Hey, fintech fam 💜

I’m currently on my mini moon 🥂 Anton and I spent a few nights at the incredible Rockaway Hotel.

I love NYC, and one reason is definitely the fact that I can get from skyscrapers to sand in under an hour LOL. I’m feeling grateful for the time off!

Today’s stories are uncovering 2 different pieces of research in fintech.

Both tell us fintech is growing, and HSBC’s research in particular dives deep into what AI looks like in wealth management specifically.

Plus, I’m sharing my thoughts on the news that Stripe and PE firm Advent International put in an offer to buy PayPal for $53 billion.

Let's get into it. ✨

#TRENDING

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.

Last month, HSBC had just opened a new Wealth Center in New York.

To mark the occasion, they invited a small group of journalists and clients to hear the findings of a new global research report before anyone else. 

Racquel Oden, Head of International Wealth Management and Private Banking U.S. at HSBC, and Jose Rasco, HSBC's Chief Investment Officer, presented the findings live.

The data show the wealth management industry is entering the most consequential decade in its history: an advisor shortage, a $124 trillion wealth transfer, and a generation of investors who use AI constantly yet still want a human being to make their most important financial decisions. 

The companies that figure out how to serve all three of those realities simultaneously will define the next era of wealth management.

HSBC surveyed nearly 10,000 affluent and high-net-worth investors across 10 markets, including more than 1,000 in the U.S.

The headline number getting attention: 57% of U.S. affluent investors use AI for financial and investment tasks.

But that's not the number that stopped the roomful of reporters. 

It was this one: only 7% of U.S. investors say AI was the most influential factor in their last investment decision.

Fifty-nine percent said that the idea came from a financial professional, versus 19% who cited AI.

"AI has democratized access to information," Oden said. "But information isn't advice. That's the distinction."

She described it as the difference between financial literacy and financial fluency. Literacy,  knowing the basics, is increasingly being solved by AI.

Fluency: knowing what to do, when to do it, and how to prioritize competing financial goals against the complexity of your actual life… that still requires a human being.

"If I purchase something, literacy says 'Can I afford it?'" Oden said.

"Fluency says, 'Not only can I afford it, but what is the opportunity cost I'm losing by purchasing this item right now? What does this mean for my long-term goals?"

The U.S. is facing a critical shortage of financial advisors. 

The baby boomer generation of advisors is retiring en masse. There aren't enough younger professionals coming up to replace them.

And yet, the research shows that 77% of investors who use AI heavily still want a human advisor for reassurance. Sixty-eight percent look to advisors for strategic expertise.

"We don't have enough advisors," Oden said.

"If individuals are telling you 'I still want advice, I still need trust, and I still need it to come from a professional' — we've got to make sure as an industry we have enough professionals to service this affluent client base."

The industry has been saying this all year.

In my conversation with Eran Agrios, SVP and GM of Financial Services at Salesforce, she described the 27-click problem: how advisors lose half their day to administrative work before they ever sit across from a client. 

In my reporting on FIS and Fiserv, both companies are racing to build AI infrastructure specifically to free advisors from that manual layer. 

AI isn't replacing advisors.

It's actually arriving at exactly the moment when there aren't enough advisors to go around, and the only way to close that gap is to make the ones we have dramatically more productive.

And we have to do it without losing critical thinking skills.

"AI is going to make you smarter," Jose Rasco said.

"In the past, a junior advisor had to go get an MBA, put in three to five years, and do the mentoring. Now AI is going to lift you on a stroke and give you those tools."

The research presentation ended with a question from the room about whether the hybrid model — AI and human advisors working together — would eventually tip more toward AI as younger generations who grew up with the technology age into wealth.

The research shows the hybrid model persists across generations.

Younger investors want it. Older investors want it. But the more complex and affluent the client, the less they rely on AI for actual decisions.

