Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by New Market Growth.

With the slow news cycle and the July 4th holiday, we decided to reflect a bit more on one story that recently dropped. We think it was easy to skip but there there is something deeper at play that others might appreciate.

Last Tuesday, LendingClub officially ceased to exist and rebranded to Happen Bank. We covered the initial announcement in April, but the dust has settled and we wanted to dig into the strategy underneath. This is one of the clearest examples we have seen of a lender picking a specific customer segment, the “Motivated Middle,” and engineering every product and reward around them. If you market lending or deposit products, you will want to spend five minutes unpacking how Happen ties its rewards directly to profitable customer behaviors.

Let’s get toasting!

(Don’t miss our First big Toaster Summit)

Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders and Publishers

Proudly Sponsored by Experian & Engine by Gen

We have a new site! And our Day 2 experience (which has much smaller capacity) is selling faster than we anticipated.

LendingClub Became Happen. The Real Story Is Who It’s Chasing.

Last Tuesday, Scott Sanborn rang the Nasdaq opening bell and LendingClub officially ceased to exist. The company now trades as Happen, Inc. under the ticker HAPN, having completed both a full rebrand to Happen Bank and a stock listing switch from the NYSE to Nasdaq. [American Banker]

We covered the announcement when it dropped in April. So why come back to it now that the paint is dry? Because to us, there’s a more interesting story layered under the rebrand.

This is one of the cleanest examples we’ve seen of a lender picking a customer segment first and then engineering every product, reward, and dollar of funding around that one person. If you market lending or deposit products for a living, this is worth 5 minutes unpacking.

First, what Happened to Lending Club?

Quick scale check: Happen reports 5M+ lifetime members and $100B+ in lifetime originations (sourced from their 2025 10-K).

For readers who know LendingClub as “the P2P lending pioneer”: that company hasn’t existed for years. Happen is a nationally chartered digital bank running a marketplace bank model with two revenue engines.

The first engine is the balance sheet. Deposits fund loans held for investment, generating net interest income. The second engine is the marketplace. Happen originates loans and sells them to investors, collecting origination fees, servicing fees, and gains on sale capital-light fee income.

The loan book is overwhelmingly consumer: unsecured personal loans (debt consolidation is the core franchise), auto refinance, point-of-sale financing, and a newly launched home improvement vertical. A small commercial book focuses primarily on active SBA lending, while existing commercial real estate loans and equipment leases have ceased origination and are being retained to maturity.

In Q1 2026, originations were split roughly down the middle, 52% sold to marketplace investors and 48% retained, which matters for the strategy below. Both engines get stronger when the same borrower gets cheaper to fund and safer to underwrite.

Happen focusing on the “Motivated Middle”

Happen’s own words: it’s a bank built for “high-FICO, high-income, digitally savvy consumers actively managing their financial lives.” Not the underbanked. Not private-banking clients.

Prime borrowers who still actively use credit.

Look around the industry and you see why this lane was open.

Chime and Dave built their businesses on low-to-moderate-income consumers — overdraft protection, early wage access, interchange-funded economics. SoFi staked out high earners with student loan refi, wealth management, and premium lifestyle branding. Chase, Citi, and BofA sit on trillions in near-zero-cost deposits but don’t always succeed in securing the consumer’s lending business.

The middle, the person with a 740 FICO who carries a $25K consolidation loan and a real savings balance, was nobody’s primary target. Happen is planting a flag there.

The sequencing question (Chime in reverse)

Chime did the hardest thing in consumer banking first: winning the direct deposit relationship, then expanding into credit. Happen is running the opposite play, and it’s the same one SoFi, Capital One, and Amex ran before it. Lend first, because that’s where the money is (and, frankly, because a lending license is far easier to get than a bank charter). Then use the loan relationship to earn your way into deposits and checking.

Loan-first is the more logical sequence for profitability.

But it leaves Happen with a real challenge: it doesn’t own the primary banking relationship yet, and the deposit market is brutally crowded. Which distribution channels it picks to close that gap is the thing to watch over the next few quarters.

But first, a quick note from our sponsor:

New Market Growth

New Market Growth helps lenders build and scale affiliate marketing programs on channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, Lending Tree, Bankrate, Credible, and many more. NMG clients spend $50-$100MM per year in affiliate channels, and the founding team (one of whom is Free Toaster co-founder Carlos Caro), have advised in excess of 50 lenders over the course of their corporate and agency careers.

If you’re a Free Toaster Reader at a lender that spends over $500K per month in affiliate marketing, we’re offering a free, 90-minute audit of your affiliate marketing program. After research we’ll conduct on our side, we’ll book time to share the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities we observe in your program.

Outside eyes could help unlock the growth you’re looking for in H2 2026.

Email carlos@newmarketgrowth.com with subject line “90-minute audit” and we’ll contact you to get the preliminary information we need to get to work.

The flywheel: rewards that pay for behaviors, not balances

This is where the strategy gets concrete. Happen’s two deposit products are engineered so that every reward dollar buys a behavior that improves Happen’s own bottom line.

LevelUp Savings (launched August 2024) pays a higher APY (currently 4% APY) to members who deposit at least $250/month, rewarding the growth behavior instead of the raw balance. It’s built 80K+ accounts and $3.5B in deposits, and savings customers visit 30% more often than the prior product’s.

LevelUp Checking (launched June 2025) pays 2% cash back on on-time personal loan payments made from the account, plus 1% back on gas, grocery, and pharmacy debit purchases. It simultaneously pulls low-cost deposits in, moves loan servicing inside Happen’s ecosystem, and pays the borrower to do the exact thing that keeps charge-offs down. Since launch, account openings are running 6x the prior checking product, and 60% of accounts come from existing members. The cross-sell is seemingly working.

Now the number that left us scratching our heads a bit.

Happen discloses that 70% of LevelUp Savings holders, representing ~95% of balances, hit the $250 monthly threshold. Do the basic math they invite: 95% of $3.5B spread across 70% of 80K accounts works out to an average balance near $59K among threshold-meeting savers. (The disclosed account and balance figures are as of March 31, 2026)

That’s not a mass market audience.

That’s an affluent saver earning 4.00% APY, which raises a question Happen hasn’t answered: why is that customer with $59K in savings taking out a $20–30K personal loan? Either the savers and the borrowers are different pockets of the member base, or the “prime borrower who still borrows” is wealthier than the debt-consolidation stereotype suggests.

TOASTER’S TAKE

The rewards program is designed thoughtfully for the audience (and the P&L). Every Happen incentive pays for a behavior tied to a P&L line (deposit cost, on-time payment, balance growth).

The deposit business doesn’t reduce CAC, it raises the CAC you can afford. When 60% of new checking accounts come from existing borrowers, the lifetime value of a new loan customer goes up. That lets you bid more for media and buy growth on the margin. At scale, the Fortune 500 banks of the world happily push CAC up as long as the marginal customer is profitable. The question for Happen: is that what the next two quarters of marketing spend will show?

The metrics we want to understand this better: checking account volumes (they gave us savings, why not checking?), cross-hold rates, and blended CAC. Until then, we have a number of questions: How many of those affluent savers came from the loan base versus straight rate-shopping on 4.00% APY? Does the flywheel actually convert borrowers into primary banking relationships, or just into high-yield deposits?

Happen’s bet?

That the most overlooked customer in consumer finance is the prime saver who still borrows — and that you win them by paying them to behave in ways that improve your deposit base, your loss curves, and your cross-sell rates all at once.

Only time will tell and the proof will show up in the CAC and cross-sell numbers.

Please support our Newsletter by sharing this edition with a colleague!

And, consider checking 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

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

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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

The news cycle was light this week so we dropped an exclusive editorial on why personal finance algorithms are about to make traditional landing page optimization completely obsolete. The punchline? Consumers are going to stop choosing their own loans and let AI agents handle decisions for them. Is your lending brand optimized to pitch a machine reader instead of a human brain?

Plus, home equity card startup Trovy just locked down a cool $25M and SoFi rolled out new AI tools to be your financial coach and to automate retail investing.

There’s a lot to unpack. 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 subscribe or forward this email to 1 of your colleagues!

Mark Your Calendars For September 23rd!

Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders

Proudly Sponsored by Experian & Engine by Gen

Interest in our inaugural edition of The Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders is heating up 🔥. Thank you!

So far, we have senior leaders from the following organizations registered: Experian, Engine by Gen, Credit Karma, Bankrate, LendingTree, Credible, QuinStreet, Bulldog Media Group, Lending Club, SoFi, Pagaya, One Main Financial, Perpay, Happy Money, Atlanticus, LendingPoint, SuperMoney, Debbie, Portola, PrismData, FICO, and more.

Learn more about the event here!

If you’re a senior leader that buys or sells affiliate media, this is the one event this year you won’t want to miss.

The room is capped at 150 guests and early-bird pricing is active, so consider registering today!

What happens when consumers delegate financial decisions to agents?

Last month, we tracked how ChatGPT is becoming the new distribution channel for personal finance, with Plaid unlocking transactions and Credit Karma plugging in approval odds. We felt a shift like this required an editorial to unpack the ripple effects it’s creating.

The biggest change in personal finance isn’t the AI technology itself. It’s the fact that consumers are going to hand the keys over to AI, letting algorithms choose their loans based on pure data, goals, and constraints. The psychological game of human persuasion is out. The new job is convincing a rational, data-loaded machine to pick you as the best option.

The lending funnel isn’t dying, but your buyer is changing completely as more consumers trust agents to act on their behalf.

Will consumers actually hand over their bank data to a machine? History says yes. Mint hit 20 million users at its peak just by putting spreadsheets in the cloud. When people see value, they share. The question is who’ll be there to earn the trust when agents are eventually adopted by the average consumer.

If you keep optimizing for human emotion, you’re tuning a radio nobody is listening to. Read the full editorial to learn how to set up your brand for the machine era.

Hint: the key is building trust with the consumer before they prompt the agent.

[How Lenders Win When AI Calls the Shots]

Sponsored by Fintel Connect

56% of U.S. bank and credit union executives still build marketing budgets from last year’s numbers. Are you?

Most financial institutions are under pressure to prove which channels drive funded accounts, loans, deposits, and long-term customer value. Yet new research from Cornerstone Advisors and Fintel Connect found that more than half of U.S. bank and credit union executives still determine marketing budgets based on the previous year’s spend.

That may feel practical, but it can leave growth teams overfunding top-performing channels, underinvesting in higher-performing ones, and walking into budget season without a clear cost-per-outcome model.

Fintel Connect’s latest mini guide, Why Financial Marketing Budgets Still Start With Last Year’s Number, shows how financial leaders can shift from legacy budget planning to an outcome-based investment model built around measurable acquisition impact.

Get the guide and rethink how every marketing dollar is being tied to acquisition impact. Read the full guide here

Home equity credit card startup Trovy closes $25m raise

Trovy closed a $15 million Series A funding round, bringing its total capital to $25 million and boosting growth for the financial technology platform that replaces expensive consumer debt with home equity-backed financing. Left Lane Capital led the investment, while existing seed investors Kleiner Perkins, DCM Ventures, and Camber Creek also jumped back into the mix. The startup aims to address a "record" pile of US household debt by helping homeowners tap into their existing equity instead of paying high interest rates. By operating as a licensed lender, Trovy bypasses traditional bank partnerships to give consumers direct ownership of their borrowing experience. Their home equity-backed credit card runs on the Mastercard network via Cross River Bank, and the team plans to launch a flexible loan product called 1Loan this summer. They are also building a comprehensive homeowner hub to manage everything from maintenance reminders to insurance policies. [Fintech Global]

SoFi Launches AI Tools to Coach Your Finances and Automate Your Investments

SoFi, the everything app for digital financial services, recently rolled out new AI tools to help users get a better grip on their money. The company launched SoFi Coach, a chat-based assistant that gives you personalized advice on budgeting, saving, and tackling debt. Users securely connect their accounts from more than "12,000" financial institutions to receive real-time answers about their spending habits and payoff options. During early testing, the tool helped users take "tens of thousands" of financial actions, and "nearly 70%" of engaged testers took meaningful steps to improve their finances. Beyond basic budgeting, SoFi also introduced Composer by SoFi to help retail investors build and automate rules-based trading strategies. You just describe your investment idea in plain English or browse "over 2,000" community-built options, and the platform turns it into a fully functioning plan in minutes. Instead of drowning in spreadsheets or paying a pricey advisor, you can let these straightforward assistants do the heavy lifting for your financial future. [SoFi Coach] [SoFi Composer]

What’s up with banking’s marketing ROI gap?

Banks, credit unions, and lenders are under pressure to acquire more customers, grow funded volume, and prove marketing’s impact. But when attribution is unclear, it becomes harder to know which channels are driving real growth and which ones are simply getting the credit.

If your marketing channels are struggling to perform against a changing market, it’s time to revisit how you measure success. Join Carlos, along with a panel of industry experts on July 13th at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST to decode the marketing ROI gap in banking. Carlos, alongside leaders from Fintel Connect, Peak Bank, and Pagaya, will debate which channels are actually driving funded growth, why lead quality matters more than volume, and how to make smarter budget decisions.

When: July 13, 2026 | 10AM PST/ 1PM EST
Where: Register here.

News Pod #23 - Pagaya Sues Klarna for (Allegedly) Stealing Its Underwriting Model

Pagaya filed a lawsuit against Klarna for (allegedly) stealing is underwriting. Carlos & Nick discuss the implications for fintech marketers that share their underwriting policies with affiliate marketing platforms.

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

Please support our Newsletter by sharing this edition with a colleague!

And, consider checking 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

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

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

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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Spinwheel.

Pagaya just sued Klarna for allegedly stealing its AI underwriting model, building a competing one with four years of proprietary data, then dropping Pagaya the moment it no longer needed them. Partnership teams, take notes.

Also this week: Visa hooks into OpenAI, Experian moves loan shopping into ChatGPT, Klarna launches a high-yield savings account, and Visa and Mastercard take aim at Circle’s stablecoin dominance.

There’s a lot to unpack. 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 subscribe or forward this email to 1 of your colleagues!

Mark Your Calendars For September 23rd!

Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders

Proudly Sponsored by Experian & Engine by Gen

Interest in our inaugural edition of The Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders is heating up 🔥. Thank you!

So far, we have senior leaders from the following organizations registered: Experian, Engine by Gen, Credit Karma, Bankrate, LendingTree, Credible, QuinStreet, Bulldog Media Group, Lending Club, SoFi, Pagaya, One Main Financial, Perpay, Happy Money, Atlanticus, LendingPoint and FICO.

