Hey, fintech fam 💜

Happy first week of 2026 — and the first Tuesday newsletter of the year.

Over the break, I spent a lot of time thinking about our word for the year at Fintech Is Femme: Transformation.

The real, uncomfortable, exciting kind. The kind that happens when a scrappy startup grows up.

As Fintech Is Femme continues to scale as both a media platform and a community, I’ve been encouraging our team (and myself) to push further into our creativity and craft — to get sharper, bolder, and more intentional about how we tell stories and why they matter.

For me, that means stretching. Every Tuesday this year, I’m challenging myself to do something new — experimenting with my writing, voice, and storytelling.

You’ve loved this newsletter for four years, and I don’t take that lightly. As we enter this next era, I’m giving myself permission to try different formats, new segments, and bolder opinion columns.

So in today’s issue, you’ll notice a few new things I’m trying on — especially as we spotlight The Academy of Fintech and our growing slate of events. (Yes, this is also me saying: I really want to see you in person.)

Thanks for growing with us.

Let’s get into it.

_{SIT WITH US}

• Jan 12 (Virtual) Best-In-Show Fintech Showcase: 5 standout female founders. Live investor feedback from Mastercard, FIS, Fiserv, TruStage & Artemis. This is not a pitch fest — it’s a masterclass. Join us here.

• February 16 (NYC): Join us for the second annual FEMMY Awards, presented by the Academy of Fintech. An evening honoring the trailblazers shaping fintech history and giving them their flowers. This is celebration in community, not competition. Save your seat now. Not a member yet? Apply for membership or grab a general admission ticket to the FEMMYs here.

  The Academy of Fintech is also hosting more than 40+ virtual masterclasses this year. You can access them through a membership.

• April 28–30, New York Fintech Week is coming. I can’t wait to share what we’re building, but for now, early-bird tickets are live for those who already know they need to be in the room. Join us for the third annual Fintech Is Femme Leadership Summit here by grabbing your 1-day all-access pass.

_{ON LEADERSHIP}

Fintech’s Real Test Isn’t Innovation. It’s Stability.

Early Saturday morning, President Donald Trump confirmed that U.S. military forces had captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The charges—drug trafficking and weapons-related crimes—will be tried in New York.

By Sunday, the rhetoric escalated.

Trump said the United States would “run” Venezuela until a “safe, proper, and judicious transition” could take place. He did not rule out boots on the ground. He floated American control of Venezuelan oil reserves and promised billions in U.S. investment to rebuild the country’s infrastructure.

It was bold. It was loud. It was dramatic.

And it followed a familiar pattern.

A sweeping assertion of power. A belief that decisive intervention can impose order. A promise that control will stabilize what complexity has eroded.

We have seen this movie before.

I remember a version of it during the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis—one I later reported on as a young journalist, and eventually revisited in my book, Fintech Feminists. 

Back then, the belief was that markets, left largely to their own devices, would self-correct; that risk could be sliced, securitized, and dispersed without consequence.

We know how that ended. The Big Short was not based on fiction.

What followed was not stability, but prolonged uncertainty. Systems strained under pressure that they were never designed to bear. And when the news cycle moved on, households were left to pick up the pieces.

That history matters now.

Because when political theater dominates the news cycle, I find myself returning to the same question:

What does this actually have to do with fintech?

While global power plays unfold, something quieter—and far more personal—is happening at home.

Affordability is breaking.

Not corporate affordability. Consumer affordability.

Healthcare remains inaccessible or prohibitively expensive. The cost of basic goods continues to rise. In New York City, the newly sworn-in mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has centered affordability not just as a campaign slogan, but as an emergency.

The disconnect is difficult to ignore.

Consumers are wondering: Why are we talking about controlling foreign oil reserves when a stick of deodorant costs more than an hour of minimum-wage work?

That tension matters for fintech because fintech does not operate in a vacuum. It operates inside the lived economy—the one people feel when rent clears, when healthcare bills arrive, when a credit decision determines whether a business survives another quarter.

And here is the shift fintech leaders must confront: when trust in institutions erodes, expectations change.

People no longer want innovation for innovation’s sake. They want relief. They want predictability. They want systems that do not collapse when life does.

The old American script—go to college, get a job, pay down debt, buy a house—no longer feels credible for most people. And when the script breaks, behavior follows.

We are seeing it everywhere.

