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Hey, fintech fam 💜

Our world is moving fast right now — from market-shifting headlines and power conversations unfolding at Davos this week, to real momentum building closer to home across the fintech ecosystem. It’s one of those moments where you can feel the industry recalibrating in real time.

Behind the scenes, I’ve been deep in build mode too — locking in key moments for New York Fintech Week and opening up memberships and table-host opportunities for the Second Annual FEMMY Awards & Gala, happening February 16 in New York City.

The FEMMYs aren’t just an awards night — they’re a rare room. Founders, operators, investors, and decision-makers come together to celebrate leadership, build real proximity, and set the tone for the year ahead.

If you care about where fintech is going — and who’s shaping it — this is where the community shows up.

More event details (and our mood board) below.

Now, let’s get into the news. ✨

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What’s Up In Fintech

Every Thursday, I break down the fintech stories that matter most—grounded in my reporting, interviews with industry leaders, and what I’m seeing unfold across the industry.

#1 Capital One to Acquire Brex in $5.15 Billion Deal

In one of the most consequential fintech deals of the year, Capital One announced on Thursday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Brex in a $5.15 billion cash-and-stock transaction, first reported by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed in Capital One’s earnings release.

The deal is expected to close mid-2026, subject to regulatory approval, and Brex Founder & CEO Pedro Franceschi will continue to lead the company inside Capital One.

At face value, this looks like a legacy bank buying a once-high-flying fintech.

In reality, it’s something far more strategic.

Capital One isn’t just acquiring a corporate card platform. It’s buying its way into:

• $13B+ in Brex-managed deposits

• A deeply embedded startup and SMB customer base

• And one of the most advanced AI-native B2B finance stacks in fintech

Brex describes itself as a modern platform that combines corporate cards, automated expense management, secure real-time payments — and increasingly, AI agents that automate spend controls and financial workflows.

That matters.

Why Capital One Wanted This Fintech

“Since our founding, we set out to build a payments company at the frontier of the technology revolution,” said Richard Fairbank, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Capital One. “Acquiring Brex accelerates this journey, especially in the business payments marketplace.”

Fairbank went further, calling Brex’s path “one of the rarest journeys in fintech” — a vertically integrated platform built from the bottom of the tech stack to the top.

That framing is telling.

This isn’t about slapping a fintech brand onto a bank balance sheet. Capital One is explicitly buying product velocity, software DNA, and AI-native architecture — then pairing it with scale, underwriting sophistication, and regulatory durability.

And this comes just months after Capital One’s $35 billion acquisition of Discover, which gave the bank its own payments network to compete directly with Visa and Mastercard.

Put together, Capital One is assembling something bigger than a card business: an end-to-end operating system for business money.

What This Means for Brex — and Its Customers

Brex built its reputation by rethinking how modern companies manage spend, rewards, and cash — especially startups that traditional banks struggled to serve.

Now, that “startup for startups” is becoming infrastructure for the mainstream economy.

Franceschi framed the deal as a way to “maximize founder mode” at scale — combining Brex’s payments and spend-management expertise with Capital One’s brand, balance sheet, and long-term investment mindset.

Brex doesn’t disappear here. It gets institutionalized in the U.S. mainstream economy. 

The Bigger Signal: Fintech M&A Has Changed

This deal reinforces a pattern we’ve been tracking all week.

Fintech M&A in 2026 is no longer about survival.

It’s about strategic inevitability.

Banks aren’t acquiring fintechs to look innovative. They’re acquiring them to:

• Lock in deposits

• Own distribution

• Control data

• And defend relevance as finance becomes more automated, agentic, and software-led

Just days ago, we saw FIS make the same kind of move — doubling down on issuing infrastructure and agentic commerce. Capital One is applying the same logic to business payments and spending.

Different segment. Same playbook.

Why It Matters

Fintech is entering a convergence era.

Speed alone isn’t enough.

UX alone isn’t enough.

Capital alone isn’t enough.

The winners will be the institutions that can combine technology, trust, AI, and scale — and deploy all four at once.

Capital One buying Brex is proof that the most important innovations have become too central to sit outside the system — and that banks willing to buy their future.

That’s the signal fintech leaders should be paying attention to.

Editor’s note: This is a developing story, and I will continue to follow it and provide more insights. 

#2 Bank Leaders Are Pushing Back on Trump’s Credit Card Cap — Fintechs Are Leaning In

Two headlines dominated conversations at the World Economic Forum this week after Donald Trump arrived in Davos: geopolitical posturing (including renewed talk of Greenland) and a domestic proposal with real economic implications — a 10% cap on credit card interest rates starting in January 2026.

At first glance, the idea sounds consumer-friendly. Credit card APRs have climbed into the high-20% range for many borrowers, and frustration with revolving debt is widespread.

But as the reactions from bank and fintech leaders made clear this week, a blunt rate cap could dramatically reshape who gets access to credit — and how.

How the Industry Is Responding

Traditional banks were quick to warn that a hard cap would restrict credit, particularly for lower-FICO consumers, according to responses reported by Business Insider. 

