Brands are planning financial experiences that go well beyond a single card or payment feature. Our 2026 Integrated Financial Services Research found that surveyed brands plan to launch an average of more than three financial services, with nearly half looking to combine cards with digital wallets or loyalty programs. For retailers, travel companies and other consumer platforms, that means choosing technology and partners that can support multiple products as their customer relationships grow. See what brands are prioritizing and where the biggest opportunities lie: tech.sofi.com/blog/new-2026-… #EmbeddedFinance #Payments #Fintech #DigitalBanking

For fintech lenders, the customer relationship often revolves around loan origination and monthly payments. Adding deposit accounts and debit gives customers more reasons to use the platform throughout the month. Integrated banking capabilities can let borrowers receive funds, manage everyday spending and make repayments in one place. For lenders, that creates opportunities to generate interchange revenue, improve repayment engagement and maintain relationships after a loan is paid off. We look at how fintech lenders can build a broader revenue model through embedded debit and deposits: tech.sofi.com/blog/embedded-… #EmbeddedFinance #Fintech #DigitalBanking #Payments

Fraud teams need to know why a transaction was flagged, not just whether a system considers it risky. As AI-powered fraud attacks grow more sophisticated, static rules and black-box models can make it harder to investigate suspicious activity and respond without disrupting legitimate customers. In our latest look at AI-driven fraud prevention, SoFi Tech Solutions' Max Spivakovsky and experts from DataVisor discuss the importance of explainable decisions, real-time signals and flexible data integration in building more effective fraud controls. Read more: tech.sofi.com/blog/from-reac… #FraudPrevention #AI #Fintech #Payments

Launching a payment card program means coordinating issuing partners, payment networks, compliance, settlement and ongoing operations. How those responsibilities are managed can have a big impact on launch timelines and long-term costs. For fintechs and brands, keeping everything in-house may offer greater control, while outsourcing can reduce the operational burden. A hybrid approach lets companies maintain ownership of the customer experience while relying on experienced partners for specialized functions. We break down what organizations should consider when deciding how to manage their payment programs: tech.sofi.com/blog/own-or-ou… #ProgramManagement #CardIssuing #Fintech

Co-brand debit is a big part of the loyalty strategy as brands look for more ways to engage customers between major purchase moments. Debit gives brands a way to reward the everyday spend customers are already making, while reaching people who may prefer debit even when they are highly engaged with the brand. The opportunity gets even stronger as rewards become more personalized, real-time and connected to the behavior brands want to encourage. Paul Dunning shares why co-brand debit is gaining momentum and what brands should consider as they build the next generation of loyalty programs. tech.sofi.com/blog/why-co-br… #Loyalty #Debit #Payments #EmbeddedFinance

Expanding access to credit takes more than a new scoring model. The infrastructure behind it has to respond just as quickly. Arro combines traditional credit data with real-time behavioral and cash-flow signals to adjust credit lines dynamically as customer behavior changes. SoFi Tech Solutions powers the card processing, credit line management and ACH infrastructure behind that experience. Arro reports more than 300,000 app downloads, 700,000 financial lessons completed and 500% year-over-year revenue growth. See how Arro is building a more flexible path to credit: tech.sofi.com/clients/arro-f… #CreditAccess #Fintech #DigitalBanking #Payments

Excited to share that SoFi Tech Solutions has partnered with Orbi and Mastercard to launch a fiat-crypto card program in Mexico that will let customers use traditional currency or crypto balances for purchases while merchants receive traditional currency. The partnership enables future stablecoin-powered remittances and card spending using SoFiUSD through Mastercard's trusted network. “Mexico is one of the world’s largest remittance markets, and stablecoins are becoming an increasingly important way to move money across its borders,” said Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore, President of SoFi Tech Solutions. “Together with Orbi and Mastercard, we are giving people in Mexico a trusted way to receive, hold and spend digital dollars, while laying the foundation for stablecoin-powered payments and cross-border money movement at scale.” Read more about the news: tech.sofi.com/news/sofi-tech…

Everyday debit spend gives travel and hospitality brands more signals to understand what customers value between trips. Dining, fuel and other recurring purchases can help loyalty teams recognize patterns in how customers spend and use those insights to shape more relevant offers, from rewards tied to frequently used categories to incentives timed around a customer’s typical travel behavior. We look at how co-brand debit can turn everyday transaction data into more personalized loyalty experiences: tech.sofi.com/blog/how-co-br… #CoBrandDebit #Loyalty #Travel #Payments

HSA, FSA and assistance programs come with specific rules about where funds can be spent. Enforcing those rules after a transaction posts creates more work for everyone. Real-time spend controls move that decision to authorization, where merchant category, spend type and eligibility can be checked before money moves. That means fewer improper transactions, fewer receipts to chase and less manual reconciliation as programs scale. We look at how configurable spend controls can help teams manage restricted-purpose funds with less administrative overhead: tech.sofi.com/blog/real-time… #Payments #EmployeeBenefits #Fintech

