver AI-Driven Fair Lending Optimization Capabilities (Wolters Kluwer)

(Payments) Mastercard Explores Sale of Payments Unit It Bought From Nets in 2019, FT Reports (Reuters)

(Lending) Luana Savings Bank Adopts nCino for Digital Lending (IBS Intelligence)

(Fintech) Plaid Expands Into Media With Acquisition of This Week in Fintech (Fintech News Switzerland)

(Payments) Cardlay Launches U.S. Embedded Spend Platform, Enabling Incumbents to Compete With Turnkey Commercial Spend Platforms (Business Wire)

(Payments) 200 Million More Friends on Venmo – Send Money to PayPal Users Around the World (PayPal)

(Banking) VIDEO: UBS Bank USA National Charter Approval (UBS)

(Lending) Square Expands Access to Capital, Financing More Sellers With Innovative, Tech-Powered Underwriting (Square)

(Marketing) SurgePays Launches Managed Marketing Services Platform Across Nationwide Retail Network (GlobeNewswire)

(Payments) A New Era of Platform Payouts: Branch Is Now Stripe’s Embedded Digital Wallet for Worker Payouts (Branch)

Spot something worth sharing with your team? Drop this week’s edition in their inbox:

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/sofi-adds-36b-in-commitments-to-loan

Catch you next week,

The Free Toaster Team

P.S.: If you’d like to sponsor or host an event in the consumer lending community in 2026, we’d like to hear from you. The Free Toaster will be organizing & hosting curated events this year, and we’d love to work with you as a sponsor.

Carlos and Nick sit down with John Doppke, VP at Upgrade, to unpack Boost Money — a four-in-one financial account combining a checking account, secured credit-building card, high-yield savings, and interest-free cash advances.

John explains the product's free and premium ($9.99/month) tiers, the rationale behind launching Boost Money as a standalone brand with its own app and microsite, and how cash flow underwriting powers the Boost Cash advance product.

The conversation also covers the regulatory complexity of structuring cash advances as loans, the surprisingly broad income profile of Boost Money's target customer, and John's experience building alongside founder Renaud Laplanche from Lending Club to Upgrade.

*****

Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter (www.thefreetoaster.com) to get our curated news at the intersection of consumer lending & marketing, published every Wednesday.

And then come here on Fridays to get our hot takes on a select story (or two) from that edition. 

*****

To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:

A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect

Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.

https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast

A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:

Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. 

https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=mar

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.

Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.

If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Bulldog Media Group.

Klarna reached 5 million active card users after adding 1.9 million in Q4 2025 alone. While the card now accounts for 15% of total transactions, LendingTree reports BNPL delinquencies hit 41% as grocery usage climbed to 25% of borrowers. Upgrade launched Boost Money with a 10% APY and interest-free cash advances to undercut the 24% average credit card APR. Meanwhile, Visa and Mastercard swipe fees reached a record $198.25 billion in 2025 as Upstart secured a $1 billion loan purchase agreement with Eltura Capital and Aperture Investors.

Lots to break down. Let’s get toasting!

— Carlos Caro, Founder at NMG, Co-Founder of The Free Toaster
— Nick Madrid, Co-Founder of The Free Toaster and Uncovered Media

PS: To support us, please share our Newsletter or Podcast with 1 of your colleagues!

Klarna Card Pacing 270,000 New Cardholders Per Month

Klarna reached 5 million active Klarna Card customers globally, representing a substantial user base expansion from 800,000 in 2021. The global digital bank and payments provider offers a card that draws from a user’s own funds for everyday spending with the option to spread costs for specific purchases. Recent data shows a rapid acceleration in adoption with 1.9 million new users joining in Q4 2025 alone.

The Klarna membership program reinforces this growth by bundling travel insurance and airport lounge access without requiring debt or minimum spending thresholds. This model separates rewards from revolving credit balances. Chief Marketing Officer David Sandström stated, “They’re voting with their wallets and looking for the control and flexibility in a single card.”

The card is now active in 16 countries and serves as a primary entry point for the Klarna suite of banking services. In the US market, 25% of transaction volume now occurs at physical in-store locations rather than online. Data from the German market indicates high engagement, with cardholders averaging 100 more annual purchases than non-card users.(Klarna)

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If you’re a lender looking to scale, these are your people.

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Upgrade Launches Boost Money Offering 10% APY and Interest-Free Cash Advances

Upgrade launched Boost Money, a mobile banking product featuring a 10% APY on savings balances up to $1,000 for subscribers. The service provides interest-free cash advances up to $500 with a 0% APR and repayment terms up to 34 days.

Users can access a free tier including a credit-builder card or pay a $9.99 monthly subscription for the premium interest rate. Upgrade reports all payment activity to TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. The Boost Money Spend account has no overdraft or maintenance fees and includes early paycheck access.

Premium membership includes identity theft protection and travel insurance. Since 2017, Upgrade has delivered $45 billion in credit to 7.5 million customers. The product launch targets the gap between current inflation rates and the 24% average APR typically charged for credit card cash advances. (Upgrade)

Merchants Payments Coalition Reports Record $198.25 Billion in Swipe Fees as Congress Weighs Reform

Merchants Payments Coalition reports that credit and debit card swipe fees reached a record $198.25 billion in 2025. This 5.9% annual increase represents an 80% jump since the pandemic for the group representing retailers and gas stations. Visa and Mastercard centrally set rates for over 80% of the market, with their credit card fees alone totaling $118.8 billion. The average swipe fee for these brands rose to 2.36% per transaction, up from 2.02% in 2010. Congress is currently weighing the Credit Card Competition Act to mandate that banks with over $100 billion in assets enable unaffiliated networks like Star or NYCE. This bipartisan legislation seeks to end the practice of restricting processing to the two dominant networks. Projections suggest the shift could save merchants and consumers over $17 billion annually. Current fees add an estimated $1,200 in yearly costs for the average family. (Merchants Payments Coalition)

Are Credit Card Balances At A Record High Or Flat Over The Last 10 Years?

In the latest episode of The Free Toaster, Carlos and Nick sit down with Kelvin Chen (Consumer Bankers Association) to discuss the “record high” narrative. Discover what average card balances look like when you control for new cardholders and inflation.

Catch us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack, or your favorite player.

Please support our Newsletter by recommending us to one of your colleagues!

And, please check out our sponsors:

• Need an affiliate marketing platform/network? Chat with Fintel Connect

• Need to improve application page conversions? Chat with Spinwheel

• Need help with performance marketing? Chat with Bulldog Media Group

• Need to grow in big marketplaces like Credit Karma? Chat with New Market Growth

• Need to hire top-tier talent in fintech or lending? Chat with CTB1

LendingTree Survey: BNPL Delinquencies Hit 41% as Grocery Usage Climbs

LendingTree reports that 41% of buy now, pay later users missed a payment in the past year, marking a significant increase from 34% in the previous period. The survey data reveals that 25% of borrowers now use these loans to purchase groceries, a sharp rise from 14% just one year ago. While one-third of users rely on these installments as a bridge to their next paycheck, 62% incorrectly believe that on-time payments will improve their credit scores. PayPal, Klarna, and Affirm remain the most utilized platforms in a market where 88% of users who requested a late fee waiver were successful. (LendingTree)

Upstart Secures $1B Loan Purchase Agreement with Eltura Capital and Aperture Investors

Upstart secured a $1 billion forward-flow agreement with Eltura Capital Management and Aperture Investors to purchase consumer loans over the next 12 months. The AI-powered lending marketplace connects consumers to more than 100 banks and credit unions to provide personal loans, automotive financing, and home equity lines of credit. The deal represents the first substantial arrangement of this scale between Upstart and this specific investor group. Upstart currently automates more than 90% of its loan originations without human intervention. Aperture Investors brings a portfolio of approximately $5.8 billion in assets under management to the partnership. This commitment aims to provide a robust and diverse funding ecosystem for the platform's credit products. The arrangement builds on an existing relationship to source and service consumer debt through Upstart’s cloud applications. (Upstart)

Looking for a new role?

The Free Toaster Jobs Edition tracks where fintech teams are actually investing across marketing, product, data, credit, risk, and partnerships.

The Free Toaster Jobs

The Free Toaster Jobs curates real openings across credit, risk, product, data, and growth, with a focus on consumer fintech and lending. No noise. Just roles that signal where budgets and priorities are moving.