At Davos, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser called the proposal “not good for the economy,” pointing to a failed 1980 attempt to restrict consumer credit that ended in economic contraction. Her concern: caps often do the opposite of what they intend, making credit harder — not cheaper — to access.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was more blunt, calling the idea an “economic disaster” and warning it could strip access to credit from as much as 80% of Americans, with ripple effects across restaurants, travel, retail, and local economies.

Other bank leaders echoed the theme. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan noted that while affordability matters, rate caps often lead to lower credit limits and fewer approved borrowers — especially those already on the margins.

Fintechs See an Opening

Fintech lenders, by contrast, see opportunity.

Analysts at Mizuho Securities, as reported by Barrons, note that companies like SoFi, Affirm, and Upstart generate the majority of their business from consumer lending and may be better positioned to fill the gap if banks pull back.

SoFi CEO Anthony Noto was explicit: if a cap were enacted, traditional card issuers would likely shrink lending, creating a void for personal loans with clearer terms and fixed repayment schedules. That, he argued, could actually reduce long-term debt traps — if underwriting discipline and borrower education hold.

Meanwhile, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder & CEO, of Klarna backed the proposal, arguing that today’s rewards-driven credit card system disproportionately benefits higher-income consumers while lower-income borrowers bear the cost through interest.

Why It Matters for Fintech Leaders

This proposal may never pass Congress — even its critics concede it’s a long shot. But the debate itself is the signal.

Three things are happening at once:

1. Affordability pressure is now a political issue, not just a consumer one.
   

2. Access vs. protection is the core tension — and fintech sits directly in the middle.
   

3. Credit models are being questioned, not just priced.

If banks retreat from riskier borrowers under tighter economics, fintechs will be asked — by markets, regulators, and consumers — to step in responsibly. That means clearer pricing, stronger underwriting, and products that don’t rely on revolving debt to stay profitable.

The real question isn’t whether a 10% cap becomes law.

It’s whether the industry can build a credit system where access doesn’t automatically translate into long-term financial harm — and where innovation expands opportunity without shifting risk onto the people least able to absorb it.

That tension is now front and center on the global stage. And fintech leaders should be paying close attention.

#3 Leaders at Davos Emphasized a ‘Disciplined Era’ for AI in Banking and Fintech

Another interesting moment at the World Economic Forum this week, global banking chiefs, fintech leaders, and regulators converged on a shared reality: AI is reshaping finance faster than institutions can adapt on their own — and the next phase will be defined by discipline, not speed. 

That message came through clearly in a Davos panel covered by PYMNTS titled “Banking Accelerated,” with participants including leaders from Royal Bank of Canada, PayPal, Commerzbank, Banco BTG Pactual, and the Qatar Central Bank.

What stood out wasn’t optimism or fear — it was sobriety.

The industry has moved past debating whether AI belongs in financial services. The real question now is how to deploy it without breaking trust, resilience, or accountability at scale.

Below, I share key highlights from PYMTS original reporting at Davos alongside my analysis.

Banks and Fintechs Are Officially ‘Frenemies’

RBC CEO David McKay described Big Tech and fintech platforms as “frenemies” — partners and competitors at the same time.

That framing matters.

Banks increasingly rely on platforms for distribution, data, and interfaces, even as those same platforms compete for ownership of the customer relationship. McKay warned that if banks allow themselves to become only the final step in payments, they risk being quietly disintermediated.

RBC’s response has been to move earlier in the value chain — into home search, small-business formation, and eCommerce — embedding financial services before money ever moves.

That’s a signal: in the AI era, control shifts toward whoever owns discovery, context, and decision-making — not just transactions.

Trust Is the Real Network Effect

PayPal’s Global Markets President Suzan Kereere framed trust as the true network effect powering commerce.

Not just trust with money — but trust with data, identity, AI-driven decisions, and recourse when something goes wrong.

As AI systems increasingly approve transactions, flag fraud, freeze accounts, or deny credit at machine speed, the consequences of error scale instantly. That’s why panelists repeatedly emphasized caution around deploying generative and agentic AI directly into consumer-facing workflows.

In banking, hallucinations aren’t a UX issue — they’re a systemic risk.

Digital Isn’t Replacing Humans — It’s Rewiring the Model

Despite the AI-forward narrative, panelists rejected the idea that digital means fully automated.

Commerzbank CEO Bettina Orlopp described AI as a bridge between digital-native customers and those who still want human support. At RBC, branches are evolving into multi-channel hubs, where employees handle in-person service, chat, and call-center work simultaneously.

The shift isn’t about fewer humans — it’s about higher productivity per human.

From the regulatory side, Qatar Central Bank Governor Sheikh Bandar Bin Mohammed Bin Saoud Al-Thani emphasized that resilience now sits alongside capital and liquidity as a core risk.

His warning was direct: if regulators don’t evolve with technology, risk doesn’t vanish — it migrates.

