‘Challenger banks aren’t challenging anything’: Agora’s Arcady Lapiro on launching a new banking as a service platform

10-Q, Member Exclusive

Q4 2025 in Consumer Finance: Fintechs move from user counts to dollars per engaged customer

• Block’s Q4 2025 earnings drew attention as much for the story behind the numbers as for the numbers themselves. Chime’s Q4 2025 results emphasized growth, credit expansion, and ecosystem depth.
• Block’s structural shift and Chime’s measured ecosystem expansion raise broader industry questions that go beyond individual company performance.

BNPL, Member Exclusive, Who owns the customer

Affirm’s full-stack ambition is bigger than consumer finance alone

• Affirm began 2026 on the front foot.
• The recent moves by the BNPL firm point to an overarching strategy: expanding from consumer checkouts into B2B distribution and institutional control.

10-Q, Member Exclusive

Coinbase rides the waves of stress and opportunity with its ‘Everything Exchange’ vision

• 'Everything Exchange' reflects Coinbase’s ambition to be a one-stop financial platform.
• Outgrowing its crypto exchange roots brings Coinbase fresh regulatory, competitive, and market challenges.

BNPL, Creating win-win partnerships, Embedded Finance, Member Exclusive, SMB Finance

How embedded BNPL optimizes cash flow for SMBs: Inside the Intuit-Affirm partnership

• The Intuit-Affirm partnership embeds BNPL directly in QuickBooks invoices, transforming accounting into a real-time decision layer.
• In the new fintech partnership model, platforms manage workflows and customers while specialists handle the decision layer to drive scalable results.

10-Q, Member Exclusive

Banking: AI, automation, and the rise of digital-first scale

• From AI agents at Goldman to automation at Truist and lean growth at Nubank, the contours of a modern banking model are emerging.
• Banks are rethinking human-machine cooperative roles and new ways to scale.