Learn more about the event here!

If you’re a senior leader that buys or sells affiliate media, this is the one event this year you won’t want to miss.

The room is capped at 150 guests and early-bird pricing is active, so consider registering today!

Pagaya Sues Klarna Over Alleged Trade Secret Misappropriation

On IPO day, September 10, 2025, a reporter asked Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski directly: when assessing loan risk, you’re doing that yourself? Not outsourcing it?

“Nope,” he said.

According to a lawsuit filed in Delaware federal court, that was false. And page 5 of the complaint shows exactly where Pagaya intends to prove it.

Pagaya Technologies, the AI underwriting firm that powered Klarna’s subprime point-of-sale lending since 2022, filed suit on May 13, 2026 alleging trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract. The core claim: Klarna used Pagaya’s proprietary ML credit model and the years of real borrower performance data it generated to build competing underwriting capabilities internally, then terminated the partnership once it no longer needed Pagaya.

The market Klarna wanted access to is not small. Per TransUnion data cited in the complaint, 128 million Americans used BNPL in 2025, up from 86.5 million the year before. The majority are subprime or deep subprime, exactly the segment Klarna could not profitably underwrite before Pagaya.

Before the partnership, the complaint states plainly, Klarna lacked the technical capability to underwrite this borrower segment. Pagaya invested over $100 million developing the model. By May 2025, it had launched a $1B+ securitization program with Klarna as the sole originator. By March 2026, Klarna had quietly signed a deal with a new financing partner and pulled the plug, reportedly while still telling Pagaya and WebBank the existing deals were “good to move forward.”

What Pagaya is actually fighting to protect breaks into three categories, laid out clearly on page 16 of the complaint.

The model itself, the data it generated across four years of live lending decisions, and the operational and structural knowledge required to package subprime POS loans into rated ABS deals. That third category is the one people underestimate. Getting investment-grade ratings from Kroll on a subprime consumer ABS requires having actually done it. Pagaya had. Klarna, allegedly, learned how by watching.

The ending was abrupt. Page 37 shows how fast it moved.

On March 25, 2026, Klarna notified Pagaya it was terminating the license and commitment agreements on 180 days’ notice and would not enter any new financing arrangements. No transaction-specific explanation. Klarna had already signed with another counterparty before making the call.

A few things worth thinking through for partnership and lending teams:

• The complaint calls Klarna’s alleged conduct “unlawful distillation,” a concept borrowed from AI/ML, where using model outputs to train a competing model exceeds the scope of a limited license. Expect this framing to show up in future fintech data-sharing agreements.

• The fintech that signs the merchant deal isn’t always the one doing the underwriting. Klarna owned the Walmart relationship. Pagaya owned the credit intelligence.

• Klarna’s IPO filings described its underwriting as proprietary. That disclosure question isn’t part of this lawsuit, but it won’t stay invisible.

• Pagaya is asking for injunctive relief that could force Klarna to stop using any model built with Pagaya’s data. If granted, that hits Klarna’s U.S. lending business directly.

Early days here. Klarna called the suit “without merit” and says termination was contractually permitted. No answer filed yet, and discovery hasn’t started. The internal communications around model training are where this gets interesting. [Court filing] [Banking Dive]

Sponsored by Spinwheel

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

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

With many happy customers, including:

Visa Partners with OpenAI to Power the Next Generation of AI Commerce

Visa plugged its payment network directly into OpenAI. The partnership, announced at the Visa Payments Forum in San Francisco, gives OpenAI access to Visa’s global network, tokenization infrastructure, and real-time fraud monitoring to support agent-initiated purchases. Transactions run within user-defined spending limits and merchant category controls, using tokenized credentials with real-time authorization. Visa is building the checkout layer for a world where consumers stop browsing and start delegating purchases to AI agents.

The more pressing question is what happens to affiliate marketing, paid search, and comparison sites if AI agents become the primary way consumers discover and buy financial products. Visa’s Chief Product Officer said AI will transform commerce more profoundly than the internet or mobile ever did. Card issuers and lenders have spent years optimizing for Google and Credit Karma. The next distribution problem may be getting your product surfaced, compared, and recommended by an AI agent before a human ever sees it. [VISA]

Klarna Launches High-Yield Savings Account, Turning Everyday Spend Into Everyday Savings

Klarna just launched a high-yield savings account in the U.S. The product is FDIC-insured through WebBank, carries no minimum deposit, no monthly fees, and opens at 3.28% APY. Klarna already holds over $12.3 billion in deposits across eleven European markets, so the U.S. launch is a proven model in a new geography, not a product experiment.

The savings account is the third piece of a product suite we’ve been watching come together in real time. In March, we covered Klarna‘s card hitting 5 million active users globally, pacing at roughly 270,000 new cardholders a month. Around the same time, Klarna reported scaling past $17 billion in U.S. volume. Now comes savings. BNPL built the top of the funnel. The card deepened the daily relationship. Deposits take it further, giving Klarna a reason to be in the app on days when nothing is being purchased. Together with the Klarna Card and Klarna Balance, the savings account is designed to create one place to manage the full picture of everyday financial life. That’s the full-stack consumer finance playbook, and Klarna is executing it faster than most competitors expected. [Klarna]

Visa, Mastercard $38B Swipe Fee Settlement Wins US Judge’s Approval

A federal judge granted preliminary approval to Visa and Mastercard‘s $38 billion settlement with merchants on June 9, resolving a case grinding through courts since 2005. The deal cuts swipe fees by 0.1 percentage points for five years and caps standard consumer rates at 1.25% for eight years. Swipe fees totaled nearly $119 billion in 2025 alone, so even modest rate adjustments move serious money across the ecosystem.

The headline number isn’t the $38 billion. It’s the “Honor All Cards” rule dying. Merchants can now decline premium rewards cards at checkout while still accepting standard credit and debit. That’s a direct hit on the interchange economics that fund co-brand programs, cashback offers, and acquisition campaigns. Issuers built entire customer acquisition machines on the assumption that rewards cards would always get accepted. That assumption just got a lot less certain. The Electronic Payments Coalition, which includes Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, and Citibank, backed the settlement, but the National Retail Federation remains opposed and plans further challenges. A fairness hearing still needs to happen before Judge Cogan grants permanent approval, so the uncertainty hanging over interchange economics isn’t going away anytime soon. [Reuters]

News Pod #22 – JD Power Sues Chime, Plus the Big Questions Facing Affiliate Marketing

In the latest The Free Toaster News Pod, we break down JD Power’s lawsuit against Chime over its “America’s #1 choice for banking” campaign and what the case could mean for fintech marketing claims, brand partnerships, and customer trust.

Carlos and Nick also preview the upcoming Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders, discussing the future of search, AI-native brands, human signal in a world flooded with content, lender unit economics, cross-channel attribution, and whether AI strengthens or replaces the partnership function.

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

Please support our Newsletter by sharing this edition with a colleague!

And, consider checking 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

Why Visa And Mastercard Are Building The Stablecoin That Could Sink Circle

Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard are reportedly building a shared stablecoin platform to take on Circle and Tether, which together control roughly 80% of the $325 billion stablecoin market. The moves have been telegraphed for over a year. Stripe paid $1.1 billion for stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge. Mastercard spent up to $1.8 billion acquiring BVNK. Visa is already settling across nine blockchains at a $7 billion annualized rate. These aren’t exploratory bets. They’re the pieces of an issuance stack being assembled in real time.

The threat to Circle isn’t technical. Circle already solved the engineering. The problem is distribution, and that’s the one thing Visa and Mastercard have spent six decades perfecting. Visa runs more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs across 50+ countries. Mastercard has direct bank and merchant relationships at a scale Circle‘s IPO couldn’t buy. The GENIUS Act (the federal stablecoin regulatory framework enacted in 2025) makes this worse for Circle: once a compliant dollar token becomes a commodity any licensed issuer can mint, the contest shifts entirely to who can place it in front of the most merchants and consumers. That’s not a race Circle is equipped to win. [Forbes]

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

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

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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

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

J.D. Power is suing Chime over its recent marketing campaign, arguing that the data does not support the bank's advertising claims. Citi stopped accepting applications for its Custom Cash Card. We are also tracking new ways to borrow, with Experian launching a loan shopping tool directly inside ChatGPT and Pagaya expanding its point-of-sale loans alongside Upgrade. Plus, we look at how the CFPB worked with Bilt to make sure consumers were refunded for fees caused by a recent bank transition.

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 subscribe or forward this email to 1 of your colleagues!

A Free Toaster Event You Can’t Miss

Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders

Proudly Sponsored by Experian & Engine by Gen

Register NOW for early bird pricing!

J.D. Power Sues Chime Over Marketing Campaign

J.D. Power sued Chime on June 2 in federal court in New York over Chime’s “America’s #1 Choice for Banking” campaign and the line backing it up: “#1 ranking based on J.D. Power survey.” The complaint covers breach of contract, trademark infringement, and false advertising.

The whole fight is about whether the data says what the ad says. Chime says the claim is supported by publicly available J.D. Power data showing it had more new checking account openings than any other listed institution. J.D. Power says that study just tracks new account openings by category, not overall preference or who’s anyone’s primary bank, and that Chime led only in checking, with about half of those openings being secondary accounts. Chime is fighting it, calling the complaint selective and incomplete and saying it’ll defend vigorously, pointing to other accolades like Time’s #1 banking brand.

A few things worth chewing on if you do fintech marketing:

• One strong category metric isn’t a market-wide superiority claim. The space between “most new checking accounts” and “America’s #1 Choice for Banking” is basically the lawsuit.

• There’s a difference between public data and licensed-for-advertising data. J.D. Power runs a paid licensing program and says Chime’s deal was internal-use-only. That contract question is the sleeper issue here.

• Can a footnote save a headline? J.D. Power argues the disclosure contradicted the claim rather than qualifying it.

• Claims travel. The same line showed up on the homepage, in paid social, in SEC earnings materials, and in a trademark filing. Each surface is its own exposure.

• How will courts assess willfulness? Chime allegedly kept going after a cease-and-desist, and that could unlock bigger damages. (And at time of publication, Chime hasn’t changed their website).

Early days; Chime hasn’t formally answered yet and nothing’s been tested. But it’s a good one to watch for how hard ratings firms will push back on “#1” claims built on their numbers. [ American Banker][US District Court, Southern District of New York]

Sponsored by Bulldog Media Group

Reach the Borrowers Others Miss.

Bulldog Media Group specializes in connecting consumer lenders with less than perfect borrowers — a massive, underserved market that requires precision targeting to get right. With 25 years of financial services marketing experience, they deliver qualified leads through affiliate marketing, targeted email, and data-driven acquisition strategies built for this exact audience.

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

Get Qualified Borrower Leads

Experian Brings Personal Loan Shopping to ChatGPT with New AI-Powered Experience

Experian launched a new personal loan shopping application inside OpenAI's ChatGPT platform, combining conversational tech with its marketplace data to streamline how consumers explore borrowing options through the credit reporting and financial services giant. Instead of forcing users to hop across multiple websites, this tool lets people chat their way to finding a loan. The application pulls criteria from a network of partners to simplify debt consolidation or major purchases. Lending partners like Avant expect the setup to connect users with personalized options in a far more accessible way. To lock down specific rates, users can hop from the chat window over to Experian’s main site to view pre-qualified offers without hurting their credit score. This rollout expands the firm's push to deploy financial tools at "scale", adding to an AI roster that already includes integrations on Snapchat. [Experian]

Pagaya Builds on Multi-Year Partnership with Upgrade to Expand Point-of-Sale Loans

Pagaya is teaming up once again with Upgrade. This expanded partnership is notable given the fact that the duo moves beyond basic personal loans and tackles the buy now, pay later world. Upgrade plans to plug Pagaya’s AI credit decisioning brains right into Flex Pay, its point of sale payment solution. This setup lets the companies offer flexible monthly payments to a "broader" range of shoppers right when they hit the checkout button. They plan to kick things off in the travel sector, a space where Flex Pay already partners with "thousands" of top brands. By using real time underwriting, Pagaya gives Upgrade the power to greenlight more customers quickly and responsibly. Both teams clearly want to help people make thoughtful purchases without stressing over upfront costs. [Business Wire]

Citi Surprises Cardholders by Halting Custom Cash Credit Card

Citi just surprised cash-back fans by halting new applications for its popular Custom Cash Card. For nearly five years, this card automatically helped users with up to 5% cash back on their highest monthly spending category, capping the premium perk at a $500 limit. Instead of releasing a formal public announcement, the bank simply replaced the card's product page with a brief redirection notice. Internal rumors leaked right before the shutdown, but the sudden move still caught eager applicants completely off guard. While existing cardholders can keep using their benefits for now, Citi currently funnels new shoppers toward its alternative Double Cash card. This unexpected shift leaves people wondering if the financial heavyweight plans to force product transfers down the road. [The Street]

In Case You Missed It (Weekly News Pod)

We've been writing about Cash Flow Underwriting lately. On this News Pod, we expand on what we wrote in last week’s in newsletter: Did ChatGPT Just Fix The Cash Flow Underwriting Distribution Problem?

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

Please support our Newsletter by sharing this edition with a colleague!

And, consider checking 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

The CFPB Works To Ensure Bilt Consumers Are Made Whole

The CFPB stepped in to make sure users of Bilt avoided financial headaches during the company's recent bank transition. A bumpy handoff to a new banking partner triggered technical glitches and annoying fees for a "limited" number of accounts. Instead of launching a slow, multi-year investigation, the watchdog group worked directly with corporate leadership to clean up the mess efficiently. Bilt proactively offered to cover any surprise overdraft or late fees tied to the digital shakeup. Recent documentation indicates that the fintech firm successfully resolved the technical bugs and got its platform back on track. The team expects to return cash to more than 500 newly identified consumers following the agency's push. Government officials will continue monitoring the cleanup until the company delivers full financial redress to every single impacted user. [CFPB]

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

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

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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by New Market Growth.

The way people find and use credit is changing fast, and AI is driving the shift. This week, we look at how large language models are becoming the ultimate distribution channel for cash flow underwriting by turning apps like ChatGPT into personal finance super apps.

We also dive into two new industry reports. Marqeta reveals that consumers are building their own custom portfolio of credit products, while a study from BCG and FT Partners shows fintech hitting a major revenue resurgence driven by real profitability. Plus, we look at Sezzle’s latest super app expansion, including a new Pay-in-5 option that is boosting order values.

There’s a lot of data to unpack. 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

But First, An Event You Can’t Miss

Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders

Proudly Sponsored by Experian & Engine by Gen

Register NOW for early bird pricing!

