Tag: AI financial services

Quietly building, steadily growing

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When you think of America’s banking landscape, the names that immediately come to mind are the Wall Street skyscrapers and their logos that dominate media headlines: J.P. Morgan, Citi, Bank of America. However, lurking far from the spotlight are non-mega banks with balance sheets hefty enough to rival the GDPs of mid-tier states, but they move so quietly that one could almost miss them. 

One of these shadow giants is BOK Financial [BOKF]. Founded in 1910, this Oklahoma-born institution has spent more than a century weaving itself into the economic fabric of the Midwest and Southwest.

The institution’s journey could have ended three decades ago. But its story is that of a phoenix, emerging stronger from the fire. 

In today’s 10Q edition: What’s left in the shadows, we shine a light on the less-talked-about publicly traded names in the industry that do their own thing but remain integral to the banking ecosystem.

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One framework, many doors.

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Citizens Bank hit reset on its open banking API earlier this year, modernizing the framework.

The bank began developing the new framework in 2023 under Financial Data Exchange (FDX) standards, phasing out older patchwork APIs and the risk of screen scraping. The beta arrived in mid-2024, with the full launch in Q1 2025.

The new API framework gives business, commercial, wealth, and private banking customers the same access through a single endpoint, making integration easier for fintechs and platforms with mixed user bases. The system adjusts its data output based on the account type.

In the longer term, the move positions the bank for faster collaboration with fintechs and data aggregators, creating pathways for new services to reach customers more quickly. For both businesses and individuals, this could mean smarter financial planning, more tailored products, and an improved banking experience that blends well with the tools they already use.

Oscar Gonzalez, Head of Product Management for Access & Delivery Channels at Citizens, walked me through the bank’s decision to launch its new open banking API framework and the pain points it aims to solve.

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How Chime, SoFi, and Nubank are redrawing the digital banking map

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For years, digital banks were the upstarts, carving out space on the promise of sleek apps, fewer fees, and a friendlier relationship with money. But the honeymoon phase of ‘fintech versus banks’ has ended. Now, the spotlight falls on who can actually scale, turn a profit, and keep growing without losing the very customers who signed up to escape Wall Street sameness. 

Three names, Chime, SoFi, and Nubank, are providing three different answers to that existential question. Their recent moves echo the global digital banking sector that’s both maturing and experimenting with new endeavors.

Chime [CHYM]: The IPO debutante under pressure

Chime’s recent numbers underscore both promise and pressure. The neobank achieved profitability in the first quarter of 2025. And while the firm has seen profitable quarters before, Q1 2025 is the first to appear in tandem with its IPO filing.

By the numbers: 

• As of March 2025, the company reported $518.7 million in revenue for the quarter, up from $391.9 million a year earlier, with net income of $12.9 million. 
• For full-year 2024, revenue climbed to $1.67 billion, but the company still posted a small net loss of $25.3 million, though that’s a marked improvement from its $203 million loss in 2023. 
• Its member base sits at about 8.6 million active users, most of whom rely heavily on its debit and credit card products.

The fuller arc: After years of IPO speculation, Chime finally hit Wall Street this summer. Its IPO was priced at $27 a share and opened at $43, a 49% pop that resulted in a public market cap of about $9.8 billion.

The IPO raised $864 million, giving Chime a war chest to push deeper into its target market: Americans earning under $100,000 a year; nearly 200 million people who Chime argues are overcharged by the old banking system.

But IPOs are as much about what’s next as what’s past. 

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For banks, it’s a way to modernize without blowing up the ‘trust’ model

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Coinbase, once a Silicon Valley outsider pitching crypto as an alternative to the banking system, is now doing business with the very institutions it was supposed to disrupt.

In recent weeks, two of the most prominent names in American finance — PNC and J.P. Morgan — have formally partnered with the exchange. It’s not a headline grab so much as a quiet redrawing of boundaries. The roles are shifting: banks are moving closer to the chain, and Coinbase is evolving beyond being just a crypto trading platform.