By Toaster Media

Other News We’re Reading

(BNPL) 56% Of Gen Z Struggle To Track When Installment Payments Are Due (PYMNTS)

(Travel) Capital One Launches Capital One Travel App (Capital One)

(Lending) Algebrik AI Announces Strategic Bureau Integration With TransUnion To Power Smarter, More Inclusive Lending (PR Newswire)

(BNPL) Equipifi And CUSG Announce Strategic Partnership To Bring BNPL Capabilities To Credit Unions Nationwide (PR Newswire)

(Cards) Academy Sports + Outdoors And Bread Financial® Launch New myAcademy® Rewards Credit Card And Enhanced Loyalty Program (Bread Financial)

(Banking) Austin Telco Federal Credit Union Partners With MANTL To Modernize Retail Account Opening Across All Banking Channels (PR Newswire)

(AI) Meet Mastercard’s New Generative AI Model (Mastercard)

(Payments) Globant And Adyen Establish Global Partnership To Accelerate Merchant Payment Integrations And Time To Revenue (Globant)

(Payments) EWS Pairs With Citi To Offer Paze (Payments Dive)

(Banking) MoCaFi Files For Bankruptcy (Banking Dive)

(Payments) Introducing The Machine Payments Protocol (Stripe)

(Commerce) Visa Launches ‘Agentic Ready’ Programme To Advance Agentic Commerce In Europe (Visa)

(Rewards) Citi ThankYou Devalues Hotel Points Transfers (Choice Privileges & I Prefer) (One Mile at a Time)

(Wealth) JPMorganChase Partners With Sports Legends To Help Athletes Master Their Money (JPMorganChase)

Spot something worth sharing with your team? Drop this week’s edition in their inbox:

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/klarna-card-adds-270000-cardholders

Catch you next week,

The Free Toaster Team

P.S.: If you’d like to sponsor or host an event in the consumer lending community in 2026, we’d like to hear from you. The Free Toaster will be organizing & hosting curated events this year, and we’d love to work with you as a sponsor.

Carlos Caro chats with Rakesh Patel, the Executive Vice President of the Experian Marketplace. For those of you not familiar with the Experian Marketplace, it got started in 2017 and it's quitely become one of the largest consumer marketplaces in the world for credit cards, personal loans, and auto insurance. 

In today's episode we'll cover:

-Experian's vision to become a financial co-pilot for consumers

-The scale of the marketplace

-The Experian Activate targeting platform

-How Experian innovates with lending partners

-Rakesh's advice for lenders looking to scale

*****

To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb

A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:

Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. 

https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/

A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect

Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.

https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.

Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.

If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Carlos sits down with Dennis Fish and John Minalga of the ICS Corporation following a roundtable dinner with 16 consumer lending executives in New York City to talk about one of the most misunderstood channels in financial services: direct mail.

We discussed:

Busting the "Direct Mail is Dead" Myth Direct mail accounts for roughly 40% of new accounts for many lenders. Dennis pushes back on the idea that FinTech companies should default to digital-only and shares a story from a lending conference that proves the point perfectly.

Cutting Through The Clutter John argues that direct mail offers something digital can't: uncontested attention. A physical pre-approval offer carries implicit credibility and builds trust. That trust is fragile though. One misleading offer or buried fee and it's gone.

Attribution DM chronically gets underfunded because digital teams harvest leads that direct mail planted. John's fix: design clean holdout tests (mailed vs. not mailed) to measure true incrementality rather than chasing perfect last-touch attribution. Dennis adds that the best marketers measure channel mix holistically. Rising waters raise all ships.

USPS Discount Programs Worth Knowing Dennis breaks down postage discounts available in 2026 that most mailers aren't fully utilizing, including tactile/sensory enhancements, QR code integration, Informed Delivery, sustainability, and growth incentive programs. Stacked together, mailers can recover around 7% of postage costs, with growth incentives returning up to 30% of increased spend.

Find Dennis and John on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisfish/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnminalga/

Carlos and Nick sit with Kelvin Chen, Head of Policy at the Consumer Bankers Association. We discuss Kelvin's recent post on LinkedIn that challenges a commonly cited fact in the media that credit card balances are at record highs.

Kelvin's LinkedIn post below:

"Is the consumer in trouble, or is the math just misleading? 🤔

Multiple times a day, we hear affordability stories about consumers struggling with "record-high" credit card debt ($1.28 trillion).

But that math is missing two massive variables:

💳 39 million more cardholders since 2017.
📈 A 40% increase in the cost of goods since 2014 ($1.00 then = $1.40 today).

Once you adjust for inflation and a larger cardholder base, the real per-cardholder balance has actually stayed flat—and even dipped by about $75—over the last decade.

At CBA, we believe serious debate requires starting from the same facts.

That’s why we’ve published this analysis using public data—with the methodology open and the math checkable by anyone.

Skeptical of research from a trade association? Good. That skepticism is why we’ve published every assumption.

Read more here: https://consumerbankers.com/blog/facts-matter-once-adjusted-for-inflation-consumers-credit-card-balances-have-remained-largely-flat-for-a-decade/ "

*****

Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter (www.thefreetoaster.com) to get our curated news at the intersection of consumer lending & marketing, published every Wednesday.

And then come here on Fridays to get our hot takes on a select story (or two) from that edition. 

*****

To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:

A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:

Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. 

https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb

A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect

Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.

https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.

Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.

If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

[Show notes reposted below from the LendAPI Podcast]

The Free Toaster Podcast is sponsored by:

-Fintel Connect

-Spinwheel

-Bulldog Media Group

*****

LendAPI Partner Podcast with Carlos Caro, Managing Partner & Founder of New Market Growth

Guest:

Carlos Caro

Host:

Timothy Li

In this episode of the LendAPI Partner Podcast, host Timothy Li, Founder & CEO of LendAPI, sits down with Carlos Caro, Founder of New Market Growth, to discuss the complex and rapidly evolving landscape of consumer lending. Carlos shares his deep industry expertise, detailing how lenders can successfully navigate the challenges of listing on popular affiliate platforms, the critical importance of balancing lead quality with volume, and the significance of building a strong professional network.

What You’ll Learn:

• The real challenge of getting listed on major platforms like LendingTree or Credit Karma, and why Carlos often has to turn down 85% of lenders who approach him for placement.

• Why striking a balance between acquiring a high volume of leads and ensuring those leads are of top quality is essential, especially as platforms prioritize customer welfare and competitive rates.

• The importance of "Market Fit" and understanding the specific requirements of each platform, tailoring your offerings to match traditional products like mortgages or personal loans.

• How embracing innovation—such as leveraging blockchain technology for new, high-reward credit cards—can help differentiate your products in a crowded market.

• Actionable strategies for success, including focusing on customer needs, attending industry events, collaborating with other businesses, and staying ahead of market trends and regulatory shifts.

About New Market Growth

New Market Growth is a specialized consulting firm that helps lenders connect with powerful affiliate marketing channels to drive customer acquisition. Founded by Carlos Caro, who brings a rich background in lending and marketing from his time working with major financial institutions, the firm assists lenders in navigating the highly competitive consumer finance space. They focus on bridging the gap between innovative lending products and key acquisition platforms, ensuring lenders can effectively reach and serve their target markets.

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

Upstart applied for a national bank charter to simplify its infrastructure and reduce annual costs by $150 million. JPMorgan Chase currently leads fintech competitors in Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) customer satisfaction, according to JD Power. Credit Karma and Better Mortgage launch automated mortgage refi. Also, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are shifting revenue models toward co-branded credit card agreements to hedge against fuel volatility. Credit Unions also increased card portfolios to $88.6 billion in January, outpacing the growth rate of Commercial Banks.

Lots to break down. Let’s get toasting!

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

PS: To support us, please share our Newsletter with 1 of your colleagues!

Upstart Applies for National Bank Charter to Simplify Lending Infrastructure

Upstart applied for a national bank charter to replace its current infrastructure of 248 state licenses and 100 bank partners. Morgan Stanley reports this setup costs $200 million annually, or $135 per loan, while a single federal charter reduces those costs to $50 million. This transition generates $150 million in annual savings before additional operational changes.

The company currently maintains 14.6% of originated loans on its balance sheet. Shifting from warehouse funding to deposits lowers the cost of capital and extends loan holding periods, with Morgan Stanley modeling $67 million in additional net interest income compared to 2027 consensus. Combined savings and income reach $217 million, representing a 50% upside to 2027 adjusted EBITDA.

Upstart chose the bank holding company path over the industrial loan company (ILC) route selected by Affirm, placing the firm under Federal Reserve oversight. This structure allows for a broader range of banking products and uses deposit funding as a backstop during restricted securitization periods. LendingClub already operates with a charter, while Affirm applied for its ILC in January. (Upstart, Upstart)

This move shifts how Upstart funds loans and competes with its partners. We’ll discuss this on The Free Toaster Podcast this Friday. If you have a POV you’d like to share on the show, please reply to this email to let us know! We’ll record at 2pm ET on Friday!

Sponsored by Fintel Connect

Webinar Alert: From Google to Generative AI: How Financial Brands Win in the New Age of Search

Join leaders from LPL Financial, New Media Advisors, and Fintel Connect for an interactive, executive-level discussion on how financial brands are winning in the new age of generative AI—and what it takes to protect acquisition performance.

Financial brands are under pressure to acquire new customers, defend share of voice, and prove ROI. AI is reshaping discovery: research now happens inside generative summaries, shortlists form before the click, and visibility is increasingly decided upstream. Teams that ignore this risk losing their voice—and their next customers.

If you lead marketing, product, or growth at a financial institution—or AI-driven customer acquisition is on your 2026 roadmap—this is the session you can’t afford to miss this quarter.

