Tag: invest

Brains, Blockchain, and Backbone: How finance evolved in 2025

2025 was anything but ordinary. AI evolved from tools to agentic decision-makers. Crypto roared back and shrugged off skepticism to reclaim a seat at the table. And regional banks, long content to play it safe and lurk in the shadows, began experimenting, innovating, and proving they can move differently yet fast.

As the year wraps up, we zoom in on the standout trends across publicly traded companies I covered this year — and what they signal for 2026.

Trend 1: AI — How AI found its place in banking, from a back-office helper to a decision-making partner

2025 began with a mix of fascination and unease around AI in the financial sector. There was a cloud of uncertainty: could AI take over jobs, reshape banking as we know it, or disrupt entire business models? At industry gatherings like the World Economic Forum 2025 at Davos, AI wasn’t just a topic – it was the topic. Panel after panel debated whether AI would be a villain, a tool, or a teammate.

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The Wall Street incumbent embraces stability over volatility in asset management

On December 1, Goldman Sachs revealed plans to acquire Innovator Capital Management, a provider of defined-outcome ETFs, bringing 159 defined-outcome ETFs and $28 billion in assets under management into its portfolio. This move underscores where the incumbent bank now prioritizes growth.

[Defined-outcome ETFs, also called “buffered” ETFs, are exchange-traded funds designed to deliver a specific, pre-set investment result over a defined period. They use options and derivatives to offer upside potential while limiting downside losses.]

This is a structural pivot. Innovator gives Goldman scale in one of the fastest-growing corners of public markets and nudges the firm a little further out from the revenue volatility that has long defined its dominance. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026.

Why Innovator, and why now

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A storied beginning and a forward-looking purpose

In 1935, with $25,000 borrowed from friends and family, Harold Webster Smith founded the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Waterbury, Connecticut, to help people build homes during the Great Depression. His vision was that banking should serve the people around you, not just the bottom line.

The organization was later renamed Webster Bank when it went public in 2002 and converted to a national commercial bank in 2004, enabling broader service offerings while largely preserving its regional identity. 

Today, Stamford, Connecticut, serves as its headquarters, but its branches extend from suburban New York to Rhode Island and Massachusetts, giving it a solid regional footprint.

Webster Bank (NYSE: WBS) remains true to its ethos: serving communities across the Northeast while moving billions of dollars of healthcare payments and powering fintech platforms behind the scenes. 

Webster Bank’s evolution from a local thrift to a publicly traded commercial institution reflects a long-term focus. The bank serves clients across three key areas: commercial banking, consumer banking, and healthcare financial services.

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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Klarna and SoFi: Betting big on credit and crypto

If fintech competition were a boxing ring, Klarna and SoFi are trading very different kinds of punches, but both are very much in the fight for meaningful scale.

Case Study 1: Klarna — Stretching the BNPL muscle in the US

Recent move: Klarna struck a deal with Elliott Investment Management to sell up to $6.5 billion in US “Fair Financing” loans over the next two years. These are not short-term, no-interest BNPL loans — they’re fixed-term installment loans, with Klarna retaining underwriting and servicing duties.

Why it matters:

• Capital efficiency — By selling receivables under a forward-flow agreement, Klarna frees up balance sheet capacity to issue more loans. 
• Scalable risk management — Rather than raising debt or equity, this structure allows Klarna to grow its credit book without taking on too much risk upfront.
• US-centric growth — Fair Financing is growing faster in the US than globally (Klarna disclosed GMV up 244% in the US, vs. 139% globally over the past year). 

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The trajectories of Robinhood, Upstart, and LendingClub highlight the broader fintech trends heading into 2026

The latest round of earnings from Robinhood, Upstart, and LendingClub reads less like a scoreboard and more like a temperature check on what fintech even means now. Each firm, in its own way, is evolving past the product it was born with – the trading app, the AI-driven lender, the online credit marketplace – and chasing something harder: resilience.

But how they’re getting there couldn’t look more different.

Robinhood: From trades to everything

Robinhood’s early years were about giving retail traders a seat at the table, but its recent quarters have been about building a whole new table.

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Why Truist’s new business card isn’t really only about the card

As competition for SMB loyalty intensifies, financial institutions are rethinking where the first touchpoint begins. Increasingly, that entry point isn’t a checking account or a loan – it’s a card.

Truist’s recent launch of its Business Premium Visa Infinite card fits squarely into that evolution. The super-regional bank is using the card as a relationship anchor: a gateway into an ecosystem of payments, working capital, and treasury solutions built around how small businesses operate.

Chris Ward, Head of Enterprise Payments at Truist

“It’s not just a credit product — it’s a relationship anchor,” says Chris Ward, Head of Enterprise Payments at Truist. That framing reflects a broader shift in banking strategy: away from transactional products and toward integrated, ecosystem-driven relationships where a card becomes both a data engine and a loyalty bridge.

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