Tag: ipo

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

---

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. 

…

---

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

---

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

…

---

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

---

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.

…

---

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.

…

---

Big doesn’t mean broad for these public regional banks

---

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.

…

---

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

---

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.

…

---

The brakes are off, but the steering still matters

---

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?

…

---

Wise bets on NASDAQ for its next chapter

---

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

…

---

From payments to investments: The divergent paths of AI transformation

---

It’s a new week of the 10Q edition, and the conversation around AI isn’t slowing down. And judging by the pace of innovation, companies are in no mood to rest. 

We track two new AI developments this week from well-known public companies: Square, the payments and commerce unit of Block, and legacy bank Morgan Stanley.

AI In Payments: How Square’s Conversational AI Assistant signals a shift in SMB tech — and why it matters

Square has introduced a conversational AI assistant, Square AI, to help sellers by answering questions about using Square’s business technology platform and providing insights into their own business trends.

In a time when nearly every company is racing to slap AI onto a product label, Square’s latest move feels different, not because it’s more technically sophisticated, but because it directly addresses a chronic pain point for small business owners: decision paralysis in the face of complexity.

…

---

Fintech lending dives deeper into the algorithm age

---

Wall Street loves a good buzzword, but when AI appears on quarterly earnings calls and product roadmaps, it’s not just talk – it’s a pivot. Over the past week, some of the non-headline-grabbing public financial firms have moved their advanced AI efforts into production, beyond the lab phase and into frontline operations. 

We look at how Pagaya and Upstart fit into today’s narrative, which goes beyond their AI initiatives to focus on how they are operationalizing those efforts and gradually integrating AI into their company architecture.

Pagaya’s AI engine is now powering a $300 million BNPL push

For anyone watching the mechanics of modern consumer finance, Pagaya is making an effort to become one of the critical AI players in the lending world.

Founded in Israel and listed on the NASDAQ [PGY], Pagaya built its name on a very particular skill: using artificial intelligence to underwrite “second-look” loans, the kind traditional lenders might decline at first glance. The company’s bread and butter is partnering with financial institutions that want to expand credit access without eating a mountain of risk. Its AI models pore over alternative data and make fine-tuned credit decisions that don’t rely solely on FICO scores.

Recent AI developments

i) BNPL Bond Issuance: In the past week, Pagaya made a big move: it issued a $300 million bond backed by buy now, pay later (BNPL) loans, a first for the company. It did this in partnership with Klarna, the Swedish BNPL giant that’s been revamping its financials ahead of a possible IPO. The bond deal, arranged by J.P. Morgan Chase and Apollo’s Atlas, gives Klarna more flexibility to offload credit exposure while allowing Pagaya to flex its AI muscle in a hot but volatile space. The bond was oversubscribed and included AAA-rated tranches yielding about 1.75 percentage points above Treasury bonds, indicating strong investor demand despite higher risk premiums compared to competitors like Affirm.

What makes this interesting is that Pagaya is applying its AI underwriting system to a new frontier, point-of-sale financing, where risks are nuanced, margins are thin, and speed is everything. Klarna handles the consumer touchpoints; Pagaya, behind the curtain, crunches the credit decisions and helps get the funding flowing.

ii) Asset-Backed Securities (ABS) Issuances: This isn’t Pagaya’s first rodeo in asset-backed securities…

What we’re seeing now is Pagaya expanding its model, not pivoting. The BNPL-backed bond is less about jumping on a trend and more about applying its proven tech stack to an adjacent product, one that’s booming in retail but increasingly scrutinized for risk.

…

---