You’ll learn:

• What financial institutions need to do now to stay competitive as search becomes AI-driven

• How to think about generative search: replacement or evolution of Google

• Whether to shift budget away from Google—or double down on foundational visibility work

• How authority and third-party signals impact AI-driven brand discovery

This interactive webinar delivers practical insights and real-world examples to help future-proof your growth strategy and win in the new age of search.

Reserve Your Spot Now

JPMorgan Chase Ranked 1st in 2026 J.D. Power U.S. BNPL Satisfaction Study

JPMorgan Chase ranked first in the 2026 J.D. Power U.S. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) Satisfaction Study with a score of 706, as bank-branded installments outperformed fintech competitors by 101 points. Financial institution-based BNPL products averaged a satisfaction score of 704 following a 59-point YoY increase, while fintech-based services fell to an average of 603. Data shows 52% of bank BNPL users select fixed payment plans during statement reviews to leverage existing credit lines without opening new accounts. This shift toward account-based lifecycle management indicates that integrated digital experiences and perceived security now outweigh the initial approval speed of standalone fintech apps. (JD Power)

Looking for some sunshine, good vibes, and even better fintech discussion this April?

The Free Toaster will be at CardCon in Phoenix and would love for you to join us! The schedule just dropped and promises a wide range of marketing and AI topics.

Get Your Tickets Here

Consumer Lending Holds Steady as Early Signs of Credit Stress Emerge

Bank of America reported consumer loan growth slowed to 2.8% year over year as the market shifts toward a neutral position. Net charge-off rates reached 4.3%, coinciding with an Unemployment Rate increase to 4.4%. Lenders are responding by tightening credit standards and prioritizing portfolio quality over volume growth. Stabilization in deposit pricing is easing funding competition, allowing institutions to focus on margin preservation during the credit softening. (BofA Global Research, March 8, 2026)

Please support our Newsletter by recommending us to one of your colleagues!

And, please check out our sponsors:

• Need an affiliate marketing platform/network? Chat with Fintel Connect

• Need to improve application page conversions? Chat with Spinwheel

• Need help with performance marketing? Chat with Bulldog Media Group

• Need to grow in big marketplaces like Credit Karma? Chat with New Market Growth

• Need to hire top-tier talent in fintech or lending? Chat with CTB1

Credit-Card Cash Reshapes US Airline Loyalty — and Profit

Delta Air Lines received $8.2 billion from American Express in 2025, an inflow exceeding its adjusted operating income. United Airlines and American Airlines are shifting revenue models toward co-branded credit card agreements with partners like Citi to hedge against fuel volatility. United Airlines now requires a specific co-branded card to earn miles on basic economy fares, and American Airlines eliminated mileage accrual for those tickets. The National Consumers League characterizes this as a transition toward airlines operating primarily as rewards programs. (Reuters)

Credit Karma and Better Mortgage Launch Automated Refinance Service

Intuit Credit Karma launched a mortgage broker service in partnership with Better Mortgage to automate refinancing for homeowners with interest rates exceeding 6%. The platform replaces traditional lead-generation models with a “as little as five-clicks” qualification system that connects users to options in “as little as 10 days”. This integration combines automated applications with access to live experts to address current housing affordability gaps.

Karma’s vision here? “…saving members over $1 trillion in mortgage interest by driving down the cost of homeownership and making one of life’s biggest financial decisions simpler and more accessible.” (Credit Karma)

Credit Union Credit Card Portfolios Reach $88.6 Billion Following Unusual January Growth

Credit unions increased credit card portfolios by 0.4% from December to January, reaching $88.6 billion in total debt and capturing a 6.8% market share. This growth occurred during a period when the broader market typically experienced post-holiday balance declines, though Commercial Banks still maintain $1.2 trillion in total card debt. The sector reported a 12.3% year-over-year increase in non-revolving loans, including Auto Loans and Personal Lending. Despite monthly gains in revolving credit, credit card growth rates trailed other loan categories within these member-owned institutions. Credit unions currently outpace the growth rate of banks in the card sector while maintaining a significant volume gap. (CU Times)

Looking for a new role?

The Free Toaster Jobs Edition tracks where fintech teams are actually investing across marketing, product, data, credit, risk, and partnerships.

The Free Toaster Jobs

The Free Toaster Jobs curates real openings across credit, risk, product, data, and growth, with a focus on consumer fintech and lending. No noise. Just roles that signal where budgets and priorities are moving.

By Toaster Media

Other News We’re Reading

(Fintech) Thredd and Cross River to Accelerate Expansion Into the US Market for Global Fintechs (Thredd)

(Partnerships) Ford and Bread Financial Accelerate Customer Benefits With New Financing Program (Bread Financial)

(AI/Tech) Experian and OpenAI Launch the UK’s First Credit Score App in ChatGPT (Experian)

(Payments) Visa, Mastercard Accelerate AI Tools for Businesses (American Banker)

(Cards) Robinhood Takes on Premium Card Issuers (Payments Dive)

(Banking) Capitol Federal® Savings Bank Partners With CorServ to Meet Commercial Customer Credit Card Demand (PR Newswire)

(Partnerships) 717 and Kent State Launch New Credit Card Partnership (Business Journal Daily)

(Corporate) TransUnion Investor Day to Highlight Its Next Chapter of Growth (TransUnion)

(Open Banking) Truist Expands Open Banking Capabilities With Plaid (Truist)

(AI/Tech) Perplexity Computer Uses Plaid Data to Personalize Financial Management (Perplexity)

(Commerce) From Browsing to Buying: Making Agentic Commerce Real for Merchants (J.P. Morgan)

(Cards) Samsung Doesn’t Look Like It’s Given Up on Its Credit Card Ambitions (Android Authority)

(Legal/Regulatory) Oregon Passes Bill to Opt Out of Federal Rate Exportation (Husch Blackwell)

Spot something worth sharing with your team? Drop this week’s edition in their inbox:

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/upstart-applies-for-national-bank

Catch you next week,

The Free Toaster Team

P.S.: If you’d like to sponsor or host an event in the consumer lending community in 2026, we’d like to hear from you. The Free Toaster will be organizing & hosting curated events this year, and we’d love to work with you as a sponsor.

REPOSTED FROM FINTECH TAKES. Alex's show notes below. I hope you enjoy!  -Carlos

*****

Welcome back to Fintech Takes. I'm Alex Johnson, joined again by Carlos Caro (author of the Free Toaster newsletter and host of the Free Toaster podcast) to continue the conversation we started on Carlos’s podcast about MrBeast's acquisition of Step and what it means for the fintech ecosystem.

This episode picks up where we left off, by looking to the past. 

If you think you’ve found a new idea in financial services, you probably just haven’t done enough research yet. Celebrity fintech, especially fintech built for underserved consumers, is no exception. 

In this Part 2 episode, Carlos and I explore three celebrity-backed fintech products from the 2010s era that failed in ways worth understanding for the present: The Kardashian Kard, Justin Bieber's BillMyParents prepaid card, and The Approved Card from Suze Orman.

Across all three, similar questions keep popping up: 

• What happens when a celebrity brand collides with the realities of financial services economics? 

• How far can a celebrity brand take a product if the product itself doesn’t make sense for consumers? 

• How much does product-market fit matter if the fee structure feels exploitative? 

• And what can MrBeast learn from the celebrities who tried this before?

Tune in for a tour through recent fintech history as we dust off a few forgotten celebrity card experiments from the sands of time, and wonder whether a celebrity brand can succeed in financial services without repeating the same mistakes.

This episode is brought to you by Plaid. 

Most lenders see the value of cash flow data. The hard part is getting started—and knowing what to do with it once you have it. Plaid makes it easy to access real-time cash flow and behavioral insights in seconds, through a familiar experience borrowers already trust. No heavy lift. No added friction. Learn more at www.plaid.com/ftt

Sign up for Alex’s Fintech Takes newsletter for the latest insightful analysis on fintech trends, along with a heaping pile of pop culture references and copious footnotes. Every Monday and Thursday: https://workweek.com/brand/fintech-takes/

And for more exclusive insider content, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page.

Follow Carlos Caro:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-carlos-caro/

Follow Alex Johnson: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgfH47QEwbQmkQlz1V9rQA/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhjohnson
X: https://www.twitter.com/AlexH_Johnson

What We Cover:

In-Store Buy Now, Pay Later Most BNPL players are built for online checkout — but 87% of commerce still happens in physical stores. Tim explains how LendAPI landed a major retailer (Sunglass brand Salmoiraghi & Viganò / Sunglass Hut adjacent) as a client looking to build a fully branded, in-store financing experience — complete with loyalty programs, insurance products, and subscription-style payment plans. The key insight: major BNPL players optimize for the transaction, not the shopping experience.

Becoming Your Own Lender Tim breaks down how any merchant — from guitar shops to wellness centers — can self-finance customers using LendAPI's platform. High-margin businesses in particular can absorb default risk while collecting a down payment and building customer loyalty.

