What happens when consumers delegate financial decisions to agents?
Plus: How SoFi is betting it can own the AI relationship before ChatGPT does
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.
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.