The partnerships, while distinct in purpose, point to the same broader trend: crypto is no longer relegated to the kids’ table. PNC is using Coinbase to bring crypto access directly into its digital banking experience. J.P. Morgan is embedding Coinbase integrations into consumer rewards and funding flows, and piloting tokenized deposit infrastructure on Coinbase’s Base chain. 

We explore the specifics of each partnership.

Coinbase and PNC: From branches to blockchains

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The future of banking? It’s not all in Manhattan…

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Caught between the community banks that know every face in town and the global big ol’ boys that span continents, regional banks are increasingly making meaningful strides in marrying tradition with innovation.

In today’s 10Q edition, we spotlight two such publicly traded regional banks and the strategic moves they’re making.

Part 1: The PNC Case

A Pittsburgh-based institution with a national footprint: PNC Financial Services, headquartered in Pittsburgh, isn’t just a “regional” bank in the narrow sense. With assets of over half a trillion dollars and operations stretching from the Northeast to the Sun Belt, it occupies that increasingly blurred category of “super-regional.” It has a significant footprint in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other Midwestern states, but its 2021 acquisition of BBVA USA widened its reach drastically into Texas, Arizona, and Alabama, giving it true coast-to-coast visibility.

PNC has positioned itself as an active player in a fast-evolving financial landscape. The bank has been steadily investing in technology, digital banking platforms, and financial literacy tools. But its most recent move signals a brave step into a territory still considered high-risk or unproven by many traditional banking peers.

Crypto, carefully – PNC’s partnership with Coinbase: In July 2025, PNC announced a partnership with Coinbase to expand access to crypto-related financial services for its clients. 

Unlike many crypto service launches that flood retail markets with apps and coins, this collaboration is institutional in focus. The partnership is structured to serve institutional clients — institutional investors, businesses, high-net-worth individuals, and possibly fintech infrastructure needs — rather than the average retail investor. 

The move allows PNC’s banking clients to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrencies directly through PNC’s own platform, powered by Coinbase’s Crypto-as-a-Service (CaaS) infrastructure. This gives PNC a “plug-and-play” model for digital asset access, while maintaining the brand consistency and trust it has built over the decades.

It also works the other way around.

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Payoneer’s approach: embed deeply within businesses, not just alongside them

 

Payoneer is focusing on sustained growth. The company is increasingly integrating itself into the core operations of its users, particularly the fast-growing global SMBs and digital-first enterprises it serves.

The company’s recent product updates demonstrate its ambitions, positioning itself as a critical platform for how global businesses transfer and manage funds.

A key part of this update is Payoneer’s new integration with NetSuite. It allows for real-time data syncing between Payoneer and NetSuite’s ERP system, helping businesses cut down on manual uploads and reduce the typical end-of-month reconciliation workload.

In addition, Payoneer now supports PayPal payments globally, giving businesses another option for how they get paid. Combined with features like unified payment requests and automated invoicing, these tools are meant to ease the operational burden, particularly for smaller teams managing payments with limited resources.

The third product update enables local spending in Japanese Yen via Payoneer Card and smarter FX tools (including real-time alerts and target rate conversions). This hints at a broader strategy: helping businesses manage global money flows with the same ease they expect from domestic tools.

I had a conversation with Oren Ryngler, Payoneer’s Chief Product & Technology Officer, to learn about the motivation driving these product enhancements and how they support the company’s goal of becoming a foundational part of its clients’ financial infrastructure.

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Big doesn’t mean broad for these public regional banks

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It makes sense to think of American banking as a game dominated by Wall Street giants, but beneath that surface, a subtler, deeper, and less conspicuous banking layer has been steadily growing.

Across the US, regionally rooted banks have grown into billion-dollar public institutions by focusing sharply on the nuances of the communities they serve. They don’t try to be everything to everyone; their mantra is to go deep, not wide. 

We take a look at five of the largest US publicly listed regional banks that have remained loyal to their geographic base, which has enabled them to establish a strong presence.