Indirect Auto Lending LendAPI recently certified on RouteOne and DealerTrack, the two dominant auto dealer POS systems. Tim explains why credit unions are ready to ditch legacy LOS providers and what LendAPI offers that incumbents simply can't — speed, flexibility, and zero change-order fees.

Building Through Content Tim shares his unfiltered content strategy: no ghostwriters, no AI tools — just 3,000-word blog posts written in 45 minutes at Starbucks on Saturday mornings. Two years in, LendAPI gets 3-4K website visits per day and runs entirely on inbound leads with no sales team.

Find Tim Li: LendAPI.com

*****

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=mar

A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect

Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.

https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast

A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:

Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. 

https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/

To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.

Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.

If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

They also discuss Dave's rise to $4B valuation, drop down to a $50MM valuation, and pop back to $2.85B. Additionally, we break down their customer acquisition strategy and ask questions regarding their long-term viability given the DOJ case out there.

They expand on the Free Toaster article recently published here:

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/how-dave-scaled-to-1637m-in-q4-revenue

Dave's Meta Ads library Carlos referenced is here:
https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=credit_ads&country=US&is_targeted_country=false&media_type=all&search_type=page&sort_data[mode]=relevancy_monthly_grouped&sort_data[direction]=desc&view_all_page_id=1719276031734555

*****

Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter (www.thefreetoaster.com) to get our curated news at the intersection of consumer lending & marketing, published every Wednesday.

And then come here on Fridays to get our hot takes on a select story (or two) from that edition. 

*****

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb

A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect

Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.

https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast

A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:

Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. 

https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/

To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.

Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.

If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Spinwheel.

We’ve got a packed edition for you this week, starting with Dave’s Q4 results where quarterly revenue jumped 62% to $163.7 million. While Dave rebounds, the traditional credit system may be showing cracks; a new analysis from ProPublica, a non-profit investigative newsroom, reports that Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax are increasingly failing to correct errors on consumer credit reports. Meanwhile, the race for premium users is heating up with Robinhood’s new Platinum card, and Chime is aggressively rewiring its operations by using AI to handle 70% of member support. We’re also looking at the dawn of agentic commerce as Mastercard, Google, and Affirm build the framework for AI assistants to safely handle your shopping.

Lots to break down. Let’s get toasting!

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

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How Dave Went From "‘Left for Dead’ to $554M in Annual Revenue

Dave, a neobank that provides mobile cash advances and banking services, finished Q4 2025 with revenue up 62% to $163.7 million and a 50% increase in loan originations, signaling a period of continued growth for the platform. Full-year 2025 revenue hit $554 million, capping a turnaround that would have seemed absurd two years ago. In 2023, Dave's stock was trading under $10 after a SPAC debut that cratered over 90% from its peak. The company was burning cash, cutting staff, and widely written off as another pandemic-era fintech flameout. Net income for the quarter rose 292% to $66.0 million, which suggests the business model is finding its footing. While Monthly Transacting Members (MTMs) reached 2.9 million, CEO Jason Wilk noted this is still a "small fraction" of the 185 million people in their target market. Management also increased the share repurchase authorization to $300 million to return capital to investors. For 2026, Dave expects revenue growth between 25% and 28% along with expanding profit margins. (Dave)

Digging Deeper

Management now talks a lot about their “growth algorithm”. The result: mid-teens MTM growth plus low double-digit ARPU growth. In 2025, both components outperformed. MTMs accelerated to 19% year-over-year, reaching 2.93 million. ARPU grew 36%, driven by a new fee structure that replaced the old tip-based model with a flat 5% fee (capped at $15) on ExtraCash advances.

Here’s where it gets interesting for marketers.

Dave acquired 867,000 new members in Q4 at a $20 CAC. But the company doesn’t optimize for lowest CAC. It optimizes for gross profit per member. Annualized gross profit per MTM hit $167, up $48 year-over-year, while CAC only moved from $16 to $20. Payback periods dropped to under 4 months.

How Dave Will Partner With CCB

Dave is moving ExtraCash receivables off-balance sheet through Coastal Community Bank. Receivables sat at $297 million at year end against $2.2 billion in quarterly originations. Once migration completes by mid-2026, Dave expects to free up $200 million-plus in liquidity and retire its $75 million credit facility.

Dave keeps full economic exposure but pays Coastal to hold the assets. The fee reduces non-GAAP gross profit but gets added back for EBITDA.

Dave Running BNPL Experiments

Dave is testing a BNPL product internally and expects customer testing in April. Limits will run 50% to 2x larger than ExtraCash. No compound interest, no late fees, CashAI underwriting.

Management expects some ExtraCash cannibalization but sees the products as complementary. ExtraCash covers bills, gas, groceries. Pay-in-4 targets discretionary spend where members already use competing BNPL products. Even if it monetizes at a lower rate, Wilk says the longer retention and higher LTV make it a net positive. It also opens a new acquisition channel. BNPL is an easier marketing message than cash advances.

No meaningful BNPL revenue expected in 2026. The focus is proving the unit economics before scale in 2027.

Wrapping Up

Dave’s 2.9 million MTMs sit at roughly 1.6% of what it estimates is a 185 million person TAM. The earnings supplement shows 66% of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck (up from 57% in 2021) with personal savings rates at 4%, half the pre-COVID level. Structural demand for short-term liquidity keeps expanding.

The cost advantage over legacy banks is notable. Per Dave’s management team, their cost to serve runs $56 per customer versus $300 at legacy banks. CAC is $19 versus roughly $500. Fewer than 300 employees, no branches, $2.3 million in annual revenue per employee (up from $1.5 million a year ago). Revenue per employee climbing while headcount stays flat is what AI-driven operations look like when the product and the underwriting model are the same thing.

Dave beat and raised every quarter in 2025. The 2026 guide implies deceleration from 60% to roughly 26% growth, which builds in room to do it again.

The DOJ still has an active case against Dave, alleging the company’s tipping model misled consumers about the true cost of its cash advances. The suit, filed in 2024, claims Dave pushed users toward tips that functioned more like hidden fees. A loss or settlement could force product changes and carry financial penalties. That risk hasn’t gone away. But $227 million in FY25 adjusted EBITDA from a company that was nearly left for dead two years ago may buy them a little extra time.

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The Free Toaster Podcast takes the biggest fintech, credit, and payments stories of the week and breaks down what they mean for growth, distribution, and product strategy. If you read the newsletter, this is the conversation behind it.

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Credit Bureaus Are Leaving More Mistakes on Frustrated Consumers’ Reports Under Trump’s CFPB

ProPublica, a non-profit investigative newsroom, reports that Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax are increasingly failing to correct errors on consumer credit reports. These companies generate revenue by collecting and selling financial data, yet a ProPublica analysis indicates they now provide relief to consumers roughly half as often as they did in previous years. Under current federal oversight, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has drastically curtailed its enforcement, and the rate at which Experian resolves disputes fell to less than 1% compared to nearly 20% just one year ago. TransUnion also saw its relief rates plunging starting in mid 2025 as the companies changed how they handle consumer complaints. The bureaus attribute these shifts to widespread misuse by credit repair firms, but this change in policy often leaves individuals with documentation of errors unable to fix their scores. Without active regulatory pressure, many consumers remain trapped with incorrect data that prevents them from securing housing or loans. (ProPublica)

Toaster’s Question To Our Readers: It strikes us that as complaint volume increases, a higher % of those complaints might come without merit or justification. We’d love to unpack this further. In anyone in our audience close to this trend and willing to come on the Podcast to discuss? Reply to this email to let us know.

Why Spinwheel Chose to Become a Consumer Reporting Agency

Spinwheel recently transitioned into a consumer reporting agency, a move that changes how the debt and liability data aggregator handles financial information. The company operates a platform that helps lenders and fintechs access fragmented credit data to assist with underwriting and account management. By adopting this status, Spinwheel now follows the Fair Credit Reporting Act to address a substantial gap between modern data tools and traditional credit bureaus. This shift requires the company to maintain rigorous accuracy standards and provide formal dispute processes for users. Lenders can now integrate this data into regulated decision-making workflows with greater regulatory alignment. Sean Anderson, the company's Chief Operating Officer, stated that operating as a consumer reporting agency allows them to bridge that gap by delivering more comprehensive liability intelligence. Consumers potentially see better loan rates when financial providers use more accurate, consumer-permissioned data. (Spinwheel)

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How Robinhood’s New $695-a-Year Credit Card Stacks Up in a Crowded Market

Robinhood Markets is entering the premium credit card market with a new product that attempts to challenge Amex’s flagship product. The digital brokerage operates a platform for stock trading and retirement accounts and now wants to attract a demographic of higher spenders. This new card carries a $695 annual fee and offers various cash-back incentives for travel and dining. Critics point out that some of these benefits require specific spending hurdles or additional purchases to actually function. Robinhood aims to convert its existing app users into cardholders to compete with established players like American Express and Chase. CEO Vlad Tenev described the card as being annoyingly heavy at a recent launch event. The strategy relies on the high engagement levels of current brokerage customers who already check the app frequently. (WSJ)