Will LLMs Solve Distribution For The Cash Flow Lenders?

(read the full version in our latest editorial here)

We Were Wrong About Cash Flow Underwriting’s Distribution Problem

A year and a half ago, I (Carlos) wrote a piece called Where’s The Consumer Demand For Cash Flow Underwriting (CFU)?

Cash flow underwriting has always had one problem: nobody can sell it. The moment a consumer hits “give us your bank login,” they bail. Application rates tank, throughput drops, and the affiliate marketplaces route volume to bureau-only lenders instead.

I used to think that was a dead end. I don’t anymore.

Second-look is quietly working. Lenders are using CFU not as a primary decision, but as a second chance. Customer gets declined on bureau data. Instead of killing the lead, you offer: share your bank data and we might approve you. The person who just got told “no” is the most motivated to say yes. You monetize dead leads, your approval rate climbs, you pay higher affiliate bounties, and the flywheel spins.

But the real unlock is the LLM.

As we wrote in a recent Free Toaster edition, 200 million people already come to ChatGPT every month to ask financial questions. With Plaid now fully integrated, those questions aren’t abstract anymore — they’re grounded in real transaction data. Perplexity built the same thing. Credit Karma is plugging approval odds directly into the ChatGPT experience.

Think about what that means: a user asks about credit cards. ChatGPT reviews their actual spending via Plaid, identifies $8,000 in annual United flight spend, surfaces the United card, checks approval odds through Credit Karma, and prompts them to apply. Product discovery, underwriting match, and conversion funnel — all inside a chat window.

That’s the distribution channel CFU has been waiting for. Not a lender begging you to log into your bank. An AI you’ve already handed your financial life to, pointing you toward better rates and smarter products. The data plumbing for cash flow underwriting is getting laid down by consumers themselves (voluntarily) because the more context they give the model, the better it serves them.

We called it the personal finance super app. The flywheel is already rolling: more data makes smarter recommendations, smarter recommendations build more trust, more trust unlocks more data. At 200 million MAUs, that flywheel has serious momentum.

The open question isn’t whether CFU gets mass distribution anymore. It’s who owns the consumer relationship when it does — ChatGPT, your bank’s AI layer, Credit Karma’s approval odds infrastructure, or someone we haven’t met yet.

But the path from “I’m asking my AI about groceries” to “I’m taking out a better loan” is shorter than most people think. The natural next move after understanding your money is optimizing it. And optimizing it is exactly what lenders sell.

[Check out our full-length editorial here]

Marqeta’s State of Credit: Credit Is Now a Portfolio Consumers Assemble Themselves — and Most Issuers Aren’t Built For It

Marqeta dropped its 2026 State of Credit Report, a survey of 4,000 consumers and 1,000 SMBs across the US and UK, and the through-line is one every growth and product lead should internalize: customers no longer “have” a credit product, they assemble a portfolio of them and switch by transaction. 85% of consumers weigh multiple factors before picking a payment method, 59% used both debit and credit in the last 90 days, and 79% of BNPL users keep using BNPL even when they have a card. BNPL isn’t cannibalizing cards, it’s a parallel rail people toggle into on purpose.

Here’s the why for operators. The report quantifies the single most under-exploited leak in the funnel, the decline. 63% of denied card applicants were never offered an alternative product, yet 60% would have taken a credit-builder, and 76% of denied credit card applicants surveyed would undergo a credit check to upgrade to revolving credit when their profile is ready.

That’s a population you already paid CAC to acquire and then showed the door. The strategic answer Marqeta is selling, “flexible credentials” (one card that flips between debit, credit, and BNPL) plus co-brand-debit-with-BNPL, is really a retention-and-graduation play: keep the relationship through the credit transition instead of re-acquiring the customer later at full price. 48% of 18 to 44s want flexible credentials, rising to 71% among multi-card holders, and the demand skews toward people most comfortable with non-bank providers, which is exactly where a Marqeta-powered issuer wants the wind blowing. [Business Wire] [Marqeta]

The caveat: this is research from a company that profits if you believe it, and it’s a press release, not a filing. But the declined-applicant numbers are the kind of thing you can validate against your own data this week.

Sponsored by New Market Growth

New Market Growth helps lenders build and scale affiliate marketing programs on channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, Lending Tree, Bankrate, Credible, and many more. NMG clients spend $50-$100MM per year in affiliate channels, and the founding team (one of whom is Free Toaster co-founder Carlos Caro), have advised in excess of 50 lenders over the course of their corporate and agency careers.

If you’re a Free Toaster Reader at a lender that spends over $500K per month in affiliate marketing, we’re offering a free, 90-minute audit of your affiliate marketing program. After research we’ll conduct on our side, we’ll book time to share the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities we observe in your program.

Outside eyes could help unlock the growth you’re looking for in H2 2026.

Email carlos@newmarketgrowth.com with subject line “90-minute audit” and we’ll contact you to get the preliminary information we need to get to work.

Sezzle Expands the Super App: New Rewards Currency, Pay-in-5, and AI Across the Stack

Sezzle pushed its super-app strategy further: the Earn tab now carries a new rewards currency (Sezzle Points, earned via cashback, surveys, and receipts, redeemable for gift cards) alongside AI-powered shopping. The distribution data point worth stealing is Pay-in-5, a no-cost five-installment option where April average order values ran 44% higher than Pay-in-4, a direct lever on basket size and merchant economics, not just a UX tweak. Sezzle is running Klarna’s playbook, converting a one-and-done BNPL checkout into a recurring engagement surface . [GlobeNewswire]

Fintech Resurgence. The Next Cycle Belongs to Operators Who Own Distribution and the Balance Sheet

BCG and FT Partners put out their Global Fintech Report 2026, “From Recovery to Resurgence,” and it’s a must-read. The top line: sector revenue hit $504B in 2025, up 22% year over year, growing roughly three times faster than incumbent financial institutions. The bigger shift is quality of growth. Among the 85 largest public fintechs, 74% are now profitable, and average EBITDA margins climbed 400bps to 20%. The “growth at all costs” era is closed. Capital is being priced on durable unit economics, not GMV.

Here is the why for operators, and it runs across distribution, underwriting, and the balance sheet.

First, distribution is being rewired by AI.

The report calls out the move from search to answers, generative engines and AI overviews intercepting intent before a user ever reaches a comparison page, plus agentic commerce where AI assistants execute checkout. For any lender that buys leads or ranks for “best personal loan,” this is the affiliate funnel eroding in real time. The defensible play is owning the customer relationship and the re-engagement loop, not renting clicks.

Second, the bank-charter wave.

Charter applications and approvals jumped more than fivefold, with names like Revolut, Nubank, and crypto-native players pursuing charters and banking licenses. Owning the charter means owning deposits, cheaper funding, and the ability to keep lending economics in house instead of renting a sponsor bank. That is a direct lever on loan margins.

Third, neobanks are graduating into credit.

The scaled digital banks are pushing past deposits and interchange into lending, where the real net interest margin lives, which puts them on a collision course with incumbent card issuers on exactly the underwriting and acquisition terrain this audience operates in. M&A is consolidating the winners, deal volume rose to 659 transactions, with scaled fintechs like Capital One buying their way into capability and reach.

The strategic takeaway is consistent across the report: revenue resurgence is real, but the operators who compound through the next cycle are the ones who control distribution as AI eats search and who control the capital and the charter behind their loans. [BCG + FT Partners]

Please support our Newsletter by sharing this edition with a colleague!

And, consider checking 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

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

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

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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

Are AI agents about to take over our wallets? It certainly looks like it. Robinhood just dropped the first mass-market consumer credit card built explicitly for AI agents, while Catena Labs snagged $30M and filed for a national trust bank charter to act as a regulated fiduciary for bots. If your product roadmap didn’t account for non-human spenders yet, it definitely does now.

But it’s not just the bots making big moves. Fintechs and regulators are shaking things up, too. SoFi just scooped up Peach Finance to supercharge its lending technology stack alongside Galileo and Technisys, while a new executive order from President Trump could completely rewrite the embedded finance playbook by exploring direct Fed payment access for non-banks.

Plus, we’re diving into a slick new co-branded card from Fanatics and American Express and breaking down Q1 direct mail trends that show credit card marketers are still flooding mailboxes, while somehow largely ignoring 20-somethings.

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

A Must-Attend Event
for Lenders + Publishers

Organized by The Free Toaster Team
Proudly Sponsored by Experian & Engine by Gen
Learn more at: events.thefreetoaster.com

Robinhood Launches an Agentic Credit Card and Agentic Trading

Robinhood launched an agentic credit card and agentic trading this week (May 27). Users instruct AI agents to make purchases using the Robinhood Gold card. Each agent gets a separate virtual card number, not the consumer’s actual card, which can be deleted at any time. Optional monthly spending caps and per-transaction notification thresholds. Agent purchases earn 3% cash back. Robinhood is the first major consumer brand to offer an agentic credit card natively. Stripe and Ramp offered virtual cards for agents, but those are B2B. This is the first mass-market consumer credit product explicitly built for AI agents. For card product managers: rewards programs, fraud logic, and co-brand economics are all built around human transactors. AI agents disrupt every assumption in that stack. Robinhood just made this everyone’s near-term roadmap problem. [Fortune] [CNBC] [American Banker]

Fanatics + American Express Launch First Co-Brand Credit Card (Issued by First Electronic Bank, Managed by Imprint)

American Express and Fanatics announced the Fanatics American Express® Card, launching later in 2026, issued by First Electronic Bank and managed by Imprint. The card earns FanCash (Fanatics’ loyalty currency) redeemable for merchandise, tickets, collectibles, and experiences. AmEx Membership Rewards cardmembers can transfer AmEx points into FanCash. AmEx becomes the Official Payments Partner across Fanatics online/retail locations and is the presenting sponsor at Fanatics Fest NYC (July 16–19). The three-party card structure (AmEx network + First Electronic Bank as issuer + Imprint as card manager) is becoming the template for specialty co-brand plays. Imprint is worth watching as a fintech stack-in-a-box for co-brand card programs. The FanCash-to-Membership Rewards bridge is an easy-to-use rewards exchange that pulls existing AmEx cardholders into the Fanatics ecosystem. [CNBC] [Bloomberg] [BusinessWire] [AmEx]

Trump Signs Executive Order on Fintech Innovation — Fed Must Review Non-Bank Payment Access

President Trump signed “Integrating Financial Technology Innovation into Regulatory Frameworks” on May 19. Key provisions: (1) Federal regulators must complete a review of their fintech regulations and application processes within 90 days (~August 17) and take pro-innovation steps within 180 days; (2) The Federal Reserve is directed to evaluate access to Fed payment accounts and services for non-bank financial companies, including fintechs and digital asset firms. This is the policy backdrop for the wave of bank charter applications (Upstart, Mercury, Catena Labs, Mission Lane). If non-banks can access Fed payment rails directly, the sponsor/partner bank model underpinning embedded finance changes structurally. For BaaS operators and embedded finance platforms: the 90-day regulatory review clock is now running. Watch for OCC, FDIC, and Fed guidance by August. [White House] [Consumer Finance Monitor] [Sullivan & Cromwell]

Sponsored by Fintel Connect

(Webinar) From Budget Guesswork to Provable ROI: What Bank and Credit Union Marketing Leaders Need to Change in 2026

Ron Shevlin, Chief Research Officer at Cornerstone Advisors and Senior Contributor at Forbes, is sitting down with Nicky Senyard, Chief Executive Officer of Fintel Connect, for a quick but impactful 30-minute conversation on how banks and credit unions can move from budget guesswork to provable marketing ROI.

Join us on June 4 at 10 am PST/ 1 pm EST, as they uncover real-world examples of how leading financial institutions are reducing the ROI gap and implementing more effective, trackable strategies to connect marketing spend to real growth outcomes.

You’ll learn:

• Why many financial institutions still struggle to measure true marketing impact

• Where banks and credit unions may be overspending or underinvesting

• How affiliate marketing is becoming a scalable, trackable acquisition channel

• What leaders need to change to better defend budgets and connect spend to growth outcomes

If you’re responsible for growth, acquisition, or marketing accountability, you won’t want to miss this session.

Save your spot now

SoFi Buys Peach Finance to Boost Enterprise FinTech Platform

SoFi just acquired Peach Finance to beef up its enterprise technology stack. Peach Finance provides software-as-a-service for loan servicing and processing, making it a natural fit for SoFi's growing backend ecosystem. SoFi will integrate the startup into its Technology Solutions segment alongside existing fintech infrastructure players Galileo and Technisys. Before the deal, Peach Finance raised around $27.5 million from venture capital firms and grew to a team of about 54 employees. This move represents an expansion for SoFi as it creates a vertically integrated system for other financial institutions looking to modernize. The acquisition supports SoFi's broader expansion strategy, which already helped the company reach 14.7 million members in early 2026. Beyond managing loans, the platform is also scaling its capital markets and blockchain capabilities to let enterprises handle both fiat and cryptocurrency. [PYMNTS]

Catena Labs Raises $30M, Files for National Trust Bank Charter for AI Agents

Circle co-founder Sean Neville’s Catena Labs raised $30M (a16z Crypto, Acrew Capital) and filed for a national trust bank charter from the OCC. Catena would be a regulated fiduciary for AI agents. A bank account where the account holder is an AI agent, not a person. Operators can set spending limits, define approved recipients, and cap holdings before handing off financial execution to agents. This is the infrastructure layer that resolves the liability, fraud, and compliance gaps blocking broad agentic commerce deployment. [Fortune] [PYMNTS]

Direct Mail Volume & Trends Report: Q1 2026

Direct mail hit 7B+ pieces in Q1 2026, and credit card brands led the charge with 1.35B pieces, more than any other category. Mortgage and loan marketers held steady at 1B+, while financial services posted modest gains after the holiday season pullback. Key creative trends: 2/3 of all mail was personalized, and 70%+ went out in envelope formats — a sign that marketers are doubling down on scalable, cost-efficient executions. One audience gap worth noting: ages 20–29 made up just ~1% of total mail volume, while 40–69-year-olds captured 2/3 of all pieces. If you're targeting younger borrowers, the mailbox is wide open. [Franklin Madison Direct]

News Pod 19 - With The New Plaid Integration, ChatGPT is Now a Distribution Channel for Personal Finance

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

Upcoming Toaster Events:

Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders (San Francisco | Sept 23–24)
Step away from the daily grind for a two-day, senior-level industry event in San Francisco. On day one, we’ll spend the day at the Exploratorium, a killer indoor/outdoor space where we’ll have a mix of keynotes, panels, structured networking, and great food & drink overlooking the water. On day two (optional, for anyone interested), we’ll head out to wine country so you can continue the conversations you initiated the day prior. Our goal is to make this Summit the ONE event per year you can’t miss if you’re a lender who’s serious about affiliate marketing.

