Happy Monday, Fintech Takers!

There’s gotta be a German word for the feeling of relief and happiness that occurs after your sports team avoids losing a game that you had, at some point, convinced yourself that they should win. It’s a distinct feeling; more relief than happiness, as if you just narrowly avoided a serious injury.

Anyway!

I hope you had a good weekend and are ready for a productive week. I have the week off from travel, but I am gearing up to co-host our Agentic Readiness Summit in Montana next week. And I’ll be in D.C. for the AFC Policy Summit later in November, followed (that same week) by Fintech NerdCon (where I am hosting a dinner, which we still have a few open seats for … email me if you’re interested in joining!)

Should be a good (if slightly exhausting) way to close out the year!

- Alex

3 FINTECH NEWS STORIESCopy anchor linkCopied

#1: The SOFIE Test Copy anchor linkCopied

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SoFi launched a new product:

SoFi … today announced the launch of SoFi Earn (SOFIE), the first and only national bank-issued tokenized deposit for consumers. SoFi members can now earn interest on digital dollars while keeping them ready to use, representing the company’s fifth new crypto offering in less than a year.

Each SOFIE represents $1 held on deposit at SoFi Bank, earning 4.40% APY with funds FDIC-insured up to applicable FDIC limits. When members are ready to put those funds to work, they can convert SOFIE 1:1 to SoFiUSD, then use the SoFiUSD to buy crypto directly in the SoFi app or move money over blockchain rails 24/7.

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The first thing to understand with this product is that it’s not meant for SoFi’s existing retail members. Those members already have access to SoFi’s non-tokenized savings account and they can, whenever they want, convert those savings into SoFiUSD in the SoFi app.

SoFi Earn isn’t meant for TradFi members. It’s meant for crypto-native users who are not yet SoFi members. And the pitch to those prospective members, very explicitly, is yield; the thing OCC just affirmed in its final rules implementing the GENIUS Act that payment stablecoins are not allowed to offer. Here’s SoFi CEO Anthony Noto:

Too much money in the digital asset ecosystem is sitting idle, leaving massive potential earnings on the table for millions of people … We believe your money should keep working for you until the moment you need it. SoFi Earn combines the earning power and protections of a bank deposit with the speed and utility of digital assets, giving people more value, flexibility and control over their money.

In other words, SoFi Earn is the weaponized version of banks’ original stablecoin fear: That yield + interoperability is enough to shift massive amounts of deposits from incumbents to new market entrants. It’s just that, in this case, crypto brokerages and wallet providers are the incumbents — holding customers’ funds hostage at 0% APY — and SoFi is the disruptor coming in and saying, “It’s unfair and wrong that these people aren’t getting paid for their deposits!”¹

And SoFi is really going for it here. The proffered APY for SOFIE (4.40%) is much higher than what SoFi offers its TradFi members (3.30% with direct deposit), and competitive with what SoFi offers to SoFi Plus members with a savings account (4.70% on balances up to $20,000). The mechanics are a bit funky. From what I can tell, you have to open up a SoFi account first, fund it, and then either convert those non-tokenized deposits into SOFIE or buy SoFiUSD and then convert that into SOFIE. And, when you want to move money from SOFIE out onto the blockchain, you need to first convert it into SoFiUSD. Maybe not ideal user experiences for the crypto power users that SoFi is targeting with SOFIE, but certainly not prohibitive.

The real question is: Will this crypto-focused member acquisition strategy by SoFi actually work?

If banks were correct in their fear of yield-bearing payment stablecoins, it should. SoFi is paying above-market rates to users who aren’t getting risk-free yield on their stablecoins today. If that, plus a baseline level of convenience and interoperability is all it takes to steal away deposits, then SoFi should be swimming in excess deposits within a couple of quarters.

Personally, I tend to doubt that will happen. As I argued back when GENIUS and Clarity were being debated, the fears over yield as a customer acquisition strategy are overblown. People pick their financial services providers for a variety of reasons and many of those reasons are, often, more important to them than yield. Plus, crypto companies have already found a number of clever ways around the GENIUS yield prohibition and they will continue to, which should keep the most valuable, yield-hungry users where they are.