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The new card is just one step in PayPal’s broader commerce strategy

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Even as tap-to-pay and mobile wallets become popular, the physical card isn’t going anywhere just yet. PayPal is the latest firm to reaffirm that belief, rolling out a new physical card that brings its PayPal Credit offering into brick-and-mortar stores.

The move broadens PayPal Credit’s reach, bringing it to in-store purchases, in addition to online checkouts with PayPal. It has a limited-time perk: customers can divide their payments on travel purchases over six months through promotional financing, with no minimum spend required. Shoppers can also apply for a PayPal Buy Now Pay Later loan at checkout in person. The new PayPal card is expected to roll out in the coming weeks to US customers.

I spoke with Scott Young, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Consumer Financial Services at PayPal, to learn more about the new card and how its launch signals PayPal’s broader shift from a payment processor to a commerce platform.

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The brakes are off, but the steering still matters

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Few firms have had to earn their second chance more publicly than America’s biggest banks. Among them, Wells Fargo has been on one of the longest and most punishing roads to redemption in recent financial history.

Over the last few years, the bank has been busy rebuilding from within: restructuring leadership, simplifying its operations, modernizing technology, and tightening its risk controls. This reinvention wasn’t voluntary. Back in 2018, the Federal Reserve imposed a strict limit on Wells Fargo’s total assets, capping them at $1.95 trillion. This was all following a series of scandals, which included, most infamously, the creation of millions of fake customer accounts to meet sales targets. 

Wells Fargo was barred from increasing its balance sheet because of the cap, which meant it could not:

• Take on more deposits from customers (especially large commercial clients).
• Make more loans to individuals or businesses beyond a certain level.
• Expand trading books or grow in capital-intensive areas like investment banking.
• Scale new business lines quickly, even if market demand exists.

Why it matters: In banking, growth typically comes from expanding assets: more deposits in, more loans out, more products sold, more capital at work. The cap froze Wells’ growth.

During 2018-2025, Wells Fargo likely had to:

• Turn away new customers or shed low-yielding assets to make room
• Prioritize efficiency and capital-light business areas (like wealth management or advisory)
• Focus on fixing internal controls instead of aggressively competing in the market

In June 2025, that cap was finally lifted. After more than seven years, the bank is no longer under the growth restrictions that defined its post-scandal trajectory. This is more than regulatory housekeeping; it marks the end of Wells’ painful chapter and opens up the beginning of a new era of competitiveness.

But this development also raises a critical question: What did it cost Wells to get here? And what exactly does it plan to do with its regained freedom?

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Wise bets on NASDAQ for its next chapter

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In the early 2010s, Wise (then known as TransferWise) made a name for itself by targeting the bloated fees of international money transfers. Its brand was scrappy and distinctly European. But over a decade later, the company’s next chapter isn’t being penned in London or Tallinn, but on Wall Street. 

Earlier this month, Wise announced it plans to shift its primary stock listing to the US, a move both strategic and symbolic that underscores tectonic shifts in the global listings landscape.

From crown jewel to continental drift: The primary London listing exodus
Before zeroing in on Wise’s decision, let’s take a step back to analyze the situation at the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The past five years have seen a steady drip of high-profile companies leaving the LSE in favor of the US, a migration that now totals over $100 billion in market cap. 

Marsh & McLennan, a professional services provider in risk, strategy, and HR, announced its plan to delist from the LSE in October 2023 and cancel its listing on the Official List of the UK Financial Conduct Authority. The company cited the disproportionate costs and administrative burdens of maintaining a secondary listing in London, given that the majority of its trading occurs on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The delisting took effect on November 27, 2023. Similarly, other firms like construction supplier Ferguson and pharmaceutical firm Indivior have all either moved or are moving primary listings to US exchanges.

The reasons cited are familiar: lackluster liquidity in London, persistently lower valuations, and limited index inclusion options for growth companies. Despite the UK’s post-Brexit ambitions to become a tech and finance hub, its primary exchange seems increasingly less appealing to the very firms that represent its future.

Wise’s situation fits this mold, but also tells us more.

Why Wise is making the leap

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