Please support our Newsletter by sharing this edition with a colleague!

And, consider checking 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

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

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

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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Spinwheel.

ChatGPT is now a distribution channel for personal finance. OpenAI launched a feature that allows users to connect their bank accounts using Plaid. They also partnered with Intuit to integrate tools like Credit Karma’s approval odds. This means ChatGPT can review a user's actual spending data, determine their approval odds, and recommend personalized financial products.

We explore how this new setup impacts traditional search traffic and affiliate sites like NerdWallet, and how this changes the affiliate marketing landscape in the lending industry.

Plus, we drop details on our upcoming September event in San Francisco, the Affiliate Marketing Summit For Lenders.

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 forward this to 1 of your colleagues!

Toaster Exclusive Event

Learn more at: events.thefreetoaster.com

This event is Proudly Sponsored by Experian & MoneyLion

ChatGPT Is Now a Distribution Channel For Financial Products

OpenAI launched a personal finance experience inside ChatGPT.

Perplexity did a similar thing a month earlier.

This marks the early innings of consumer attention shifting away from Google and the traditional affiliate listing pages and into the LLMs (for financial products).

What Actually Happened

200 million people already come to ChatGPT every month to ask financial questions.

Previously, ChatGPT was answering personal finance questions in the abstract. It would give high-level answers loaded with assumptions, or it forced the customers to answer a pile of detailed questions.

Now, with Plaid fully integrated into ChatGPT, it answers those questions based on the customer’s real financial data.

How it works (for users in the “Pro” tier):

• Connect bank accounts through Plaid

• ChatGPT gets read access to balances, transactions, investments, and liabilities

• Users get a financial dashboard, the ability to ask freeform questions, and personalized product recommendations built on their financial profile

Perplexity built the same thing with Plaid, while also layering in investment-grade data from FactSet, Coinbase, Nasdaq, and S&P Global.

ChatGPT and Perplexity both seem to appreciate the power of answering personal finance questions for their customers in the specific, not just the abstract.

Intuit’s Role In All Of This

In November 2025, Intuit announced a new $100M+ multi-year contract designed to accelerate its AI-driven expert platform strategy. TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp now live directly inside the ChatGPT experience.

Intuit’s CEO Sasan Goodarzi said: “For us, it doesn’t matter whether a customer comes directly to using our platform or we are where they are within an app, in this case ChatGPT.”

From OpenAI’s perspective, one of the unique things Credit Karma brings to the table is their approval odds models. The ability to tell a user, based on their real credit profile, how likely they are to get approved for a given card, loan, or mortgage. That’s roughly 2 decades of data infrastructure across 130MM+ members.

Imagine this: A user asks about credit cards. ChatGPT reviews their spending (enabled through the Plaid link), identifies $8,000 in annual United flight spend, surfaces the United card, checks approval odds through Credit Karma, and prompts them to apply. No new tab. No search results page.

That’s product discovery, validation of an underwriting match, and (potentially) a conversion funnel. And this can happen in a few key strokes inside ChatGPT.

Who Should Feel Threatened?

Traditional content affiliates should be very worried.

Specifically, sites that rank for terms “best travel credit card 2025,” serve generic display ads, and collect referral fees when users click through and apply.

That static webpage listicle couldn’t possibly know you spent $8,000 on flying on United last year. ChatGPT does. And, going further, it can tell you how many incremental rewards you’ll earn by moving your spend and confirm that the issuer will approve you if you apply.

Sites like NerdWallet have great content. But, OpenAI already consumed that data. What sites like NerdWallet don’t have is approval odds models with the scale and fidelity of a giant like Credit Karma.

Consumers chase convenience and utility.

The utility of an adviser with the context of Plaid’s transaction data, the certainty layer of Credit Karma’s approval odds, and the intelligence of OpenAI’s best foundational models is hard to beat.

Game, set, match for the LLMs. RIP Google’s pile of blue links.

The New Competitive Landscape

Credit Karma’s position is strong.

They are in a position to be the largest-scale approval odds provider for the ChatGPT ecosystem. OpenAI has no incentive to replicate that in-house. Building credit bureau & lender relationships, selecting attributes, and predicting approval odds across dozens of lenders is two decades of infrastructure work.

Experian’s position is also very interesting.

While a smaller-scale consumer marketplace than Karma (at least for now), they’re a credit bureau, too. So while Karma has to worry (at least a little bit) about existential risk tied to their credit bureau relationships, Experian can control their destiny across the value-chain.

OpenAI will happily outsource the challenge of predicting approval odds, especially knowing the total market for affiliate marketing spend in consumer lending is in the ballpark of $6B per year. That’s peanuts for a giant like OpenAI.

There’s an opening for the banks, though.

Karma’s models aren’t perfect. Based on their relationship with lenders & the bureaus, they can assert with high confidence that you’ll be approved, but they don’t guarantee it with 100% certainty. (To their credit through, they’ve gone as far as to offer consumers up to $50 when they get declined on offers with the Credit Karma Guarantee badge).

If a lender like Wells Fargo or Capital One built a direct integration with OpenAI, they could in theory deliver 100% certainty, something the likes of Karma and Experian would have a very hard time replicating. (And, to be clear, we’re not saying that 100% certainty is easy for the banks, it’s just that they have an advantage over the affiliates).

That’s because the lender could run their underwriting model with their own decisioning data in the background.

The affiliate marketplaces and the lenders have slightly different credit bureau datasets and they pull the data from the bureaus at different points in time, and those nuances could make the difference between ChatGPT saying “your chances for getting this product are really, really great” and “I can 100% guarantee it.” That’s a subtle, but important difference in consumer lending.

As the LLM surface proves it ability to secure consumer attention and transaction flow to lending products, OpenAI will have to decide if they want their approval odds coming through affiliate marketplaces like Credit Karma or Experian, directly from the lenders, or some combination of the two.

If OpenAI builds an open interface where any lender can plug in their own underwriting signal, the approval odds layer becomes a infrastructure race between institutions. And OpenAI will arbitrate whose signal it trusts most.

I’m guessing that’s something the executives at Credit Karma, Experian, and the other organizations positioned to play this role (companies like Free Toaster sponsor Spinwheel) are thinking about.

What Distribution Channels Survive The LLM Disruption

Direct mail is off-line. The AI overloads won’t be controlling what envelopes land in your inbox anytime soon. This will continue to be a bread and butter channel.

Social is structurally separate. It’s entertainment and education oriented. People don’t go to TikTok to ask financial questions. The issue with social is that approval rates tend to be lower due to the lack of credit-bureau-based targeting at the top of the funnel.

Podcast, YouTube, out-of-home. Owned media channels will stay as powerful mediums to get brand messages across, but will be tough to crack as direct-response channels because they lack credit bureau data signal at the marketing stage.

Google-based search intent will be swallowed whole. That slice of attention maps almost perfectly onto what ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and the LLMs are now racing to capture.

Closing Thoughts

The LLMs are in the early days of constructing a personal finance super app.

The super app will accumulate context across your cards, deposit accounts, savings accounts, and use it to inform the answer to every question.

Further, because people will arm these super apps with personal context, financial goals, and lifestyle preferences, the super apps will do an amazing job delivering personalized, proactive advice that will create utility for the customer.

We have a classic data-led product flywheel.

ChatGPT gets smarter and more useful as you connect more data and context.

Smarter recommendations build more trust and more users. More trust and more users unlocks more data. At 200 million monthly active users, that product flywheel is already rolling down the hill.

Plaid unlocks the transaction layer. Credit Karma (and other data-forward marketplaces like Experian) could plug in the approval odds layer. Those are some of the foundational layers of a personal finance super app.

And more are coming, because we still need to solve for fraud, identity, and transaction processing at scale to make the most out of the LLM surface for personal finance.

The organizations that notice this, and can build a business owning a layer inside of the LLM surfaces, will have compounding advantages over time.

The ones waiting to see how it plays may be left fighting over the consumer attention that doesn’t migrate to the LLMs. Or, they’ll have a heck of a time elbowing their way in when they realize they’re late to the party.

The questions for every consumer lender and publisher right now: Do you have proprietary data, a differentiated model asset, or a product or service worth plugging into the personal finance super app? Or, do you have the ability to create this super app yourself?

It’s not a given that OpenAI, Perplexity, or Anthropic will earn the trust of the consumer as the personal finance super app.

How many people will hand ChatGPT the user name and password to their bank accounts and/or their Credit Karma or Experian accounts?

That’s a big unknown right now.

But the answer to that question over the next 12-24 months could materially change the landscape of consumer lending marketplaces.

[OpenAI] [Perplexity]

Sponsored by Spinwheel

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:

News Pod #18 - NerdWallet’s Q1’26 Earnings: Why Is The Stock Down 30%

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

Please support our Newsletter by sharing this edition with a colleague!

And, consider checking 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

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

(SEO) Google Search as you know it is over (TechCrunch)

(SEO) Google Search is getting its biggest changes ever (The Verge)

(Agentic Commerce) Would you let robots spend your money? Google is betting on it (The Verge)

(BNPL) Affirm seeks bank apps to build its BNPL empire (American Banker)

(BNPL) Google Embeds Klarna BNPL Into Gemini AI Conversations (PYMNTS)

(Banks) Fintech firm Mercury hits $5.2 billion valuation after funding round, up 49% in 14 months (CNBC)

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

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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at New Market Growth.

Last week, NerdWallet announced earnings. The headlines all sounded great in the press release, but the stock is down ~30% since they shared earnings.

When we dug in, there was enough there for us to pause and wonder about the future of their business.

This week we’ll focus on what we learned from NerdWallet, and leave you with some additional news stories we think you should check out at the end.

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 subscribe or forward this email to 1 of your colleagues!

Save the date!

We’re deep in planning mode for our inaugural
Affiliate Marketing Summit For Lenders
(September 23 & 24th in San Francisco)

For exclusive invites & updates about this event, please reply to this email with “SF Event” so we can keep you informed!

Breaking Down NerdWallet’s Earnings

NerdWallet (NASDAQ: NRDS) reported $222 million in Q1 2026 revenue on May 6, up 6% YoY. Non-GAAP operating income hit a Q1 record of $34 million.

The headlines were fine.

But the stock market’s reaction signals there could be reasons for concern here.

And the earnings call had at least 5 moments worth flagging.

One auto insurance carrier flinched and the full-year guidance changed.

CEO Tim Chen didn’t sugarcoat it: “We have a lot of concentration towards a few carriers currently and a few channels.”

A single large carrier pulled back in March. That alone was enough to ding Q1, is expected to hit Q2 harder, and force NerdWallet to lower the bottom of full-year NGOI guidance.

If one insurance partner can move the full-year P&L, maybe the recent gains they’d seen in insurance weren’t broad-based. Maybe one or two carriers were leaning in (read: had extra marketing budget NerdWallet happened to capture), and are now moving back to a more sustainable position.

From past earnings reports (we covered the previous one here), the data was showing their former flagship business - credit cards - has been on a steady decline since 2023.

The narrative was that insurance was rocket-shipping to save the day.

Now the question is whether insurance follows credit cards down once the carriers driving recent growth pull back.

SMB is down 15% and nobody on the call seemed to care.

SMB revenue dropped 15% YoY, to $25M. The reason given in prepared remarks was a single sentence: “Within our SMB vertical, we saw year-over-year declines driven by organic search headwinds.” Motley Fool

That was it. No turnaround plan. No timeline. No diagnosis of which SMB products are bleeding versus holding.

Then the Q&A opened up. Three analysts asked three questions, about vertical integration spend, NGOI guidance math, and LLM traffic. Zero on SMB.

Either the sell side has already written SMB off, or management has trained them not to ask. Neither is a good look for a category that, just a few quarters ago, was being talked about as a meaningful diversification story.

Worth noting: buried in the CFO’s prepared remarks was a note that the SMB decline was partially offset by growth in loan originations. That’s an interesting positive, small business loan demand showing up in the funnel, and not one analyst pulled the thread.

That gives you clues on where SMB sits in the priority stack right now.

“Organic search headwinds” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

That phrase shows up for both SMB and credit cards. It’s a polite way of saying Google and AI are eating our free traffic.

Tim’s LLM update, within the context of the insurance business: NerdWallet has dominant share of money-related queries inside LLMs, conversion is high, and it’s “a very small piece of our overall pie right now from a revenue perspective.”

Translation: the channel that’s growing isn’t material to the insurance business, yet. The old cash cow channel, SEO, is shrinking. That’s a scary reality for a business that depends on low cost, high-conversion traffic to thrive.

(For more on this dynamic, see our prior piece, The SEO Apocalypse Has Arrived.)

The margin beat had a Super Bowl-sized asterisk on it.

Q1 NGOI - at $34 million - looked great. Why? Per CFO Lauren StClair, the gain came from “lower other marketing expenses on lower brand spend, partially offset by higher performance marketing spend.”

In English: they didn’t run a Super Bowl ad this year, brand spend dropped, and they put more dollars into performance marketing.

Two takeaways:

• The margin lift is partially a one-time comp benefit, not a structural improvement. Q2 NGOI is guided down from $34M to $6M–$14M.

• A NerdWallet that buys more of its traffic each year is a NerdWallet that needs partners with elite conversion economics. Expect more pressure on bounty/CPA pricing, more A/B tests, and less patience for clunky application flows.

If your funnel is mid, we expect you’re going to feel the pressure. Best conversion rates will rise to the top, and the average/bad ones could effectively disappear.

“Vertical integration” sounded more defensive than offensive.

Morgan Stanley’s analyst directly asked Tim to walk through the ROI math on the new investments. The answer leaned on “our cost of capital is pretty high” and the idea that AI tools make it cheaper to build internally.

Building NerdWallet Insurance Experts, a branded agency routing calls to captive and independent agents, is a real pivot from their credit card content days.

NerdWallet is moving from lead-gen marketplace to operating their own customer-facing financial services business. That’s a different animal than referrals.

They’re entering it partly because the referral business is under pressure. Read into that what you want.

Furthermore, in a recent Morgan Stanley research report from May 7, 2026, analysts state their further conviction in the deteriorating business:

“We are more confident in our thesis that durable and profitable growth looks challenging for NerdWallet, with performance marketing intensity still elevated on both dollar ($122mm vs. $125mm in 4Q25) and percentage of revenue (54.9% vs. 55.5% in 4Q25) bases, which despite leverage on Other marketing in the quarter continues to suggest greater reliance on paid acquisition over time, which may continue to pressure incremental margins and ROIC.”