"If you want to get her account," Rasco said,

"You know what you have to do. It's not AI. It's not models. You get on a plane. You fly to Mexico City. You drive two hours outside the city. You go to her home for dinner. You've got a really good shot at getting that account."

I've now heard some version of that sentiment (which is just the old-school model we’ve all lived before AI) from every major source I've interviewed this year.

From Fiserv's Dhivya Suryadevara talking about redirecting talent toward what matters most to clients, to Chime's Janelle Sallenave talking about the moments that matter in consumer fintech, to Salesforce's Eran Agrios building toward advisors who are human at the helm.

The companies building to win are building AI infrastructure that makes the human moment more possible. Period.

The data HSBC released last week is the clearest proof yet that investors already know this. People want to use AI. But they don’t want to eliminate humans in the process.

It’s now up to fintech to apply those findings.

Fintech just had its best year since the funding pullback and valuation correction of 2023–2024, and there's data to prove it.

BCG and FT Partners' fourth annual Global Fintech Report, released this month, puts a hard number on what many of us have been sensing:

Global fintech revenue crossed half a trillion dollars in 2025, up 22% year over year, growing more than four times faster than incumbent financial services.

That's not a modest bounce back, fintech. Be proud. We moved past recovery and into something this report is calling resurgence.

Fintech now captures about 4% of global financial services revenue, up from 3% the year before, against an incumbent revenue pool worth more than $13 trillion.

This growth looks different from the last cycle.

👉🏽 Among the 85 largest public fintechs, EBITDA margins improved by four percentage points to 20% in 2025, and 74% of those companies are now profitable, up from 68% the year prior.

👉🏽 Equity funding jumped 53% to $58 billion, but investors weren't spreading that capital wider.

👉🏽 Later-stage rounds, Series E and beyond, grew by over 210% since 2023, while seed and angel funding actually contracted.

The regional and category breakdowns tell a similar story.

Reports like this one matter less for the headline stat and more for what they confirm about the mood on the ground.

This report just proves that what all of fintech has been feeling for the last year is accurate.

Read the full report here!

Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have offered to acquire PayPal for $60.50 a share, valuing the payments company at more than $53 billion.

The offer carries roughly $50 billion in committed bank financing and sits at a 28% premium over PayPal's Tuesday closing price.

Stripe and Advent would split ownership equally, with no plans to break the company apart. PayPal hasn't responded publicly, and according to Reuters, all three parties declined to comment

This deal is massive, to put it lightly.

If it closes, it would be one of the largest acquisitions in payments history, and a rare instance of a venture-backed private company acquiring a public one at this scale.

Cantor Fitzgerald has already suggested PayPal is worth closer to $70 a share on a sum-of-the-parts basis, breaking out Venmo, branded checkout, and the Braintree processing business separately against peer multiples, so it’s possible the current bid isn't the final number.

It’s interesting to dissect what we know of this deal.

Stripe and PayPal's Braintree unit compete head-on for merchant processing, but Venmo is the part of this deal that would actually be new territory for Stripe: a direct line into how consumers hold and move money, not just how merchants get paid.

This is exactly the kind of M&A activity the report was talking about.

This is a private company making a run at an S&P 500 name, backed by $50 billion in committed financing.

This doesn't happen when capital is cautious, or acquirers are waiting on the sidelines. It suggests the appetite for consolidation in payments is real again.

Let’s keep you booked and busy. Every Thursday, I share fintech events worth adding to your calendar— both IRL and online.

Academy of Fintech member, Pawneet Abramowski, is hosting a virtual conversation on July 21st at 10 AM ET.

She’s talking about financial integrity, governance, market confidence, and something we’ve been talking about all year: why trust remains one of the most valuable assets any financial institution possesses.

Pawneet wrote more about the event here.

(Btw, this isn’t a Fintech is Femme-affiliated conversation, but the topics are important, so I hope you’ll be there!)

One of many official World Cup songs. Maybe fintech should get a soundtrack? 😆

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📚 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 💜