For decades, installment credit in Mexico was concentrated in the hands of a couple of large retailers-turned-banks operating closed-loop systems. Nearly half of Mexico's adult population still relies on non-traditional credit today, filling the gap through community-based mechanisms rather than formal credit products. Aplazo set out to take installment credit out of that closed loop entirely — building an open, transparent, easy-to-understand product that any consumer, at any participating merchant, could access. Learn how Aplazo is democratizing credit in Mexico with simple BNPL installments through SoFi Tech Solutions: tech.sofi.com/clients/aplazo… #BNPL #Payments #Fintech

Co-brand debit is a big part of the loyalty strategy as brands look for more ways to engage customers between major purchase moments. Debit gives brands a way to reward the everyday spend customers are already making, while reaching people who may prefer debit even when they are highly engaged with the brand. The opportunity gets even stronger as rewards become more personalized, real-time and connected to the behavior brands want to encourage. In our latest article, Paul Dunning shares why co-brand debit is gaining momentum and what brands should consider as they build the next generation of loyalty programs. tech.sofi.com/blog/why-co-br… #Loyalty #Debit #Payments #EmbeddedFinance

Walmart’s move to accept Apple Pay and Google Pay puts payment primacy back in focus. For companies building card and payment experiences, supporting a digital wallet is only part of the equation. The bigger question is whether your card is the one customers actually use. In new coverage from @AmerBanker, SoFi Tech Solutions’ Prashant Shah points to our research showing 15% of consumers changed cards because a store or app made paying easier, while 21% switched for better rewards. Once a card is saved or set as the default in a mobile wallet, that position can have a real impact on where spend goes. Read the full article: americanbanker.com/payments/… #Payments #DigitalWallets #Fintech #DigitalBankin

A healthy activation number does not tell you whether a co-brand debit program is changing customer behavior. For travel and hospitality brands, the stronger signals are tied to business outcomes: trips or nights booked per active cardholder, share of wallet, rewards redemption and whether engaged cardholders are booking direct. Those measures help show whether the program is actually strengthening the customer relationship and protecting margin. We break down the metrics brands should build into their co-brand debit programs from the start: tech.sofi.com/blog/measuring… #CoBrandDebit #Loyalty #Debit #Travel

For HSA, FSA and assistance programs, real-time spend controls can check merchant category, spend type and eligibility at authorization, approving qualifying purchases and blocking non-compliant ones before funds move. That can reduce receipt chasing, reconciliation and manual exception handling as programs scale. We look at how category-level controls can help issuers lower administrative burden while keeping benefit programs easier to manage: tech.sofi.com/blog/real-time… #DigitalBanking #Payments #EmployeeBenefits #Fintech

The hidden costs of legacy debit show up as revenue leakage, operational drag, fraud exposure and delayed innovation — not on the processor invoice. False declines can mean lost interchange and frustrated customers. Manual exceptions add operational work. Slow integrations can delay features that competitors are already bringing to market. Those costs may never appear as a processing fee, but they still hit the P&L. We look at how modern debit infrastructure enables real-time decisioning, instant issuance, configurable controls and loyalty-driven experiences that deepen customer relationships: tech.sofi.com/blog/hidden-p-… #Debit #DigitalBanking #Payments #Fintech

Checks and other outdated payout methods can tie up capital in transit, create more exception and reconciliation work, and leave recipients waiting for funds they expected sooner. Over time, that friction can affect trust and create costs that rarely show up clearly on the disbursement line of a budget. We look at four places those costs can hide — float, recipient trust, administrative overhead and missed revenue — and how modern card-based disbursements can help make payouts faster and easier to manage. tech.sofi.com/blog/how-slow-… #Disbursements #Payments #Fintech #MoneyMovement

Claims, incentives and refunds may start inside an app, but the actual payment can still depend on batch files, approval queues and separate reconciliation. That gap between “approved” and “paid” adds cost, delays access to funds and creates more support work. Embedding payouts through APIs lets teams trigger, route and track disbursements inside the same product flow, with different rules for claims, incentives and refunds and more flexibility around speed and cost. We break down the API patterns behind a more connected payout experience: tech.sofi.com/blog/embedding… #Payouts #Payments #Fintech #DigitalBanking

Embedded finance ideas are easy to put on a roadmap, but putting them into action requires the right framework. In his latest article for @DTPaymentNews, SoFi Tech Solutions’ VP of Product Management, Prashant Shah, looks at why embedded finance programs often stall before launch and what questions you should ask before getting started. With only 20% of brands surveyed live with embedded finance and 80% still in planning, Prashant breaks down what teams need to get right early to move from a one-off product idea to a program that can launch and grow. Read the full article: digitaltransactions.net/wp-c… #EmbeddedFinance #Payments #Fintech #DigitalBanking