You partner with, or are considering partnering with NerdWallet. Now what?

NerdWallet still has the brand, the traffic, and the cash flow to be a top distribution partner, especially if you’re in deposits or personal loans (both growing). But this call had the texture of a company transitioning from a high-margin SEO business to a paid-traffic-and-services business. Both of which play outside of their historical competencies and could have a different margin profile.

Action items:

• Ask your NerdWallet rep how your specific category (let’s say credit cards), is trending, at the top of the house. You need to know if the decline you’re seeing is you losing market share or you preserving or building share inside a declining category.

  • Post publish edit: On May 14th we discovered, through a public filing on NerdWallet’s website (details here) that the credit card business declined 33% YoY from $38M in Q1 2025 to $25.5M in Q1 2026. They shared the last 7 quarters of revenue for Insurance, SMB, Loans and Emerging Verticals in that same report.

• Audit your conversion funnel. In a performance-marketing-led NerdWallet, conversion is placement. Double down here. The last thing you want is for NerdWallet to conclude that your offer doesn’t work when the traffic source moves from free (SEO) to $20 per click from Google or Meta.

• Diversify your affiliate mix, and work through what you’d do if a partner you currently count on for a good chunk of your volume were to create a shock in your lead flow.

At the highest level, we empathize with NerdWallet’s struggles.

We think their brand has an incredible amount of equity and trust in the category, and we’re rooting for them to get through this rough patch and back into sustainable, strategic growth in the lending category.

But, given the clues they dropped in this quarter’s earnings, we can’t help but be a bit worried about their future in a world where SEO continues to decline in importance.

Sponsored by New Market Growth

New Market Growth helps lenders build and scale affiliate marketing programs on channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, Lending Tree, Bankrate, Credible, and many more. NMG clients spend $50-$100MM per year in affiliate channels, and the founding team (one of whom is Free Toaster co-founder Carlos Caro), have advised in excess of 50 lenders over the course of their corporate and agency careers.

If you’re a Free Toaster Reader at a lender that spends over $500K per month in affiliate marketing, we’re offering a free, 90-minute audit of your affiliate marketing program. After research we’ll conduct on our side, we’ll book time to share the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities we observe in your program.

Outside eyes could help unlock the growth you’re looking for in H2 2026.

Email carlos@newmarketgrowth.com with subject line “90-minute audit” and we’ll contact you to get the preliminary information we need to get to work.

Earnings

Affirm (Q3 FY2026, ended Mar 31) — Revenue $1.04B (+33% YoY); operating income $103M (9% margin); net income positive for first time as a public company. Earnings release · IR Page

Oportun (Q1 2026, ended Mar 31) — Revenue $229M (−3% YoY); net income $2.3M (vs. $10M prior year); adjusted EBITDA $29M. Earnings release · IR Page

Pagaya (Q1 2026, ended Mar 31) — Revenue $318M (+10% YoY); GAAP net income $25M (8% margin); adjusted EBITDA $94M (+18% YoY). Earnings release · IR Page

Sezzle (Q1 2026, ended Mar 31) — Revenue $135.5M (+29% YoY); net income $51.3M (+42% YoY, 38% margin); adjusted EBITDA $71.1M (52.5% margin). Earnings release · IR Page

Chime (Q1 2026, ended Mar 31) — Revenue $647M (+25% YoY); net income $53M (8% margin); adjusted EBITDA $119M (18% margin, +13pp YoY). Earnings release · IR Page

Dave (Q1 2026, ended Mar 31) — Revenue $158.4M (+47% YoY); net income $57.9M (+101% YoY); adjusted EBITDA $69.3M (+57% YoY, 44% margin). Earnings release · IR Page

Upstart (Q1 2026, ended Mar 31) — Revenue $308M (+44% YoY); net loss ($6.6M); adjusted EBITDA $40.5M (13% margin, down from 20% prior year). Earnings release · IR Page

Other News We’re Reading and Listening to

Another Fintech Bankruptcy: SMB Banking & Credit Card Startup Parker Files Chapter 7 Fintech Business Weekly | Jason Mikula

Pagaya Announces New Affiliate Partnership with Experian® to Expand Access to Personal Loans Business Wire

PayPal Plans Job Cuts as Fintech’s New CEO Pursues Turnaround Strategy Bloomberg.com

Brazil’s Mastercard Rival Elo Taps Bank of America, Other Banks for US IPO Bloomberg.com

Catch you next week,

The Free Toaster Team

Note: 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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

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

SoFi delivered its tenth consecutive quarter of GAAP profitability with record revenues of $1.1 billion, but missed Wall Street’s expectations. Experian is looking toward the future of security with the launch of its "Agent Trust" framework to verify bot-initiated transactions, while Stripe is turning AI agents into a direct commerce channel by plugging its checkout into Google’s AI Mode and the Gemini app. Meanwhile, OneMain Financial opened the year strong with $226 million in net income. Barclays completed its acquisition of Best Egg to expand its U.S. consumer lending reach and Synchrony took over the MyLowe’s Pro Rewards American Express portfolio.

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 subscribe or forward this email to 1 of your colleagues!

Save the date!

We’re cooking up The Affiliate Marketing Summit For Lenders on September 23 & 24th in San Francisco!

PS: For exclusive invites & updates about this event, please reply to this email with “SF Event” so we can keep you informed!

SoFi’s Best Quarter Yet Disappoints Wall St.

SoFi posted record results in Q1 2026, with GAAP net revenue hitting $1.1 billion, up 43% year-over-year, yet Wall Street wasn’t impressed. The stock dropped 13% after the company maintained its full-year guidance, disappointing a market conditioned to expect beat-and-raise quarters. The core reason: the quarter was overshadowed by a meaningful slowdown in SoFi’s capital-light businesses, particularly the Loan Platform Business, which missed Morgan Stanley’s estimate by 25%. For a company that has built its premium valuation around fee-based, capital-light growth, that slowdown mattered more than the record originations.

Total loan originations hit a record $12.2 billion, up 68% year-over-year, with personal loans leading at $8.3 billion, student loans up 119% to $2.6 billion, and home loans up 137% to $1.2 billion. The LPB contributed $140.8 million to consolidated adjusted net revenue and added $3.6 billion in new commitments from three new partners. Personal loan net charge-offs came in at 3.03%, down 28 basis points year-over-year, with newer vintages tracking inside the 7-8% lifetime loss guide.

On the card side, SoFi reported 436,184 credit card holders, up 42% year-over-year, with interchange fee revenue growing 54%, driven by nearly $25 billion in annualized spend across SoFi Money and the credit card. The borrower profile stayed prime at a weighted average FICO of 745 and average income of $154k.

For the first time in several quarters, balance sheet lending rather than capital-light businesses drove the top-line beat. The Technology segment underperformed, posting $75 million against expectations of roughly $105 million. Higher operating expenses added further pressure, as SoFi accelerated marketing spend in the first half of the year. Both Bank of America and Morgan Stanley maintained Underperform ratings post-earnings, with Morgan Stanley cutting its price target to $16 and Bank of America lowering theirs to $17.

SoFi pushed back.

Management said the LPB demand continues to exceed what the company chooses to fulfill, pointing to broad-based buyer interest and all existing partners approaching renewal choosing to extend. The harder question is whether private credit is competing for the same institutional buyer pool.

SoFi says no.

Morgan Stanley is not fully convinced, cutting its 2026 LPB forecast by 20% while raising ex-platform origination estimates by 25%. The 2H guide now requires a significant acceleration to hit full-year targets, a ramp the company believes its heavier 1H marketing investment will support. Whether that plays out depends on the LPB returning to form and the Technology segment stabilizing after losing Chime as a customer. (SoFi)

TOASTER’S TAKE

The SoFi management team’s earnings call left a goldmine of intel for marketers in the lending niche.

Here’s some things that stood out to us:

• Their unaided brand awareness rose to an all-time high of 10% up 300bps from a year ago. We knew SoFi’s brand investments were top notch, but now we have data to quantify just how well they’re doing on this front.

• Lending distribution = Direct mail + affiliates

  • Many of us have this deeply ingrained in our DNA, but it’s nice to have a leader like SoFi put it out there in the open. “The lending business has historically been one that relies on legacy channels such as direct mail, but is heavily influenced by affiliate partnerships.” -Anthony Noto, CEO

• Checking/savings distribution = Digital

  • “Our SoFi Money product is a broad-based digital strategy that we leverage to drive good marketing efficiencies.” -Anthony Noto, CEO

• Credit card 0% APR Balance Transfer offers are working

  • “We're starting to see people transition from balance transfers with zero APRs actually paying a full APR at a reasonable rate.” -Anthony Noto, CEO

• Brokerage distribution = Affiliate + digital

  • “And that, again, is really an affiliate and visual marketing channel acquisition product.” -Anthony Noto, CEO

• Crypto distribution = Not sure, still developing a POV

  • “Crypto is the new kid on the street, and we’re developing new opportunities for marketing there.” -Anthony Noto, CEO

SoFi just publicly confirmed that affiliates are core to lending, checking/savings, and brokerage. For Toaster readers (many of whom are specialists/operators in this channel), this should be no surprise, but it also shows that the channel isn’t going anywhere, even for players with SoFi’s scale and brand.

We’ll be breaking down the friction between SoFi’s record growth and the market’s skeptical reaction in-depth later this week on The Free Toaster News Pod. Be sure to tune in!

Sponsored by Bulldog Media Group

Reach the Borrowers Others Miss.

Bulldog Media Group specializes in connecting consumer lenders with less than perfect borrowers — a massive, underserved market that requires precision targeting to get right. With 25 years of financial services marketing experience, they deliver qualified leads through affiliate marketing, targeted email, and data-driven acquisition strategies built for this exact audience.

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

Get Qualified Borrower Leads

Experian Launches Agent Trust to Verify AI-Driven Transactions

Experian launched Agent Trust™, an identity verification framework that links AI agents to verified human owners to facilitate agentic commerce. Experian currently prevents $15 to $19 billion in annual fraud losses and is applying that data infrastructure to verify bot-initiated transactions. The system uses Human-to-Agent Binding to create a secure link between a consumer’s device and their AI representative. A real-time Agent Trust Token signals identity, consent, and fraud risk to merchants during the checkout process. An Agent Registry also monitors bot behavior over time to identify misrepresentation or unauthorized actions. The technology integrates with existing payment standards from Visa, Cloudflare, and Skyfire. This platform-agnostic tool allows businesses to process automated purchases while maintaining a verified connection to a human payer. (Experian)

Stripe Powers Checkout Inside Google’s AI Mode and Gemini

Google is turning AI Mode and the Gemini app into a direct sales channel. Businesses can now list products inside AI-generated responses and complete transactions without the user leaving the interface. The infrastructure is Stripe‘s Agentic Commerce Suite, handling discovery, checkout, and payment inside the AI experience. Retailers like Best Buy, Kate Spade, and Coach are already live. Quince, Fanatics, and JD Sports are coming on the Google side.

Affiliate-driven comparison sites and SEO-optimized landing pages have always competed for the top of Google results. AI Mode removes the click entirely. A consumer asking about the best personal loan or travel card gets an answer, and increasingly a buy button, inside the response itself. Publishers and marketplaces that sit between the consumer and the product, NerdWallet, LendingTree, and similar players, lose the referral step if AI handles both the recommendation and the transaction.

Stripe has already integrated the same setup with OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta. And now Google is playing ball, too. (Stripe, PYMNTS)

OneMain Financial Reports Strong Q1 2026 Results with $226M Net Income

OneMain Financial opened 2026 with solid top-line results. Total revenue reached $1.6 billion in Q1, up 6% year-over-year, driven by receivables growth. Managed receivables grew to $26.1 billion, also up 6% from a year ago. Consumer loan originations totaled $3.1 billion, up 3% year-over-year. The company reported net income of $226 million, or $1.93 diluted EPS, versus $1.78 in Q1 2025.

The credit card portfolio is the clearest growth story this quarter. Receivables hit $983 million, up from $676 million a year ago, with customer accounts now at 1.17 million. Revenue yield on credit cards was 33.9%, up 309 basis points year-over-year. Credit card net charge-offs improved sharply, falling 176 basis points year-over-year to 18.0%.

On the consumer loan side, the net charge-off rate was 8.0%, up 19 basis points year-over-year. The 30-plus delinquency rate for consumer loans stood at 5.22%, up 14 basis points year-over-year, though the company noted that the older “back book” loans, now just 5% of the portfolio, are driving an outsized 14% of 30-plus delinquent receivables. The front book, representing originations since August 2022 credit tightening, continues to perform in line with expectations. (OneMain Financial)

E048 - Q&A on Application Friction - Nick interviews Carlos

Nick Madrid interviews Carlos Caro live at the Fintech Summit in NYC on April 28th.

On the heels of a Curated Table Event on April 27th (sponsored by Spinwheel), Nick bumped into Carlos at the Fintech Summit and did a short Q&A on how lenders eliminate friction from their application flows.

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

Please support our Newsletter by sharing this edition with a colleague!

And, consider checking 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

Synchrony Becomes Exclusive Issuer for Lowe’s Commercial Co-Brand Card

Synchrony now issues the MyLowe’s Pro Rewards American Express Card, taking over the co-brand portfolio to centralize Lowe’s commercial credit offerings. This new card runs on the American Express network and allows Pro customers to earn rewards at non-Lowe’s locations. It replaces the previous store-only model with a version that carries no annual fee and integrates into the existing MyLowe’s Pro Rewards program. The shift allows Lowe’s to move its commercial credit products under a single issuer to provide simpler applications and flexible financing for business project needs. This transition aims to consolidate the Pro customer experience by linking hardware spending with general business expenses. (Synchrony)

Barclays Completes Acquisition of Best Egg Personal Lending Platform

Barclays completed its acquisition of Best Egg. The deal integrates a scaled origination engine into Barclays US Consumer Bank to expand its existing credit card and deposit operations. Barclays will manage the business while maintaining the Best Egg brand identity. The acquisition follows an initial announcement on October 28, 2025. This transaction shifts Barclays toward a capital-light lending model in the U.S. market. The bank expects the move to increase capital efficiency and diversify its consumer finance revenue. (Barclays)

Upcoming Toaster Events

Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders (San Francisco | Sept 23–24)

Step away from the daily grind for a two-day, senior-level industry event in San Francisco. On day one, we’ll spend the day at the Exploratorium, a killer indoor/outdoor space where we’ll have a mix of keynotes, panels, structured networking, and great food & drink overlooking the water. On day two (optional, for anyone interested), we’ll head out to wine country so you can continue the conversations you initiated the day prior. Our goal is to make this Summit the ONE event per year you can’t miss if you’re a lender who’s serious about affiliate marketing.