Qatar’s approach has been to invest in instant payments, AI governance frameworks, and regulatory sandboxes that allow innovation without eroding oversight.

The Davos message wasn’t anti-regulation. It was anti-fragmentation.

Why It Matters

For fintech leaders, this panel marks a meaningful inflection point.

The AI era in finance is no longer about proving what’s possible — that phase is over. Now it’s about proving what’s durable.

The companies that win in the next cycle will be the ones that:

• Scale trust, not just features

• Treat resilience as product strategy, not compliance overhead

• Collaborate across banks, fintechs, and regulators instead of racing to the edges

What emerged from Davos was not an argument about whether AI belongs in banking, but about how it gets deployed — and who remains accountable when it does. Trust, scale, resilience, and collaboration were treated as prerequisites, not nice-to-haves. That framing mirrors what we’re seeing outside the conference halls as well. 

Last week, FIS’s announcement to launch an agentic commerce platform for banks didn’t just talk about agentic commerce — it operationalized it, pairing AI with issuing infrastructure to ensure banks stay central as autonomous transactions become real. 

Davos speakers talked about the discipline required for AI in finance; FIS showed what disciplined execution looks like. 

Together, they point to the same conclusion: the next era of fintech won’t be led by whoever builds AI first, but by whoever can deploy it safely, at scale, with trust intact.

_{MARK YOUR CALENDARS}

Booked and busy? Same. Every Thursday, I share fintech events worth adding to your calendar— both IRL and online.

_{WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28}

[VIRTUAL] Fintech Business Class with Georgetown McDonough School of Business

​In partnership with Fintech Is Femme and the Georgetown McDonough School of Business, this live virtual event brings together women shaping fintech across product, capital, and international policy.

​Together, we’ll break down what leadership and influence look like at the highest levels—and how education, real-world experience, and community help leaders drive meaningful impact.

​You’ll get an inside look at how power is built, how decisions are made, and how leaders position themselves to shape what’s next.

​What to Expect

• ​A 15-minute keynote from award-winning journalist Nicole Casperson, grounded in original research and insights from her book, Fintech Feminists

• ​Live interviews with ​Sandra Waliczek, Blockchain & Digital Assets Lead, World Economic Forum; ​Jocelyn Byrne Houle, Angel Investor and tech-first product leader; ​Karen Snow, CEO, Rose & Co. Capital

• ​Structured breakout networking designed to create real, high-quality connections

• ​Perspective on how a Georgetown MBA prepares leaders to influence markets, policy, and institutions worldwide

_{MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16}

[NEW YORK] ​Host Your Company at an Exclusive Room Filled with the Most Powerful Women in Fintech

Last year, I launched The Academy of Fintech, a private member community under Fintech Is Femme. Through word of mouth, it’s grown to 200+ founders, operators, investors, and banking leaders who genuinely care about building an economy where everyone wins — and who value being in relationship with one another as they do the work.

On February 16 in NYC, we’re bringing that community together for the Second Annual FEMMY Awards — a gala-style evening to celebrate the women shaping fintech and spend real time in the same room with people who actually move the industry forward.

For many, the FEMMYs are also an entry point into the Academy — which lives well beyond one night through a private Slack, monthly virtual salons, masterclasses, and access to rooms where relationships compound over time.

I’d love for you to join us — whether that’s attending the FEMMYs, hosting a table, or stepping into the Academy in a way that feels right for you.

You can explore the details here.

If you have any questions or want to talk it through, my door is always open.

Hope to see you in New York.

Oh, as promised…the event mood board curated by my brilliant stylist Keltoum Mazid — check it out here.

_{APRIL 28-30}

[NEW YORK] Meet FTW: A three-part Summit Series during New York Fintech Week

Welcome to FTW: New York — a three-day, three-summit leading New York Fintech Week.

After two years of strong growth from our flagship Fintech Is Femme Leadership Summit and the successful launch of the Fintech Security Summit, we’re expanding with intention. This year, we’re partnering with leaders across venture, go-to-market, identity, and security to host three focused summits, each designed to go deeper — and deliver real value.

Here’s how the week breaks down:

Tuesday, April 28

The Fintech Summit — hosted by Fiat Growth and Drew Glover

Wednesday, April 29

The Fintech Is Femme Leadership Summit — with me, Nicole Casperson

Thursday, April 30

The Fintech Security Summit — led by Frances Zelazny

🎟️ Early bird tickets are live now.

If you have questions or are interested in sponsorship, just reply to this email, and I’ll get you connected with my team.

_FINTUNES

🎵 Zara Larsson - Midnight Sun

_{LET’S CONNECT}

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🎤 Host an epic event by booking me as a speaker, moderator, or emcee.

📚 Increase your expertise by ordering your copy of my book, Fintech Feminists: Increasing Inclusion, Redefining Innovation, and Changing the Future for Women Around the World.

That wraps up today’s edition—thanks for reading! Until next week, keep innovating and challenging the status quo. See you Tuesday!

Love,

Nicole 💜