When AI Starts Buying For You, Trust Becomes The Product

Mastercard recently collaborated with Google to launch Verifiable Intent, a new technical framework designed for AI-driven commerce. This global payments company provides the infrastructure that allows AI agents to buy products for users without a manual click for every transaction. Since industry experts describe the adoption of these agents as skyrocketing, the company wants to ensure digital assistants do not exceed their spending authority. They are building a record intended to be tamper-resistant that links user identity and specific instructions to every transaction the AI makes. This move aims to keep autonomous purchases authorized and secure. It essentially gives everyone a shared source of truth so merchants know the bot has permission to spend money. If we are going to let bots handle our errands, we need to know they are sticking to the script. By open-sourcing the technology, they are inviting other developers to help build out the standards for agentic commerce. (Mastercard)

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Happy Money Introduces Partner-Branded Program to Help Credit Unions Drive Lending and Membership Growth

Happy Money launched its Partner-Branded Program to help credit unions and banks manage personal loan offerings without building their own internal systems. As a consumer finance finance company, Happy Money operates a lending platform called Hive that connects individual borrowers with loans funded by various financial institutions. This new setup lets partners like MSU Federal Credit Union offer loans under their own brand while Happy Money handles the behind-the-scenes marketing and loan management. The program aims to help local institutions find new borrowers and maintain member loyalty as traditional acquisition costs rise. MSU Federal Credit Union currently uses the system to reach people through direct mail and digital ads to fuel its lending activity. Happy Money manages the underwriting and servicing, which allows these credit unions to add high-yield assets to their portfolios with less operational work. The company has originated more than $6.5 billion in loans since it started, showing a substantial reach in the digital lending space. It is an interesting move because it lets smaller lenders use outsourced tech to compete for personal loans that usually require a significant investment in digital infrastructure. (PR Newswire, Happy Money)

Chime Is Using AI To Rewire How Brands Show Up In Culture

Chime recently announced a multi-year partnership with Major League Soccer, acting as the league's official retail banking and credit card partner. This digital banking platform provides fee-free financial services and now uses internal AI tools to manage its branding and customer outreach. Chief Growth and Marketing Officer Vineet Mehra moved creative production in-house, using AI to reduce campaign development timelines by 60%. The company also replaced its creative agency of record with these automated tools. Mehra estimates AI will save the company millions in agency costs over the next couple of years. On the operational side, AI now handles 70% of member support interactions through voice and chat systems. These efficiencies dropped the cost to serve customers by 60% while reducing repeat inquiries. By automating repetitive tasks, Chime reallocates its budget toward high-profile sports sponsorships to reach younger, digitally active consumers. (Forbes)

Klarna and Stripe Team up to Offer Flexible Payments and Seamless Processing Globally

Klarna and Stripe recently expanded their long-standing partnership to make flexible payment options more accessible to small and medium businesses globally. As an AI-powered payments network and shopping assistant, Klarna provides buy now, pay later services and instant bank transfers for over 100 million customers. This updated integration allows Stripe users in 25 countries to add Klarna to their checkout flows without a complex technical setup. The data shows some merchants experienced a substantial 67% increase in average order value after adopting the service. Stripe provides the underlying payment processing and reliable security that keeps transactions moving during high-volume periods like Black Friday. By upgrading their shared API, the two companies now offer a seamless experience that mirrors a direct integration. This move helps Klarna move beyond its traditional roots in fashion and beauty into new areas like healthcare and auto repair. Both companies seem focused on making it easier for shoppers to choose how they pay while helping merchants track those sales more effectively. (Klarna)

Affirm Expands Stripe Partnership to Support Shared Payment Tokens for Agentic Commerce

Affirm is expanding its partnership with Stripe to integrate its installment lending service into AI-driven shopping platforms. Affirm operates a payment network that offers fixed-term loans for consumer purchases without charging late fees. The new technical setup uses Shared Payment Tokens, which allows AI agents to suggest and initiate purchases with a user's permission. By using these tokens, the system avoids exposing sensitive account credentials during the transaction process. Shoppers see the total cost of their purchase upfront and select a specific repayment plan before the AI assistant completes the buy. Stripe handles the backend processing between the merchant and the lender, even for businesses that do not use Stripe as their primary payment processor. This move follows a collaboration that began in 2021 and aims to standardize how pay-over-time options function within automated commerce. While the tech is evolving, the core goal remains providing a clear payoff date for individual transactions rather than a revolving credit line. (Affirm)

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(AI) Splitit and Google Prepare Installment Payments for AI Shopping Agents (PYMNTS)

(AI) TransUnion Advances AI-Driven Credit Intelligence with Google Cloud (TransUnion)

(Fintech) Current And Former Block Workers Say AI Can’t Do Their Jobs After Jack Dorsey’s Mass Layoffs: ‘You Can’t Really AI That’ (The Guardian)

(Lending) Gradbridge Launches Second-Look Private Student Lending Program And Partnership With Hatch Bank (PR Newswire)

(Lifestyle/Travel) American Express Opens First-Ever Sidecar By The Centurion® Lounge (American Express)

(Crypto/Banking) Zerohash Applies For A National Trust Bank Charter To Further Strengthen Regulated Stablecoin & Digital Asset Infrastructure (GlobeNewswire)

(Fintech/Banking) Revolut Seeks US Banking License As Fintech Eyes Expansion (Bloomberg)

(Fintech/Banking) Tech And Finance Layoffs: Oracle, Block, Morgan Stanley, Capital One Headline Brutal Week For Job Losses (Fast Company)

(Payments) Strategic Imperatives Expands Gocardless Integration To Automate End-To-End Billing And Disbursements (GoCardless)

(Cards) Talucard Launches New Biometric Payments Card With Idex Biometrics (FinTech Futures)

(Payments) Sofi And Mastercard Partner To Enable Sofiusd Settlement Across Mastercard’s Global Payments Network (Mastercard)

(Payments/Saas) Stripe Thinks The Subscription Model Needs A Usage-Based Upgrade (PYMNTS)

(Cards) Capital One Ignites Competition With Shift To Discover Network (PYMNTS)

Spot something worth sharing with your team? Drop this week’s edition in their inbox:

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/how-dave-scaled-to-1637m-in-q4-revenue

Catch you next week,

The Free Toaster Team

P.S.: If you’d like to sponsor or host an event in the consumer lending community in 2026, we’d like to hear from you. The Free Toaster will be organizing & hosting curated events this year, and we’d love to work with you as a sponsor.

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/can-nerdwallet-outrun-the-ai-disruption

Note: Carlos misspoke early in the episode when he shared the topline revenue and growth numbers. The correct numbers are $225.4MM topline revenue and 23% YoY growth.

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Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

We’ve got a packed edition headlined by NerdWallet’s growth paradox, hitting record revenue of $836.6 million even as AI-driven search erosion poses an existential threat to their core model. The AI disruption continues at Block, which is cutting its workforce by 40% in a massive bet on smaller, automated teams. In payments, the landscape is shifting as Stripe expresses interest in acquiring veteran incumbent PayPal, while Klarna surges to 55 million monthly users in its evolution toward becoming a global digital bank. We’re also breaking down Bilt’s new rewards for mortgage spending and a sobering Equifax report showing U.S. consumer debt has accelerated to $18.20 trillion.

Lots to break down. Let’s get toasting!

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

PS: To support us, please share our Newsletter in your internal Slack channels!

NerdWallet’s Growth Paradox: Record Profits Amidst Losing Ground

NerdWallet reported $225 million in revenue for Q4 2025 as the company managed shifts in consumer search behavior. Operating as a financial matchmaking platform, the business earns commissions by connecting users with credit cards, loans, and insurance products. The Loans division saw the most significant movement with a 141% revenue increase to $42.3 million, while the Emerging segment covering banking and investing grew 57% to $52.9 million. Insurance revenue rose 13% to reach $81.2 million, helping offset double-digit declines in the Credit cards and SMB categories. By the end of the year, the team doubled its non-GAAP operating income to $96 million and maintained a cash balance of $98 million. It looks like the company is navigating a tricky search environment by leaning on its lending and banking growth to keep the numbers steady. (NerdWallet)

Toasters Take

We’ll be honest. These numbers are a little puzzling.

The credit cards decline is about what you’d expect. Organic search headwinds have been hitting the category hard, and NerdWallet hasn’t been able to make up the difference in paid media. That’s partly because paid search in the cards vertical is ruthlessly competitive, and NerdWallet is still developing its muscle there. What makes it sting a little more is the broader context: lenders we talk to are actually growing in affiliate channels in cards right now. This isn’t a category that’s rolled over. NerdWallet is losing ground in a market that’s still very much alive.

The insurance story deserves more scrutiny. Auto insurance has been one of the more volatile media categories of the past five years. It surged early in the pandemic, went completely quiet through 2022 and 2023 as carriers pulled back hard, and has roared back through 2024 and 2025 as those same carriers returned with serious budgets. The question worth sitting with is whether NerdWallet’s insurance growth reflects genuine platform strength and execution, or whether they’re simply well-positioned to catch incremental media spend from carriers with money to burn. Those are very different stories.