A surge in entrepreneurship, especially among women, is driven more by necessity than by optimism.

A rise in financial nihilism, where consumers treat debt as inevitable and speculative markets as coping mechanisms.

And quietly, a renewed interest in consumer fintech—not the flashy kind, but the functional kind.

This is where fintech’s role in 2026 becomes unmistakable.

Fintech is no longer primarily about access. It is about stability.

The companies that endured did not win because they were novel. They won because they reduced uncertainty.

Stripe, Shopify, and Plaid became infrastructure by powering how money actually moves across the internet economy.

Brex, Ramp, Mercury, and SVB became essential because they helped founders manage cash flow, survive volatility, and make decisions with clarity.

Consumer fintech names like Chime and SoFi matter not just because they went public, but because they normalized banking, saving, and money management for people long excluded from traditional finance.

That is why we are seeing traction in products that:

• Smooth cash flow instead of punishing volatility

• Make investing feel manageable, not intimidating

• Treat healthcare and student debt as financial realities, not edge cases

• Approach fraud prevention and identity as protection, not friction

This is where fintech either proves its value—or loses relevance entirely.

Because growth without trust is fragile.

And power without accountability always comes due.

Which brings me to leadership.

Building through moments like this requires restraint, clarity, and empathy. It requires leaders who understand that scale amplifies consequences, and that systems designed without care eventually fail the people inside them.

That is why spaces like the FEMMY Awards, presented by The Academy of Fintech, matter more than ever.

Not as an awards night. Not as a celebration for celebration’s sake.

But as a signal.

A signal that the future of fintech is built by the founders, operators, and allocators who remain focused on what actually stabilizes systems when everything else feels volatile.

What we have built with the FEMMYs is not about competitive stress, but collective recognition. About giving women in fintech their flowers—without forcing them into false rivalry.

Numbers and ROI matter. But performance in fintech runs deeper than any fundraise.

Every founder takes real risks to solve problems they are obsessed with—often for people who have historically been excluded from the system. Each effort leaves a mark on the economy we are all shaping.

I am grateful to share space with the leaders and entrepreneurs we will honor this February 16.

Choosing who you want to be. Choosing the impact you want to have. And having the courage to build that again, every day.

That act of reinvention is something I strive for in building Fintech Is Femme—telling stories honestly, offering guidance, and creating spaces where we can learn and lead together.

Want to join us for the FEMMYs?

With that, here is my lens for 2026.

2026 In’s:

• Real-economy fintech

• Standards over trends

• Women allocating capital

• Profitability with principles

• Financial health as a core KPI

• Fintech as infrastructure

2026 Out’s:

• Copy-paste fintech

• AI without accountability

• Visibility without authority

• Growth that outruns trust

• Vanity metrics disguised as traction

_{I’D LIKE TO THANK THE ACADEMY}

In November, I published a piece on my Forbes contributor page spotlighting Danielle Hill, co-founder and COO of Upward, following the company’s $8 million raise and strategic partnership with Mastercard.

This is the caliber of women building inside the Academy of Fintech: operators scaling real companies, closing meaningful capital, and landing enterprise partnerships that move markets — not just headlines.

If you want a glimpse of what leadership in fintech actually looks like right now, start with Danielle’s story. Read it here on Forbes.

_{I WANT IT, I GOT IT}

• 📰 Today’s Read: What to Wear at Midnight and the Morning After (If You’re the First Lady of New York) by stylist and former Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson.

• 🍿 Today’s Watch: Our fabulous podcast editor insisted that I would love watching Mad Men (never saw it). She’s right. It’s insane. So much smoking. I’m hooked.

• 🌍 Today’s Activity: For years, Anton has asked me to plan our whole year ahead of time. Because my job is unpredictable, this always seemed too hard and unnecessary. But now, we're finally doing it. We're planning the year week by week using a simple Excel sheet. I have to admit, seeing 52 rows on a Google Sheet makes the year feel really short. Highly recommend.

_FINTUNES

🎵 Silvana Estrada — Dime

Great focus work vibes. Give it a try.

_{LET’S CONNECT}

📰 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.

🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn for daily insights on leadership.

🤝 Grow your business through content & community by partnering with me.

📣 Promote yourself to 50,000 subscribers by sponsoring this newsletter.

🎤 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’s all for now! See you on Thursday.

Love,

Nicole 💜