B2B Fintech Founders Lunch: Using Content & Events to Scale (NYC | May 12)

​Join us for a curated lunch and powerful conversation with 20 fellow founders and operators, exploring the most undervalued combination of personal brands and events. The hosts, our own Carlos Caro and Supriya Gupta, will candidly share a few lessons (and mistakes), where some of their best business relationships started and how they are thinking about content strategy this year. B2B fintech founders can learn more and register here.

PayPal Splits into Three Units and Makes Venmo a Standalone Division

PayPal is reorganizing into three business units and establishing Venmo as an independent division to accelerate growth for the payments platform. CEO Enrique Lores is leading this restructuring following his March appointment and the departure of former CEO Alex Chriss. The new structure separates Venmo from a consumer and merchant group and a payment services arm containing Braintree and crypto operations. Creating a standalone Venmo segment simplifies performance tracking and creates a path for a potential sale of the asset. This move follows reports that Stripe evaluated an acquisition of parts of PayPal. The company currently faces intensifying competition from large technology firms and fintech rivals. PayPal shares have slipped 12.7% this year after a 2026 profit forecast fell well short of analyst expectations. Management will disclose further details of the overhaul during next week's earnings call. (Reuters)

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

Sources: Fiserv, Mastercard, Visa, Upbound Group (Brigit)

Other News We’re Reading and Listening to

(Credit) Nearly Half Of Americans Regret Financial Decisions Due To A Lack Of Understanding, Experian Research Finds (Experian)

(Travel/Rewards) Lyft And United Launch First-Ever Pay With Miles Option For U.S. Rideshare (Lyft)

(Economy) The U.S.-Iran War Is Coming For Your Credit Score And Mortgage Application (CNBC)

(Lending) Justice Federal Credit Union Selects Upstart To Expand Personal Lending (Business Wire)

(AI/Banking) Introducing AI Agents: Next Phase Of Citi Artificial Intelligence Journey (Citi)

(Security) Frontwave CU Discloses Data Breach Involving Member SSNs (CU Today)

(Tech Standards) PYMNTS: Google And Mastercard Contribute Agentic Commerce Standards To FIDO Alliance (FIDO Alliance)

(Crypto/Cards) Introducing MoonAgents Card (MoonPay)

(Cards) Royal Caribbean Debuts Two New Credit Cards: Are They Worth It? (One Mile at a Time)

(Banking/M&A) Mercury Receives OCC Conditional Approval To Establish Mercury Bank, N.A. (Business Wire)

(M&A) OppFi Announces Definitive Agreement To Acquire BNCCORP, Inc. And BNC National Bank And The Elimination Of Up-C Structure (OppFi)

(Fintech/Investment) Goldman Sachs Invests $50 Million In Kashable (American Banker)

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

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/sofis-best-quarter-yet-disappoints

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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Fintel Connect.

OnePay is bridging the credit gap for thin-file consumers with its new no-deposit, no-fee Builder Card. Meanwhile, LendingClub had a strong quarter where originations climbed 31%. Capital One’s net income hit $2.2B as the Discover acquisition takes full effect, while American Express continues to dominate the premium market with an 18% jump in membership fees. Additionally, Aven launched a Bitcoin-backed Visa Card and Cash App is capturing Gen Alpha with new accounts for kids as young as six.

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 forward this email to 1 of your colleagues!

OnePay Launches Builder Card: No Deposit, No Credit Check, No Fees

The OnePay Credit Builder card enters a crowded space. With similar existing products from Chime, Current, Kikoff, Arro, Upgrade, and more! It runs on Mastercard rails, connects directly to the customer’s Cash account, and reports positive payment activity to all three major bureaus each month. Customers spend from their available balance, the app sets funds aside automatically, and payments run on autopilot. No revolving debt, no way to overspend.

The card is only available to existing Cash account holders, a choice that deepens the app’s value for users already in the ecosystem. OnePay doesn't need to underwrite it. The Builder Card spends from a balance the customer already holds, so there's no default risk to price for. It can serve the consumer that Chase and Capital One walked away from, and it costs OnePay almost nothing to do it. OnePay's distribution comes from Walmart, where 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a store.

The timing also lines up with a bigger distribution push. Three weeks ago, OnePay became a Workday Wellness partner, putting its financial tools inside employer HR and payroll systems. Workers switching direct deposit through Workday can now access banking, investing, and credit building in one app. For context on where the company stands: back in January, we shared that OnePay hit a $4B valuation, up from $2.5B in 2024. It has 3 million monthly active users and is built almost entirely on the Walmart partnership. The Workday deal suggests they are ready to grow beyond it. (OnePay)

Sponsored by Fintel Connect

Is Your Marketing ROI Falling Behind Other Banks and Credit Unions?

Cornerstone Advisors‘ latest report, commissioned by Fintel Connect, The Marketing ROI Gap in Banking uncovers a growing disconnect between where financial institutions invest and where they actually see results. Based on insights from 126 senior executives at large U.S. banks and credit unions, the data points to a persistent gap between spend, performance, and measurable ROI.

Inside the report, you’ll find:

• ROI measurement is still broken: 20% of banking executives can’t reliably attribute marketing outcomes, and nearly 60% say their core or CRM limits ROI measurement.

• Affiliate is a major missed opportunity: Only one-third of financial institutions use it, yet it ranks among the top channels for customer lead quality and remains one of the most underleveraged channels in the mix.

• Budgets aren’t performance-driven: 60% of institutions still set marketing budgets based on last year’s spend rather than ROI.

Written for marketing, growth, lending, and finance leaders, this report highlights where performance is breaking down - and where smarter investment decisions can unlock stronger returns.

Rethinking your growth strategy?

Start Here

Credit One Bank and Bright Money Partner to Launch Embedded Credit Card Tools

Credit One Bank integrated its credit card products into the Bright Money app, granting more than 1 million users direct access to three Visa products. This partnership marks the bank's second fintech integration using its proprietary API, following a 2025 deal with MoneyLion. Users link bank accounts to the Bright Money’s Money Science algorithm to receive personalized offers for the Platinum Visa for Rebuilding Credit or two Platinum Rewards Visa options. All three cards provide 1% cash back on gas, groceries, and telecommunications. The system uses AI to analyze income and spending before facilitating the application process within the native app environment. This move targets digital-first consumers by bypassing traditional external application sites. (PR Newswire)

Aven Launches Bitcoin-Backed Visa Card With Up To $1M Credit Limit

Aven launched a Bitcoin-backed Visa card that provides a line of credit up to $1 million without requiring the sale of the underlying bitcoin asset. The Aven Bitcoin Visa Card functions as a secured loan where users deposit bitcoin with an OCC-regulated custodian to access liquidity for everyday purchases or major expenses. This structure allows long-term investors to avoid costly tax consequences associated with capital gains while maintaining their original BTC positions. The product features fixed-rate terms lasting up to 10 years and includes a 5-year interest-only payment period. Users receive unlimited 2% cash back on purchases and pay no annual fee for the account. A 1% fee applies to cash outs and the card carries risk of liquidation if market volatility impacts collateral value. Aven originally focused on home equity products and is now applying the secured lending model to digital assets. (Aven)

LendingClub’s $2.67B Originations and the Rebrand

LendingClub closed Q1 2026 ahead of guidance on every major metric and announced it is rebranding to Happen Bank this summer. Total net revenue reached $252.3M, up 16% year-over-year. Originations hit $2.67B, up 31% from $2.03B in Q1 2025, driven by product and marketing initiatives. Net interest income grew 18% to $176.2M, with net interest margin expanding to 6.28% from 5.97% a year ago. Deposit funding costs came down, with the average rate on interest-bearing deposits dropping to 3.60% from 3.91% in Q1 2025. The rebrand reflects a deliberate repositioning away from its marketplace lending roots toward a full-service digital bank, one that combines deposits, lending, and a capital-light marketplace model under a single consumer brand.

The credit story is where lending teams should pay close attention. LendingClub's personal loan book is priced at an average APR of around 15%, against the national credit card average of 22%, a 700 basis point gap that the company is actively using as a customer acquisition argument. Net charge-offs on loans held for investment dropped to $42.5M from $76.1M in Q1 2025, a 44% improvement. For credit and lending teams, their NIM expansion signals that LendingClub is growing volume while actually improving book quality, not trading one for the other.

The Happen Bank rebrand could also help with distribution. Moving from a lending-first identity to a full banking brand gives the company more surface area to cross-sell deposits, checking, and eventually home improvement loans into its existing base of 5 million members. (LendingClub)

News Pod #15 - OpenAI Acquires Hiro Finance

In the latest The Free Toaster News Pod, we deconstruct OpenAI’s power move into the financial sector with their acquisition of Hiro Finance. Building on our recent coverage, we look at how this integration could reshape consumer lending distribution. It’s a quick breakdown of what changes when a major AI player moves deeper into fintech infrastructure.

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

Please support our Newsletter by sharing this edition with a colleague!

And, consider checking 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

TransUnion Q1 2026: 14% Growth Fueled by U.S. Lending Surge

TransUnion reported $1,246 million in total revenue for Q1 2026, up 14% year-over-year (11% on an organic constant currency basis), beating its own guidance across revenue. U.S. Financial Services drove the quarter, growing 24% organically to $501 million. Within that, auto was up 11%, consumer lending up 21%, and card/banking up 5%. Full-year 2026 revenue guidance was raised to $5.10–$5.14 billion, primarily reflecting the completed acquisition of TransUnion de Mexico, with organic constant currency growth assumptions held steady at 8–9%.

The number that matters most for lending and fintech operators: U.S. Financial Services revenue grew 24% year-over-year to $501 million. That segment covers the credit data and analytics products lenders rely on for underwriting, marketing, and customer acquisition. Growth was broad-based across lending verticals, which signals that lenders are pulling more data, running more decisioning, and actively growing their books.

What makes these numbers hold up over time is the data underneath them. At its March Investor Day, TransUnion management noted that 95% of revenue comes from a proprietary data moat: 84% core credit, 11% alternative data. The Neustar acquisition added identity resolution data; the Argus acquisition brought over 450 billion credit card transactions. Management has been leaning into alternative data, including utility payments and rental furnishing tradelines, to supplement core credit files, deepen penetration, and build new products. (TransUnion)

Amex Reports 11% Revenue Increase and Record Card Member Spend

American Express posted a strong Q1 2026, with total revenues of $18.9 billion, up 11% year-over-year. Card member spend accelerated to 10% growth, the highest quarterly rate in three years. Net card fees hit $2.8 billion, up 18%, compounding at 17% annually since 2019. Net interest income grew 13% to $4.7 billion, driven by revolving balance growth. Despite revenue coming in at or above the high end of full-year guidance, management held its 2026 outlook at 9-10% revenue growth, citing a forthcoming drag from two commercial card partnership exits: Lowe’s moving to Synchrony and Amazon transitioning to U.S. Bank in Q3.

Net card fees growing at a 17% CAGR since 2019 reflects a durable premium card model still pulling in annual fee customers. 73% of all new accounts acquired globally were on annual fee products.

On the lending side, net interest income has grown 12% year-over-year for four consecutive quarters. The bigger strategic story is Amex’s push into agentic AI commerce. The company launched its Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) developer kit and introduced Amex Agent Purchase Protection, an industry-first commitment to cover registered agentic purchases by cardholders.

Amex also recently acquired Hypercard. Management was clear on the earnings call that this is a long-term play. The thesis centers on Amex’s closed-loop network: its ability to match declared purchase intent with actual transaction data gives it fraud detection and authorization capabilities that open networks cannot replicate. They noted this could ultimately produce stronger fraud protection than what exists today in both online and brick-and-mortar commerce, where purchase intent data is simply unavailable. (American Express)

Capital One Reports $2.2B Net Income Amid Discover Acquisition Gains

Capital One posted $15.2 billion in total net revenue for Q1 2026, up 52% year-over-year. The growth is largely attributable to the Discover acquisition closing in May 2025. Quarter-over-quarter, revenue fell 2%, driven by lower net interest income as the company carried higher average cash balances and saw lower average credit card loans. The credit card segment generated $11.4 billion in net revenue, up 59% year-over-year. Domestic card purchase volume reached $216.5 billion, up 40% year-over-year but down 8% from Q4 2025, consistent with seasonal patterns. Pre-provision earnings grew 8% quarter-over-quarter to $6.8 billion.

On the credit side, the trend is improving. The domestic card 30-plus day performing delinquency rate fell to 3.70%, down 55 basis points year-over-year. The domestic card net charge-off rate came in at 5.10%, down 109 basis points from Q1 2025. Morgan Stanley noted that Capital One management described the consumer as remaining robust, with unemployment improving and card purchase volumes accelerating, while delinquencies outperformed seasonal expectations. On expenses, Morgan Stanley flagged that adjusted non-interest expense came in about 3% better than forecast, with the adjusted efficiency ratio at 49.7% versus an estimated 50.6%. That said, marketing spend is expected to increase through the rest of 2026, as Q1 reflects both a seasonal low and a deliberate timing shift of some marketing investment into later quarters. (Capital One)

The Toaster team is on the ground in NYC for Fintech Week.

We kicked things off with a hosted dinner, The Free Toaster Presents: Eliminating Friction In Your Marketing Funnel, sponsored by Spinwheel. The room brought together operators and growth leaders across lending and fintech.

In the photo: Amanda Braslow, Carlos Caro, and Nick Madrid from The Free Toaster with attendees from the dinner.

Upcoming Toaster Events:

Affiliate Marketing Summit for Decision Makers (San Francisco | Sept 23–24)
Step away from the daily grind for a two-day, senior-level industry event in San Francisco. On day one, we’ll spend the day at the Exploratorium, a killer indoor/outdoor space where we’ll have a mix of keynotes, panels, structured networking, and great food & drink overlooking the water. On day two (optional, for anyone interested), we’ll head out to wine country so you can continue the conversations you initiated the day prior. Our goal is to make this Summit the ONE event per year you can’t miss if you’re a lender who’s serious about affiliate marketing.

Missed the Direct Mail Curated Table event on March 5th? Check out what I learned here.