Stepping back, NerdWallet deserves real credit for growing through what could have been a genuinely ugly stretch. An AI-driven erosion of organic search traffic was an existential threat to their core publisher model, and they navigated it. That’s not a small thing.

But here’s the question that’s hard to shake. If the cards business doesn’t recover, and if insurance carriers eventually cool on their media budgets, what does this business actually look like? Those two scenarios happening at the same time would be a very uncomfortable place to model out. The growth pillars carrying 2025 could deflate at the same moment the legacy credit cards business stays structurally impaired.

The R&D line also stood out. At 7% of revenue and essentially flat year-over-year in dollar terms, it raises a real strategic question for a company whose core business is being disrupted by AI. NerdWallet built its reputation as a trusted destination for financial guidance. That model depends on people showing up to find answers. AI is actively rewiring how consumers do exactly that. If NerdWallet isn’t leaning hard into building its own AI-native experience, someone else will do it for them and take the traffic with it. The window to be the disruptor rather than the disrupted doesn’t stay open forever.

We're going deep on all of this on the The Free Toaster News Pod this week, including bringing in a category expert to help us unpack the insurance question properly. If you have a strong POV on any of this and want to join the conversation, we record Fridays at 1:30pm ET. Reply to this email and let us know.

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• Affiliate dominance: Over 60% of AI-sourced financial content comes from affiliates like NerdWallet and Bankrate.

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The Free Toaster Podcast takes the biggest fintech, credit, and payments stories of the week and breaks down what they mean for growth, distribution, and product strategy. If you read the newsletter, this is the conversation behind it.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Be sure to check out our latest pod!

(And if you have a strong opinion on anything in today’s Edition and would like to be on the show - we record at 1:30pm ET on Fridays - let us know!)

Payments Processor Stripe Expresses Interest in PayPal

Stripe is reportedly looking into buying all or parts of PayPal, the veteran digital payments company that helped define the early era of online commerce. As a private firm that builds the software and infrastructure for businesses to accept internet payments, Stripe is making a move that would significantly consolidate the market. While Stripe recently reached a valuation of $159 billion, PayPal has struggled to maintain its pace against mobile-wallet competition from Apple and Google. Patrick Collison, Stripe's president, noted that the company has "had, obviously, a tough time over the past few years" as the competitive landscape changed. Even with PayPal's recent difficulties in updating its technology, the news of a potential deal sent its stock up by a substantial 6.7%. This indicates that investors still see value in the legacy firm, even if it needs a serious hardware and software refresh to stay relevant. It looks like a case of a younger, high-growth firm trying to absorb an older incumbent that once dominated the field. If the deal moves forward, it could reshape how a massive chunk of the internet handles its money. (Bloomberg)

Klarna Reaches 55 Million Monthly App Users as Usage Surges 53% Year Over Year

Klarna now serves 55 million monthly active users as a global digital bank and flexible payments provider that facilitates 3.4 million transactions per day. The company reported a 53% increase in daily engagement compared to last year, with 9 million people using the app on a daily basis. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski noted that when people use the app every day, it shows the company is delivering on its vision of becoming a digital bank for the next generation. This growth follows the introduction of several new features, including a debit card, cashback rewards, and peer-to-peer payments in Europe. Recent data from McKinsey suggests these trends align with broader shifts, as nine in ten consumers in the US and Europe now use digital payments. By integrating banking, spending, and shopping into one hub, the platform aims to capture the growing number of users who often leave home without a physical wallet. Klarna appears to be successfully transitioning from a checkout tool into a primary resource for daily money management. (Klarna)

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Block Cuts 40% of Its Work Force Because of Its Embrace of A.I.

Block is cutting its workforce by 40% as the company transitions to a smaller team structure reliant on artificial intelligence. This financial technology firm, which operates Square, Cash App, and Tidal, expects to lose about 4,000 employees in the process. CEO Jack Dorsey claims that intelligence tools change the fundamental requirements of running a business and allow smaller teams to work more effectively. Investors responded by sending the share price up over 26% in after-market trading despite the substantial cost of the layoffs. During a video call to discuss the cuts, Dorsey wore a hat with the word LOVE on it while employees responded with dozens of thumbs down emojis. One worker even questioned the fashion choice during the meeting where Dorsey explained his preference for acting decisively rather than cutting staff gradually. The move represents a significant bet that software can replace a large portion of the company's human staff. While Dorsey believes most companies are late to this shift, his approach marks one of the most visible instances of a firm citing AI as the primary reason for a major staff reduction. (NY Times)

Bilt Rewards Revamps Credit Card Lineup with New Tiered Options for Rent and Mortgage Spending

Bilt Rewards updated its credit card lineup with the Bilt Card 2.0, offering three different tiers aimed at users who want to earn points on rent, mortgages, and daily purchases. Column N.A. issues these cards while the fintech company Cardless Inc. manages the servicing for the Blue, Obsidian, and Palladium versions. You can choose between earning 4% back on everyday spending via Bilt Cash or using a multiplier specifically for housing payments. The Palladium Card sits at the top of the stack with a $200 annual credit and lounge access, though it requires a $495 annual fee. Bilt Rewards handles housing payments by pulling the total directly from your bank account so the transaction does not use up your available credit limit. On the first of every month, the Rent Day promotion allows you to earn double points on non-housing purchases up to a 1,000-point limit. You can add five authorized users to the account to help accumulate points faster, but the primary cardholder stays responsible for all debt. It is a straightforward way to get some kickbacks from a monthly expense that usually offers none. (Bilt)

Equifax National Market Pulse Data Shows U.S. Consumer Debt Accelerating

Equifax released new credit data showing that total U.S. consumer debt reached $18.20 trillion by the end of 2025, a 3.7% increase from the previous year. As a global data and technology firm, Equifax tracks these trends to help financial institutions and government agencies evaluate the economic health of the population. While overall delinquency rates began to drop from recent peaks, they still sit at levels higher than the norms seen before the pandemic. Bankcard balances drove much of this growth, climbing to a substantial $1.12 trillion as consumers continue to rely on revolving credit. This rising debt highlights a persistent K-shaped divide where higher-income earners benefit from asset growth while others deal with the weight of inflation and high borrowing costs. Auto loan balances remained largely flat, but many people are now turning to leasing to find lower monthly payments for expensive vehicles. Student loan debt dipped slightly by 1.4%, yet the resumption of wage garnishment poses a new risk to how people prioritize their monthly bills. It is a complicated picture that shows the American consumer is still spending even if the financial ground feels increasingly uneven. (Equifax)

Figure Doubles Consumer Loan Volume and Adds Auto Lending

Figure Technology Solutions doubled its consumer loan volume year-over-year as the blockchain-native capital marketplace continues to shift how private credit moves. The company hit $2.7 billion in volume for Q4, which represents a 131% increase and suggests borrowers are finding utility in decentralized finance. Their Figure Connect platform now handles over half of that volume, a milestone Michael Tannenbaum says represents "structural progress in how the business operates" by reducing reliance on balance sheet intermediation. They also expanded their reach by partnering with Agora Data to bring auto lending into the mix, effectively creating a capital markets highway for vehicle assets. While the core business grows, Figure also scaled its crypto-backed and small business loans. It is interesting to watch a team build out infrastructure like their new On-chain Public Equity Network while the rest of the market stays cautious. They have found a niche where the tech functions as intended and the growth numbers keep the shareholders engaged. Figure is proving that even technical changes in capital markets can be a win when the execution is this consistent. (Figure)

Gap Inc. Launches Encore, a New and More Rewarding Loyalty Experience For Lovers of Fashion & Entertainment

Gap Inc. launched a new loyalty program called Encore that connects its Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta brands. As the largest specialty apparel company in America, the retailer is moving beyond standard discounts to offer members things like early product access and events with partners like Disney. CEO Richard Dickson mentioned that customers are looking for brands that shape culture rather than just simple transactions. The program includes three tiers named Core, Premier, and All-Access and it features a marketplace for limited products and charitable donations. For frequent shoppers, a new Mastercard provides points on apparel purchases made at other retailers too. This strategy attempts to turn a basic rewards system into a broader platform tied to entertainment and fashion. It is a clear move to increase customer engagement by linking clothing sales to exclusive brand experiences. (Gap)

Please support our Newsletter by recommending us to one of your colleagues!

And, please check out our sponsors:

• Need an affiliate marketing platform/network? Chat with Fintel Connect

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• Need help with performance marketing? Chat with Bulldog Media Group

• Need to grow in big marketplaces like Credit Karma? Chat with New Market Growth

Sources: Block, Chime, LendingTree, Sezzle

Looking for a new role?

The Free Toaster Jobs Edition tracks where fintech teams are actually investing across marketing, product, data, credit, risk, and partnerships.

The Free Toaster Jobs

The Free Toaster Jobs curates real openings across credit, risk, product, data, and growth, with a focus on consumer fintech and lending. No noise. Just roles that signal where budgets and priorities are moving.

By Toaster Media

Other News We’re Reading

(Fintech) Stripe Publishes 2025 Annual Letter And Announces Tender Offer To Provide Liquidity To Current And Former Employees (Stripe)

(Lending) FinWise Bancorp Announces Agreement With Albert Corporation To Offer Millions Of Americans Transparent, Affordable And Convenient Short-Term Personal Loans (FinWise Bancorp)

(Fintech) Fintech Chime Sees 2026 Revenue Above Estimates On Strong Demand; Shares Surge (Reuters)

(Cards) LoanPro Partners With NXTMOVES To Deliver Scalable, End-To-End Credit Card Program Management (Business Wire)

(Fintech) Plaid Scores $8 Billion Valuation In Move Closer To 2021 Heyday (Bloomberg)

(Banking) D.C. United Announces Landmark Multi-Year Partnership With Lafayette Federal Credit Union (D.C. United)

(Lending) Synchrony And Polaris Renew Consumer Financing Partnership To Offer Flexible Payment Options For Powersports Customers (Synchrony)

(Lending) Instnt And MarkIII Launch Industry’s First “Double-Indemnity” Solution To Revolutionize The $18 Trillion Consumer Lending Market (PR Newswire)

(Banking) VolCorp Partners With Veep To Offer Earned Wage Access To Credit Unions (CUInsight)

(Banking) Payoneer Files Application For U.S. National Trust Bank Charter To Strengthen Regulated Financial Infrastructure For Global Businesses (Payoneer)

(Payments) Why Adyen Has Partnered With Medius For Corporate Cashback (Fintech Magazine)

(Banking) Credit Unions Caution Against Fighting Bias With ‘Disparate Impact’ Rule (Credit Union Times)

(Payments) Barclays Considers Blockchain Platform For Payments, Deposits (Bloomberg)

(Banking) Backbase And Plaid Partner To Bring Open Finance To AI-Powered Banking (Backbase)

(Cards) MetaMask And Mastercard Partner To Launch The US MetaMask Card, With First-Time Availability In New York (MetaMask)

(Crypto) Meta’s (Possible) Crypto Comeback Highlights Stablecoin Acceleration (Forbes)

Spot something worth sharing with your team? Drop this week’s edition in their inbox:

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/can-nerdwallet-outrun-the-ai-disruption

Catch you next week,

The Free Toaster Team

P.S.: If you’d like to sponsor or host an event in the consumer lending community in 2026, we’d like to hear from you. The Free Toaster will be organizing & hosting curated events this year, and we’d love to work with you as a sponsor.

Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter (www.thefreetoaster.com) to get our curated news at the intersection of consumer lending & marketing, published every Wednesday.

And then come here on Fridays to get our hot takes on a select story (or two) from that edition. 

*****
A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:

Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. 

https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/

To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb

A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect

Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.

https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.

Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.

If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Alex breaks down what Step actually is — a once-hyped neobank valued at nearly $1 billion in 2021 that quietly faded into obscurity, struggling like so many of its peers to crack the user acquisition code. Mr. Beast, who filed a trademark for "Mr. Beast Financial" last year, reportedly scooped it up at a significant discount, inheriting a functional neobank with banking partner Evolve Bank and Trust and ~7 million users — a small number compared to his 467 million YouTube subscribers.

The strategic fit makes surface-level sense: Step already targeted teens and young adults, emphasizes financial literacy, and has a history of celebrity investors (including Steph Curry). Mr. Beast's brand speaks the same language and operates at a scale no neobank has ever had access to.

But the conversation gets serious fast. Carlos and Alex explore the darker structural forces at play — the industry's pull toward gambling-adjacent products, the monetization pressures that push fintechs toward high-risk features, and the very real consequences for young, vulnerable users. Alex draws a sharp line: financial services isn't like selling chocolate bars. It's one of the only industries, alongside healthcare, where the stakes are genuinely life and death.

Both Carlos and Alex walk away cautiously optimistic — Mr. Beast has the scale and the right instincts — but clear-eyed about how narrow the path to doing this well really is.

Follow Alex at www.fintechtakes.com

*****

A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect

Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.

https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast

A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:

Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. 

https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/

To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.

Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.

If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Spinwheel.

Apple is aggressively moving buy-now, pay-later into the mainstream by embedding one-tap installments directly into the iPhone’s payment sheet for in-store use. This disruption is part of a broader shift in consumer finance, as Upstart expands into revolving credit with Cash Line and Bank of America democratizes its rewards program by slashing minimum balance requirements. Also, AI is rapidly reshaping the industry’s backend, from Intuit and Anthropic’s push into automated accounting to Experian’s new ChatGPT app that streamlines the insurance shopping experience.

Lots to break down. Let’s get toasting!

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

PS: To support us, please share our Newsletter in your internal Slack channels!

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:

Apple Pay Pushes BNPL To Offline (In-Store) Transactions

Apple is now pushing the ability for Apple Pay users to pay with installments at the physical register, not just online and in apps. With iOS 26, installment options show up right inside the Apple Pay payment sheet when you tap to pay in store. What used to require opening a separate app or converting a purchase after the fact is now a one-tap decision at the moment of payment. Apple is not lending directly. Loans come from participating providers including Affirm, Klarna, Citi, and Synchrony. The feature is also rolling out internationally across Canada, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden. (Apple Support) (PYMNTS)

How It Actually Works

You’re at the checkout register. You double-click your iPhone’s side button and your Apple Pay card appears. If your linked card supports installments, you’ll now see two options: Pay In Full and Pay Later.

Tap Pay Later and you’re shown the installment plans available from your card issuer or BNPL provider, including terms, payment schedule, and any conditions. Select a plan, tap Agree & Continue, confirm with Face ID, and hold your phone to the reader. Done.

You can even set up an installment plan after your purchase. Complete the transaction normally, and when the notification comes in, follow the prompts to convert it to a plan retroactively.

Previously, you loaded your card, made the purchase, and then maybe went to Affirm or your issuer’s app to convert it later. Now the installment option is right there at the point of decision. The friction is gone.

Toaster’s Take

This isn’t any ‘ole product launch. Now lenders have to compete for transactions on the basis of rewards AND their BNPL options.

Buy now, pay later started niche. It expanded online. It became a major category with Affirm. Now it’s embedded at the operating system level by Apple. That signals that BNPL has reached the mainstream adoption curve, and if you’re a card issuer not offering installments, you need to stop and think about what you might be missing by sitting out.

Offline is the Real Unlock

BNPL has historically skewed online, but roughly 3 out of every 4 U.S. retail dollars are still spent in store. E-commerce accounted for just 16.4% of total U.S. retail sales in Q3 2025, per the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, Apple Pay already captures about 54% of in-store mobile wallet transactions and accounted for 10.2% of eligible in-store purchases in 2025 according to a PYMNTS Intelligence study of 3,339 U.S. consumers. By putting installment options at the physical register, Apple is expanding BNPL’s addressable market in a big way. This may be the bigger story: not that Apple supports installments, but that it’s pushing them into the ~83% of retail that happens offline.

The Wallet Becomes a Marketplace

Apple chose not to give exclusivity to a single BNPL provider. Affirm, Klarna, Citi, and Synchrony are all visible inside the wallet, creating competitive territory at the moment of payment. Think of it like how issuers compete for new accounts inside Credit Karma, except this marketplace lives one tap away from every transaction. It’s not enough to just integrate. Winning placement inside the wallet becomes a real operational focus. We wouldn’t be surprised if lenders eventually need to dedicate teams to manage and grow their Apple Pay wallet share (if that’s not happening already).

Acquisition is No Longer Episodic

Previously, issuers competed on rewards, perks, and credit limits. Customer acquisition happened once in a while. Someone opened a card once a year, maybe. Now every single checkout is a decision moment. Apple puts “pay in full” and “pay later” side by side. The user chooses every time. Fighting for share of wallet might have just hit its Apple Pay BNPL moment.

The Bottom Line

More than half of U.S. smartphone users are on iPhones and an estimated 65.6 million people in the U.S. use Apple Pay. Google Pay supports some BNPL options through partners, but hasn’t embedded a native installment experience as deeply as Apple has. If this gains traction, expect Google to follow and wallet-level installment marketplaces to become standard.

We keep seeing the signs. Issuers may no longer be able to ignore offering BNPL on their card products. Not when Apple puts it one tap away on every iPhone.

The Free Toaster Podcast takes the biggest fintech, credit, and payments stories of the week and breaks down what they mean for growth, distribution, and product strategy. If you read the newsletter, this is the conversation behind it.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Be sure to check out our latest pod!

(And if you have a strong opinion on anything in today’s Edition and would like to be on the show - we record at 12pm ET on Fridays - let us know!)