Equifax Posts 14% Revenue Growth in Q1; Maintains Conservative 2026 Outlook

Equifax posted Q1 2026 revenue of $1.649 billion, up 14% year-over-year and $37 million above its February guidance midpoint. The beat was driven primarily by a strong U.S. mortgage market in January and February before rates rose following the Iran conflict. Equifax maintained its full-year 2026 constant currency revenue guidance of 10-12% growth, citing continued uncertainty around interest rates and mortgage activity, while raising its reported revenue guidance by $25 million for favorable FX impact.

USIS, the segment most directly relevant to consumer lenders, delivered 21% revenue growth in Q1. Within that, Diversified Markets, which covers financial institutions, auto, and consumer lending, grew only 3%, with core FI and core auto each up mid-single digits. Consumer Lending under Workforce Solutions Verification Services grew 14% year-over-year. Notably, Morgan Stanley flagged that volumes softened later in the quarter, not just in mortgage but also to a lesser extent in auto and card. On the credit scoring side, Equifax is actively pushing VantageScore 4.0 adoption at a $1 price point, with 240+ mortgage lenders currently testing it alongside paid FICO scores. A full conversion to VantageScore would reduce USIS mortgage scoring revenue by approximately $385 million, but increase Equifax’s adjusted EBITDA by roughly $35 million at current volumes. Morgan Stanley maintained its Overweight rating on the stock, noting that credit bureaus are starting from a muted base and should enter a multi-year upcycle trend, with the potential to grow revenue at low-double-digit to mid-teens rates. The firm also pushed back on AI disruption concerns, arguing that the bureaus’ data and regulatory moats should insulate them from competition. (Equifax)

Cash App Targets Gen Alpha With Parent-Managed Accounts for Kids 6-12

Cash App launched managed accounts for children aged 6 to 12 to capture the Gen Alpha demographic. The financial platform owned by Block provides mobile payments, debit cards, and investing services. Parents control these accounts through their own Cash App profile. Kids receive a debit card and earn 3.25% interest on savings balances. The service allows automated allowance transfers and P2P payments from up to five parent-approved contacts. Cash App currently has 5 million monthly active teen users. Users transition to a sponsored account with stock and Bitcoin trading capabilities at age 13. PwC data shows 89% of Gen Alpha teens already have their own smartphone, while 72% regularly spend on categories like food and drinks and over half purchase digital goods like apps and in-game items. (Cash App)

American Express Integrates Resy into Anthropic’s Claude for Real-Time Reservations

American Express integrated its Resy digital dining platform into Anthropic’s Claude AI to provide real-time table availability for U.S. restaurants. Resy operates software that manages reservations and connects restaurants to a network of diners. Users can now search for restaurants within Claude and receive prompts to connect to the Resy app. The integration displays restaurant recommendations based on chat context. It allows users to view venue pages, check available tables, and set Notify alerts. Claude then redirects users to Resy.com or the mobile app to finalize bookings. This partnership surfaces inventory to diners to help restaurants drive demand. (American Express)

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

(Auto) America’s Pandemic Car Bubble Is Now Trapping Buyers in Debt (WSJ)

(Lending) Affirm: Agentic Credit Rewrites the Rules of Consumer Lending (PYMNTS)

(Cards) AT&T and Citi Enhance the AT&T Points Plus Card (Citigroup)

(Payments) Uber and Block Expand Global Partnership to Transform Restaurant Operations and Launch Cash App Pay (Uber)

(Cards) Alaska Air Group and Bank of America Expand Long-Standing Credit Partnership (Bank of America)

(Lending) Total Expert Launches Customer IQ to Power Agentic Era in Mortgage Banking and Consumer Lending (Business Wire)

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

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/onepay-launches-credit-builder-card

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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

This week is sponsored by our friends at Spinwheel.

OpenAI acquired Hiro Finance on April 13, its second fintech purchase following the 2025 acquisition of Roi. Meanwhile, LendingClub will rebrand to Happen Bank this summer. Mission Lane applied for a national bank charter with the OCC and FDIC to transition from its partner-bank model. FinWise Bancorp partnered with Vera, Inc. to launch an unsecured credit card program, while Synchrony launched a private label card for RH. Additionally, Ally and Bank of America reported their Q1 2026 earnings.

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 forward this email to 1 of your colleagues!

OpenAI Doubles Down on Fintech with Hiro Finance and Roi Acquisitions

OpenAI acquired personal finance startup Hiro Finance on Monday, marking its second fintech purchase in six months following the October 2025 acquisition of Roi. Hiro Finance develops tools for complex financial modeling and what-if scenarios, helping users project the impact of debt and investments. Founder Ethan Bloch and his team will join OpenAI to work on specialized engineering projects, while Hiro Finance shuts down operations on April 20. This follows the deal for Roi, a startup that raised $3.6 million from Spark Capital and Gradient Ventures to build a portfolio tracking app with an AI-driven investment advisor. While Roi focused on retail investment personalization, Hiro Finance adds deeper capabilities in mathematical financial simulations. These acquisitions support OpenAI’s expansion into enterprise services through Codex Labs, which currently reports over 4 million weekly active users. OpenAI is also scaling its global reach through a partnership with Infosys to deploy AI tools across 60 countries. (American Banker) (TechCrunch) (Fintech Futures)

Toaster’s Take

Hiro and Roi were not acquired because OpenAI wanted a budgeting app. They were acquired because both teams had figured out something specific: how to take messy personal financial data and turn it into a clear, actionable output. That’s a hard problem. Hiring for it in-house is harder.

What’s worth watching is where that capability lands inside ChatGPT. Hiro wasn’t just a recommendation engine. It was built to model what happens after you make a decision. That’s a different product category than “here are your options.” It’s closer to execution than discovery.

Today’s distribution model for lending depends on a user seeing an offer, deciding to pursue it, and completing the process themselves. Every click in that chain is a potential drop-off point. If OpenAI builds a layer that collapses those steps, ChatGPT-native financial starts feeling way more convenient than 2026-era marketplaces.

Google tried this. It had the data, the reach, and the brand. It still couldn’t get users to trust it with their financial lives. OpenAI may be more advanced on the product side, but the trust problem doesn’t go away because the AI is smarter. It’s a separate barrier, and it’s real.

The question isn’t whether OpenAI can build a good financial product. It almost certainly can, if it put the right resources against it. The question is whether users will convey their trust. Recommending a loan is one thing. Applying for one on your behalf (at potentially dozens of lenders) is another conversation entirely.

For now, the pressure is low. Adoption will be gradual. But the benchmark for convenience is shifting. Platforms built around user-driven flows should be paying attention, because the standard for “low friction” is about to get redefined.

We will be digging into this story further later this week in The Free Toaster podcast.

Sponsored by Spinwheel

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:

LendingClub to Become Happen Bank, “a Digital Bank for People Going Places”

LendingClub will officially rebrand to Happen Bank in the summer of 2026. The company operates a digital marketplace bank that currently serves more than 5 million members and has facilitated over $100 billion in loans. CEO Scott Sanborn noted the name change follows a multi-year transition from an online lender to a diversified digital-first bank. The new identity targets the Motivated Middle, defined as high-FICO, above-average income consumers who actively manage their finances. While the visual branding will change, the bank will maintain its existing interest rates, loan terms, and account features. The shift includes a new website, mobile app, and marketing system designed to reflect action and progress. Management indicates the name change aligns with their expanded banking capabilities and a strategy to deliver long-term shareholder value. This rebrand marks the next phase of a business model that combines credit underwriting with a digital marketplace. (PR Newswire)

Mission Lane Credit Card Startup Applies For Bank Charter

Mission Lane applied for a national bank charter with the OCC and FDIC to transition from a fintech partner to a standalone special-purpose credit card bank. The Richmond-based company currently serves three million customers and targets a niche of 70 million credit-marginalized Americans underserved by traditional finance. As a CEBA institution, the proposed Mission Lane Bank will focus exclusively on credit card products and optional credit protection. The bank will not accept demand deposits, offer checking accounts, or engage in commercial lending. This filing moves the firm toward a de novo charter, following similar moves by Affirm, Upstart, and Mercury. Mission Lane currently relies on Transportation Alliance Bank to issue its cards. Obtaining this charter allows the company to operate under a federal regulatory framework rather than relying on third-party sponsor banks. (PYMNTS)

News Pod #14 - Wells Fargo Books 631,000 New Credit Card Accounts in Q1 2026 - How Did They Do It?

In the latest The Free Toaster News Pod, we deconstruct Wells Fargo’s massive 60% YOY surge in credit card bookings, totaling 631,000 new accounts for Q1 2026. Expanding on their recent newsletter coverage, we dig into the aggressive acquisition tactics fueling this volume and what it means for the rest of the industry. It’s a quick-hit breakdown of how the banking giant is suddenly dominating the customer acquisition race.

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

Please support our Newsletter by sharing this edition with a colleague!

And, consider checking 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

FinWise Bancorp Partners with Vera, Inc. to Launch Unsecured Consumer Credit Card Program

FinWise Bancorp signed a BIN sponsorship agreement with Vera, Inc. to launch an unsecured consumer credit card program for prime and near-prime U.S. borrowers. FinWise Bancorp provides API-driven banking and payment infrastructure to fintech firms. Under this deal, FinWise Bank issues the cards while Vera, Inc. serves as the program manager and purchases the resulting receivables. The cards offer three reward modes with no annual fees and function through Vera, Inc.'s mobile application. The technical stack utilizes Zeta’s Tachyon cloud-native processing platform. Vera, Inc. is a 2025 startup led by former Capital One executives. This partnership expands FinWise Bancorp’s existing strategic program lending and payments business. (Global Newswire)

Synchrony Launches Integrated Credit Card Program for RH

Synchrony launched a new private label credit card for RH to provide promotional financing across the retailer's galleries, outlets, and e-commerce sites. RH operates as a luxury home furnishings curator with retail locations and hospitality experiences across North America and Europe. The card integrates with the RH Members Program to combine existing 30% member discounts with specific financing rates. Synchrony uses its PRISM decisioning system to evaluate 9,000 data attributes for each applicant. This system provides credit decisions within minutes during the customer checkout process. The partnership expands Synchrony's footprint in the home segment where it currently maintains contracts with over 50% of the Furniture Today Top 100 retailers. RH customers gain access to these financing options immediately through a digital prequalification process. (Synchrony)

Upcoming Toaster Events:

Eliminating Funnel Friction: A Private Dinner (NYC | April 27th)
Join us for an evening of high-level shop talk at a curated dinner in the heart of New York City. We’re skipping the slide decks and the “salesy” conference energy in favor of something more authentic. It’s just 15 growth leaders, a table of incredible food, and a raw discussion on the design tweaks and tech stacks actually moving the needle on conversions right now. Learn more about the event here.

Affiliate Marketing Summit for Decision Makers (San Francisco | Sept 23–24)
Step away from the daily grind for a two-day, senior-level industry event in San Francisco. On day one, we’ll spend the day at the Exploratorium, a killer indoor/outdoor space where we’ll have a mix of keynotes, panels, structured networking, and great food & drink overlooking the water. On day two (optional, for anyone interested), we’ll head out to wine country so you can continue the conversations you initiated the day prior. Our goal is to make this Summit the ONE event per year you can’t miss if you’re a lender who’s serious about affiliate marketing.

Missed the Direct Mail Curated Table event on March 5th? Check out what I learned here.

CarParts.com Introduces the CarParts.com Mastercard®

CarParts.com launched the CarParts.com Mastercard through a partnership with Concora Credit and The Bank of Missouri. This technology-led e-commerce business sells over 1.5 million vehicle parts and accessories via its nationwide distribution network. The new credit program offers cardholders 3% cashback on CarParts.com purchases and 1% on other transactions. Customers can prequalify for the card without a credit score impact. This launch follows a product expansion that added 100,000 SKUs to the company catalog over the last year. The company also recently introduced the CarParts+ membership and specialized hubs for European and performance vehicles. CEO David Meniane stated the strategy focuses on building a driver-first experience to simplify vehicle maintenance. The company continues to manage several private-label brands including JC Whitney and Garage-Pro. (CarParts.com)

Sezzle Canada Launches Virtual Card, Expanding Buy Now, Pay Later Capabilities

Sezzle launched its Virtual Card in Canada to enable in-store "buy now, pay later" payments at point-of-sale terminals. The fintech company provides interest-free installment financing and currently reports 1.9 million user sign-ups and nearly 7 million total orders in the Canadian market. Sezzle integrated the card with Marqeta technology to allow eligible users to add the credential to Apple Pay and Google Wallet. This expansion targets more than 90% of Canadian retailers that accept contactless payments, including SoftMoc, JD Sports, and QE Home. Internal 2025 survey data showed 74% of users were more likely to shop in-store if Sezzle was an available payment option. The launch aims to increase transaction volume and basket sizes for brick-and-mortar merchants without requiring new hardware integrations. (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

Sources: Ally, Bank of America

Other News We’re Reading and Listening to

(Fraud) As AI-Driven Fraud Grows More Sophisticated, Advanced Digital Defense Becomes Essential (TransUnion)

(Banking) North Iowa Community Credit Union Launches Mahalo Digital Banking Platform (Business Wire)

(Payments) Adyen Expands Its Partnership With lastminute.com By Introducing Virtual Card Issuing For Supplier Payments (Adyen)

(Fintech) Slash, A Ramp Competitor Founded By Teenagers, Raises $100M At $1.4B Valuation (TechCrunch)

(Lending) 4Front Credit Union Selects Scienaptic AI’s LendSmart Auto To Power Deal-Level Vehicle Loan Pricing (Scienaptic AI)

(Payments) Galileo Enables SoFi To Send And Receive FedNow® Service Payments (Business Wire)

(Acquisition) American Express To Acquire Hyper, Adding To Its AI Expertise And Expense Management Capabilities (American Express)

(Cards) Wells Fargo Adds Wyndham Rewards As A Transfer Partner (Forbes)

(Fintech) Ramp Is Telling Investors It Is About To Hit $1.4 Billion In Revenue A Year, As The Company Prepares To Go Public (Business Insider)

(Marketing) Ally Achieves Historic 50/50 Sports Media Pledge One Year Ahead Of Schedule (Ally)

(Payments) Airwallex Is About To Take On Stripe And The Rest Of The Payments Industry — In The Physical World (TechCrunch)

(AI) Welcome To Vibe Ordering, ChatGPT Is Taking Your Order Now (PYMNTS)

(Cards) Lobster.cash Teams With Mastercard To Secure Agentic Card Transactions (PYMNTS)

(Payments) Venmo Continues Its Evolution From A Peer-To-Peer App Into A Money Movement App For The Next Generation (PayPal)

(Innovation) American Express Debuts Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)™ Developer Kit And Announces Industry-First Protection For Registered Agent Purchases (American Express)

(Cards) Private Credit Is On The Hunt For Credit-Card Debt (WSJ)

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

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/openai-doubles-down-hiro-finance

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.