Upstart Announces Cash Line, Bringing Always-On Credit to Millions of Americans

Upstart is launching Cash Line, a revolving line of credit intended to provide consumers with persistent access to funds. As an AI-based lending marketplace that matches borrowers with over 100 banks and credit unions, the company is positioning this product as a more predictable alternative to traditional cash advance apps. The service offers a minimum credit limit of $200 for approved users, with the potential to reach $5,000. Upstart also includes a feature called Rest Mode to give borrowers more flexibility over their repayment schedules. Users pay a $10 monthly membership fee for credit lines up to $500, while larger draws incur an APR ranging from 5% to 36%. Although a full release is scheduled for later in 2026, the company is currently opening a waitlist for a beta version of the platform. This move shifts the company further into the revolving credit space, moving beyond its existing focus on personal, auto, and home equity loans. (Upstart)

Toaster Readers: Is this innovative or the 10th rendition of this in the marketplace? If you have a strong POV we’d love to have you on the Podcast to discuss. Reply to this email and let us know.

New BofA Rewards™ Program to Reach Millions More Clients with Expanded Benefits

Bank of America is replacing its current rewards structure with BofA Rewards, a loyalty program that removes previous balance requirements for anyone with a personal checking account. This financial institution, which provides banking and investment services to roughly 70 million clients, previously required a $20,000 minimum balance for similar perks. Starting May 27, about 30 million additional customers qualify to enroll and access benefits like credit card bonuses and cash back deals. Depending on how much a member uses the program and their specific tier, the bank estimated the annual value of these perks ranges from $150 to $4,000. Higher-tier members also receive credits for streaming services and access to events related to travel or motorsports. The company also updated its mobile app to help users track and activate these offers more easily. By shifting to this model, Bank of America attempts to capture a wider range of customers regardless of their current account balances. (Bank of America)

Want To Reach Our Readers In Person?

The Free Toaster is betting big on live events in 2026.

If you’d like to sponsor or host an event in the consumer lending community in 2026, we’d like to hear from you. Think coffee meetups, lunches, dinners, 1-day events, golf outings, wine tastings.

Our events team can help you bring it to life. Contact amanda@thefreetoaster.com for more information.

Intuit and Anthropic Partner to Bring Trusted Financial Intelligence and Custom AI Agents to Consumers and Businesses

Intuit, the financial technology company that operates TurboTax and QuickBooks, is partnering with AI firm Anthropic to integrate automated agents into its software for mid-sized businesses. This multi-year agreement allows these companies to use the Claude language model to build agents for specific tasks like accounting and compliance workflows. A restaurant owner could potentially use the system to identify variances in profit margins by connecting sales data with payroll records. On the consumer side, Intuit is linking its financial data with Claude so users can estimate tax refunds or create invoices directly within Anthropic’s apps. Intuit is also providing Claude Code to its own engineers to speed up software development. While the companies describe the tools as a significant shift in capability, they noted that the systems rely on Intuit’s existing data and security infrastructure. These features are expected to begin rolling out in spring 2026. This move suggests that the future of personal finance might involve handing off the more repetitive aspects of bookkeeping to automated systems. (Intuit)

Experian Launches Insurance Marketplace App on ChatGPT

Experian launched its Insurance Marketplace app on ChatGPT, providing a way for people to shop for auto insurance through a chat interface. This global data and technology company, which handles credit reporting and financial services, aims to replace traditional forms with a conversation that allows users to compare rates from 37 carriers. Instead of clicking through various websites, users provide a ZIP code to see different coverage options and estimated prices. The company states that this process can help consumers find savings that sometimes exceed $1,000 per year. This move is part of a broader plan to move financial decision-making into AI environments. While users can explore prices in the chat, they must still go to the company website to finish a personalized quote. This setup attempts to simplify insurance shopping by using a bot to organize information that is usually spread across static pages. (Experian)

TransUnion 2026 Originations Forecast Shows Continued Positive Momentum Amidst Moderate Expansion

TransUnion, a global firm that collects and analyzes consumer credit data for businesses, expects credit originations to grow at a moderate pace through 2026. While the 2025 spike in auto loans will likely slow down as federal EV tax credits expire, mortgage and personal loans are taking over as the primary drivers of growth. Homeowners are seeing more options as interest rates move lower, which improved affordability and led to a sixth straight quarter of growth for home equity products. In the personal loan market, originations reached 7.2 million as fintech lenders took a 42% share of the sector. Despite these high volumes, TransUnion reports that lenders are staying cautious with risk because delinquency rates rose across several categories. Consumers are still using credit regularly, with total card balances reaching a substantial $1.15 trillion while the growth rate begins to level off. The data suggests the credit market is returning to traditional patterns following a period of high inflation. (TransUnion)

GoCardless Introduces AI-Native Tool for Businesses to Communicate With the Platform in Natural Language

GoCardless, a bank payment company that specializes in direct debit and instant payment processing, released its Model Context Protocol to help developers interact with its platform using natural language. This tool allows businesses to use large language models to communicate with the system, potentially reducing the time required to integrate the service into their own websites. Instead of manually searching through technical documentation, a user like a gym owner can ask the AI for specific information, such as which payments are overdue. The company notes that this setup simplifies workflows today while providing a foundation for future AI agents to handle transactions independently. This update follows a pattern of the firm using machine learning to handle failure rates and identify high-risk transactions. One of its existing tools, Success+, currently recovers an average of 70% of payments that do not go through on the first attempt. It is an interesting shift toward making financial back-ends more approachable through conversational interfaces. (GoCardless)

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Sources: Block, Klarna, Upbound

Looking for a new role?

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Other News We’re Reading

(Partnership) Major League Soccer Names Chime Official Retail Banking, Credit Card, and Debit Card Partner (MLS)

(Banking) Equifax Delivers Optimal Path™ Directly to U.S. Consumers via the myEquifax Mobile App (Equifax)

(Legal) Baltimore Sues Fintech Company Dave Over ExtraCash Overdraft Product (JD Supra)

(Policy) Kansas Bankers Launch Campaign Against Marshall-Backed Credit Card Legislation (KCTV5)

(Fintech) Stripe‘s Bridge Secures Conditional OCC Approval For National Trust Bank Charter (Payments Dive)

(Lending) DailyPay Upsizes Secured Credit Facility To $960 Million (PR Newswire)

(Crypto) Quantoz Partners With Visa To Make Stablecoins Spendable (Quantoz)

(Payments) Desert Financial Credit Union Partners With Alacriti To Unify Instant And Legacy Payments (Alacriti)

(Banking) Backbase And Plaid Partner To Bring Open Finance To AI-Powered Banking (Backbase)

(Payments) Britain Plots Visa Rival Over Fears Trump Could Pull The Plug On Payments (The Guardian)

(Partnership) Visa Renews Partnership Across Red Bull Formula One Teams (Visa)

(Finclusion) Ericsson And Mastercard Enhance Global Digital Money Movement And Accelerate Digital Financial Inclusion (Mastercard)

(Retail) eBay Partners With TrueLayer To Offer Pay By Bank At Checkout (TrueLayer)

(M&A) Grab Accelerates Financial Services Roadmap With Acquisition Of Digital Investing Platform, Stash Financial, Inc. (Grab)

(Banking) Marshall Community Credit Union Selects Mahalo Banking To Enhance Digital Agility (Business Wire)

(Cybersecurity) Cloudflare And Mastercard Partner To Extend Comprehensive Cyber Defense Across Critical Infrastructure And Small Businesses (Mastercard)

(Lending) Credit Unions Warm Up To Small-Dollar Loans, Challenging EWA (American Banker)

Spot something worth sharing with your team? Drop this week’s edition in their inbox:

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/apple-just-put-bnpl-into-65-million

Catch you next week,

The Free Toaster Team

P.S.: If you’d like to sponsor or host an event in the consumer lending community in 2026, we’d like to hear from you. The Free Toaster will be organizing & hosting curated events this year, and we’d love to work with you as a sponsor.

Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter (www.thefreetoaster.com) to get our curated news at the intersection of consumer lending & marketing, published every Wednesday.

And then come here on Fridays to get our hot takes on a select story (or two) from that edition. 

******

"In October 2021, we acquired a 30% equity interest in Monevo Limited (“Monevo”), which we accounted for as a Cost Method Investment. On April 1, 2025, we acquired the remaining 70% of the outstanding equity of Monevo and gained control of Monevo by exercising a call option we had obtained when we made our initial investment. The strike price of the call option paid at closing was $56.0 million, which was funded with cash on hand. Cash acquired from Monevo in connection with the transaction was $0.3 million, resulting in a net cash payment of $55.7 million. There was no contingent consideration related to this transaction."

Source: https://investors.transunion.com/~/media/Files/T/Transunion-IR-V2/reports-and-presentations/transunion-q3-25-10-q.pdf

"Additional revenue growth assumptions:
The impact of our Monevo acquisition is expected to be immaterial for Q1 2026 and FY 2026."

Source: https://investors.transunion.com/~/media/Files/T/Transunion-IR-V2/reports-and-presentations/q4-2025-earnings-release.pdf

*****
A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:

Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. 

https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/

To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:

A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:

Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!

https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb

A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect

Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.

https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast

A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:

New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.

Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.

If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com