Hey Toaster Readers,

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

Wells Fargo is reporting a massive surge in new credit card accounts, but there is a catch: purchase volume isn't keeping pace, and a reporting change for co-branded cards is muddying the waters. JPMorgan Chase and Citi are posting major profit jumps , JetBlue and Barclays are overhauling premium card benefits , and Atlas is pivoting to a $999 billionaire charge card after its previous debit startup collapsed.

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!

Wells Fargo Posts $5.3B Q1 Profit as Loan Growth Hits $1 Trillion Milestone

Wells Fargo posted $21.4 billion in revenue for Q1 2026, up 6% year-over-year, with net income of $5.3 billion. The loan book crossed $1 trillion in period-end balances, with commercial and industrial lending the primary growth driver, up 23% year-over-year. Consumer loans held relatively flat. Deposits were up 7%, and average deposit costs continued falling, down 15 basis points from the same period last year. Consumer loans grew modestly, up about 4% year-over-year, with auto originations more than doubling and credit card balances up 5%. Card fees climbed 9% on higher merchant processing and debit interchange income. Headcount fell 7%, which management tied to ongoing efficiency initiatives, while advertising and promotion spend jumped over 100% year-over-year.

The more interesting story for fintech operators is what’s happening in Consumer Banking. Wells opened 631,000 new credit card accounts in Q1 2026, nearly 60% more than the 396,000 opened in Q1 2025. Purchase volume also climbed, reaching $40.0 billion versus $36.7 billion a year prior. Both figures cover combined consumer and small business customer activity. Worth flagging: Wells revised its credit card metrics this quarter to exclude co-branded cards, with prior periods restated to match. That means the growth figure reflects proprietary card activity only, which is worth keeping in mind before reading too much into the year-over-year jump. (Wells Fargo)

Toaster’s Take

Account growth of that magnitude runs far above the typical 5-10% range for large issuers. That alone is worth a second look. But the bigger puzzle is what isn’t moving alongside it. Purchase volume grew modestly year-over-year. Balances don’t show a similar spike. Delinquencies are stable. The natural question: if these are high-quality acquisitions, why isn’t spend following?

A few possible explanations:

One is churn. The metric here is new accounts, not net new accounts. Wells could be adding aggressively on one end while losing or closing accounts on the other. Another is acquisition mix. If the funnel has shifted toward lower-spend or promotional-driven signups, you’d get exactly this pattern: strong account numbers, weak purchase volume. A third is portfolio reshuffling. Wells may be migrating customers from discontinued products into new ones, which counts as new accounts in the data without necessarily representing new customers.

The co-branded card exclusion adds another layer. Wells revised its credit card metrics this quarter to exclude co-branded cards, with prior periods restated to match. That change affects how the year-over-year growth reads, and it’s worth keeping in mind when interpreting the magnitude of the spike.

The new card launches don’t resolve the question either. Wells rolled out a Private Bank Visa Infinite and Autograph Premier this quarter, both targeting high-income and private banking clients through tight underwriting and limited distribution. These are relationship-deepening products, not intended for the mass-market. The audience is simply too small to generate 200,000-plus incremental accounts in a single quarter. And if premium cards were driving the growth, you’d expect higher spend per account. That’s not showing up in the numbers.

So the real question heading into Q2 is whether spend starts to move. If it does, this quarter looks like the early signal of a more deliberate push into card acquisition.

We’re digging into this further on the next episode of The Free Toaster News Pod later this week.

Sponsored by Bulldog Media Group

Reach the Borrowers Others Miss.

Bulldog Media Group specializes in connecting consumer lenders with less than perfect borrowers — a massive, underserved market that requires precision targeting to get right. With 25 years of financial services marketing experience, they deliver qualified leads through affiliate marketing, targeted email, and data-driven acquisition strategies built for this exact audience.

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

Get Qualified Borrower Leads

JPMorgan Reports Record Q1 2026: $16.5B Profit Amid Robust Growth

JPMorgan posted $16.5B in net income for Q1 2026, up 13% year-over-year, on managed revenue of $50.5B. Average loans grew 11% YoY, card sales volume jumped 9%, and the Card Services net charge-off rate held at 3.47%. Card Services & Auto revenue hit $7.8B, up 13%, driven by higher revolving balances. The Payments business brought in $5.1B, up 12%, on deposit growth and fee expansion. Active mobile customers grew 7% YoY, and the bank opened over 450,000 net new checking accounts in the quarter. CEO Jamie Dimon credited broad-based performance across the franchise, noting that "we continued to acquire new customers at a robust rate," but was measured on the macro outlook: "There is an increasingly complex set of risks, such as geopolitical tensions and wars, energy price volatility, trade uncertainty, large global fiscal deficits and elevated asset prices." (JPMorgan Chase & Co.)

Citi Q1 2026: Cards and Payments Fuel $5.8B Net Income Surge

Citigroup’s Q1 2026 numbers came in strong: $5.8B in net income, up 42% year-over-year, on $24.6B in revenue. The card business is the number to watch. U.S. Consumer Cards pulled in $4.8B in revenue and opened nearly 2.95 million new accounts in the quarter, while net credit losses dropped 11% YoY on improved performance across both general purpose and private label portfolios. Spend volume was up 5% and returns came in just under 20%. On the payments infrastructure side, Treasury and Trade Solutions hit $4.6B, up 17%, with commercial card spend up 8% and cross-border transaction value growing 12%. CEO Jane Fraser described it as “an exceptionally strong start,” noting that “U.S. Consumer Cards saw 4% revenue growth and returns of nearly 20%.” One deal worth flagging for anyone tracking co-brand distribution: the forward purchase commitment of the Barclays American Airlines card portfolio drove a meaningful portion of the ACL build this quarter, suggesting Citi is still actively expanding its co-brand footprint even as others pull back. (Citi)

News Pod #13 - Experian No Ding Decline, American + Citi CoBrand, and Cash App P2P News

In the latest episode of The Free Toaster, Carlos and Nick welcome Capital One veteran Amanda Braslow to break down Experian’s massive “no-ding” expansion into personal loans and why 40% of marketplace volume has already shifted to these rails. The crew dissects the Citi and American Airlines exclusive renewal as a high-stakes play for premium lounge dominance and reacts to Cash App bringing BNPL to P2P transfers.

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

JetBlue and Barclays Add Companion Passes and Status Accelerators to Premier Card

JetBlue and Barclays added several statement credits and status accelerators to the JetBlue Premier World Elite Mastercard while maintaining the $499 annual fee. Cardmembers now receive a 25-tile bonus annually. This deposit completes 50% of the requirements for Mosaic 1 status. The update introduces a tiered companion pass system where $15,000 in annual spend earns a credit up to $500. Spending $75,000 unlocks an additional credit worth up to $1,500. JetBlue also added a 15% redemption rebate on TrueBlue points for award flights and up to $300 in annual credits for TrueBlue Travel bookings. A new partnership with ClassPass provides up to 14 monthly credits for fitness and wellness services. These changes coincide with the airline's expansion of its BlueHouse lounge network. A second location opens at Boston Logan International Airport this summer following the recent opening at JFK. (JetBlue)

NFL and U.S. Bank Expand 20-Year Relationship with Official League Sponsorship

The NFL named U.S. Bank its official bank and wealth management sponsor in a new multi-year agreement. The bank becomes the presenting sponsor of the Super Bowl MVP Award starting with Super Bowl LXI. It also takes a top-tier sponsorship role for the NFL FLAG Championships. The partnership centers on U.S. Bank Financial Edge, a program providing financial education to players regarding cash flow and long-term wealth. Prospect Fernando Mendoza will advise the bank on tailoring these services for athletes navigating NIL contracts. Both organizations will launch a joint corporate social responsibility initiative in the coming months. This deal formalizes a relationship between the two entities that has lasted over 20 years. (US Bank)

Upcoming Toaster Events:

CardCon, April 21-23, 2026 - Amanda, Toaster’s GM of Events, will be at CardCon in Phoenix, Arizona, before heading to The Fintech Summit on April 28, 2026, as part of the action-packed Fintech Week NYC. Whether you are looking to talk shop, explore new partnerships, or simply catch up over coffee, we invite you to connect with us during these events. Contact amanda@thefreetoaster.com

Eliminating Funnel Friction, Private Dinner, April 27th in NYC - We’re hosting a curated dinner in New York City. Our objective is simple: facilitate a high-level exchange on what’s actually working to eliminate friction in your marketing funnel. No presentations. No conference booth vibes. Just 15 marketers, great food, and candid discussion on smart design and better tech to convert your customers. Learn more about the event here.

Bummed about missing CardCon this year? Join Jason Steele, founder of CardCon, and a select group of credit card marketing leaders to talk industry trends at an executive luncheon in NYC on May 6th. If interested, reach out at: jasondsteele@gmail.com.

loanDepot Integrates Figure Underwriting to Launch 5x5 HomeLoan Product

loanDepot and Figure Technology Solutions launched the 5x5 HomeLoan, a digital product offering mortgage approvals in five minutes and funding within five to seven days. loanDepot is a national retail lender that has funded $577 billion to consumers and operates a sales force of 1,800 licensed loan officers. The company integrated Figure’s blockchain-based underwriting engine into its mello technology platform to automate credit decisions. This partnership allows loanDepot to offer purchase, refinance, and equity lines ranging from $25,000 to $750,000 across all 50 states. The product eliminates appraisal fees, standard title costs, and standard closing costs for borrowers. Management expects the integration to reduce the cost to produce loans and increase market share. The loans feature fixed or variable rates with no prepayment penalties. (loanDepot)

Atlas Raises $40M to Pivot From Failed Debit Startup to $420M Billionaire Charge Card

Atlas closed a $40 million Series C funding round at a $420 million valuation led by Elad Gil and Verified Capital. The company operates a high-end charge card with a $999 annual fee and a text-based concierge service for travel and dining. This pivot follows the collapse of the founder's previous startup, Point, which lost its entire customer base after Column ended their banking partnership in 2022. Internal data showed 15% of users drove 90% of transaction volume, prompting the shift from mass-market debit cards to ultrawealthy spenders. Atlas now reports a gross revenue run-rate exceeding $20 million with approximately 2,000 customers. The business model relies on annual fees, 2% interchange fees, and commissions from hotel and airline bookings. Lead Bank currently provides the underlying banking infrastructure. The company competes with the American Express Centurion and JPMorgan Reserve cards by focusing on high-touch service rather than traditional reward points. Current investors include Eric Schmidt, Marathon, and 01 Advisors. (Forbes)

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

(Credit Card) Fed Data Signals Consumers Pulling Back on Credit Card Spending (PYMNTS)

(Lending) loanDepot Partners with Figure to Offer Express Path Loan Products to loanDepot Customers (loanDepot)

(Lending) Pagaya Issues AAA-rated $600 Million Personal Loan ABS Transaction (Pagaya)

(Lending) DuPage Credit Union Selects Upstart For Personal Lending (Upstart)

(Personal Finance) Computer Is Now Your Personal CFO (Perplexity AI)

(Credit) VantageScore Launches RiskRatio™ For Credit Benchmarking (VantageScore)

(AI/Shopping) Visa Opens The Door To AI-Driven Shopping For Businesses Worldwide (Visa)

(Credit) ClearScore Launches New Technical Standard For Agentic Credit Broking (FinTech Futures)

(Banking) Nymbus Launches Industry-Leading, Secure MCP Server For AI-Driven Core Banking Actions (Nymbus)

(Payments) New Loop Partners With Mastercard To Enable Seamless Payments For A Reusable Takeaway Packaging Return System (Mastercard)

(Fintech) Payments Fintech Pepper Pay Declares Bankruptcy (American Banker)

(AI/Banking) Ask, And AIR Makes It Happen (Revolut)

(Credit/AI) Moody’s Brings Credit And Compliance Workflows Directly Into Anthropic’s Claude (Moody’s)

(Payments) PayPal Embeds Payment Links Into Canva Designs (PYMNTS)

(Banking) Citigroup Says AI Helps Speed Account Openings And Systems Upgrades (Reuters)

(BNPL) Velera Wants Consumers To Turn To Credit Unions For BNPL (Velera)

(Financial Health) A Billion Connected: How We’re Empowering Even More People On The Road To Financial Health (Mastercard)

(Payments) Ahold Delhaize USA Introduces Pay By Bank Partnership With Fiserv To Expand Digital Payment Options For Online Grocery Orders (GlobeNewswire)

(Lending) Experian’s First-Of-Its-Kind Self‑Service Digital Onboarding Platform Helps Small Lenders Pull Credit Reports Quickly And Efficiently (Experian)

(Lending) Braviant Holdings Closes Two Revolving Asset-Backed Credit Facilities And A Forward Flow Facility (PR Newswire)

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

https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/wells-fargo-books-631000-new-credit

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.

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

Webinar Alert - ROI for Financial Marketers: What to Measure (and What Not to Chase) in 2026

Join leaders from Fintel Connect, Vested, and Axos Bank for an interactive discussion on how financial marketers should be measuring ROI in 2026 and which metrics are no longer worth chasing. As AI reshapes discovery and performance becomes harder to prove, understanding what truly drives growth has never been more critical.

You’ll Learn

• Which metrics actually define ROI—and which ones to move away from

• How AI-driven discovery is impacting visibility, trust, and performance

• Smarter ways to measure partner and publisher contribution beyond last-click

• How to connect marketing efforts to real revenue (qualified volume, funding rates, blended CAC)

• Practical frameworks for reporting performance that stand up to executive scrutiny

Whether you're a CMO, Head of Growth, or affiliate marketer in financial services, this webinar will show you how to measure marketing ROI more clearly in 2026.

Reserve Your Spot Now

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.

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.

Sponsored by Spinwheel

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:

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.

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)

Sponsored by Bulldog Media Group

Reach the Borrowers Others Miss.

Bulldog Media Group specializes in connecting consumer lenders with less than perfect borrowers — a massive, underserved market that requires precision targeting to get right. With 25 years of financial services marketing experience, they deliver qualified leads through affiliate marketing, targeted email, and data-driven acquisition strategies built for this exact audience.

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

Get Qualified Borrower Leads

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.

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.

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

PS: To support us, please ask 1 of your colleagues to subscribe!

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.

Sponsored by Spinwheel

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:

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 - reply to this email to let us know!)

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)

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

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)

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

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)