All in all, I’d bet that SoFi’s SOFIE strategy won’t yield much. But I’m glad we get to see the underlying theory put to the test.

#2: Ramp’s Newest Investments Copy anchor linkCopied

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Ramp acquired a company called Vesto:

Following the move, the two companies have introduced a new experience that brings a business’s external bank accounts and its Ramp Banking accounts into a single interface. The announcement does not disclose any financial terms.

Vesto has spent the past three years building treasury software that allows companies to connect and control cash held across multiple banks from one platform. According to the announcement, more than 100 companies use the software. Ramp now plans to make this functionality available across its customer base of more than 85.000 businesses.

The integration targets a common operational problem for finance teams. According to Ramp, its average customer holds more than three bank accounts. Understanding where cash sits and where it should be allocated can therefore require switching between separate bank portals and consolidating data manually in spreadsheets.

Benjamin Döpfner, Founder at Vesto, said finance teams should not need separate systems to manage cash and control how it is spent. He also added that joining Ramp allows the company to build this connected experience faster and reach a larger number of businesses.

And it applied for a national trust bank charter:

Corporate spend management fintech Ramp applied for a national trust bank charter Friday with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

The company offered few details, saying it would offer fiduciary investment management and digital-asset custody – but would not take deposits or make commercial loans – if the charter is approved.

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Let’s take these one at a time.

On the Vesto acquisition, I think the simplest explanation is that Ramp is becoming a full-service “money in” business. As I wrote about last month, Ramp got its start on the “money out” side of B2B finance, helping companies manage their expenses (corporate cards, travel, procurement, accounts payable, etc.) However, more recently, the company has been building out the “money in” side of the business, launching business banking, investing, and (most recently) accounts receivable.

Vesto helps pull those pieces together, creating a unified way for businesses to see where all of their cash sits, and (presumably) giving them various tools for optimizing their assets while keeping enough cash on hand to pay their expenses. This is a capability that, I would imagine, is more important to larger companies, which matches with Ramp’s trajectory as it both moves up market and grows with its existing customers. I’m sure Ramp could have built Vesto internally, but, honestly, why bother if you like the product and the team? You have the money.

On the national trust bank charter, I’m sure it will be nice for Ramp to be able to custody its own assets rather than having to rely on custody partners for its investment account and its growing stablecoin business.² However, I think the real appeal of a national trust bank charter for Ramp is: A.) It’s available right now and likely won’t be for that much longer.³ B.) It does not require Ramp to become a bank holding company. C.) It creates a path for Ramp to get direct access to Fed payment rails via a master account.⁴

Put simply, it gives Ramp a lot of optionality and potentially lets a company that is entirely focused on shipping products as fast as it can get closer to the metal.⁵

#3: Tipping in Fintech is Complete Bullshit Copy anchor linkCopied

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EarnIn sued Maryland’s Attorney General and Commissioner of Financial Regulation:

EarnIn is arguing that a Maryland law violates both the company’s First Amendment rights and its users’, by prohibiting their freedom to express themselves — by asking for and by leaving “tips,” respectively.

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As Jason Mikula detailed in yesterday’s edition of Fintech Business Weekly, Maryland has had an interesting history with the earned wage access (EWA) industry, passing an initial law in 2025 to regulate the industry (including requiring tips to be completely voluntary) and then passing a new one in April of this year that (among other things) banned tipping in EWA altogether. It is this second statute that EarnIn is suing Maryland over.

As I remind y’all frequently, I am not a lawyer. I don’t have any meaningful legal analysis to offer you on the arguments that EarnIn is making in this lawsuit. It’s certainly creative to use the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to argue in favor of your pricing model, although I’d be a bit surprised if the courts bought EarnIn’s argument for strict scrutiny rather than just considering the request for tips to be normal commercial speech.⁶

But again, not a lawyer.

And, to be honest, I don’t really care about the legal argument here. I think one of our great failings as an industry is our tendency to ask, “Are we allowed to do this?” rather than, “Is this the right thing to do?”

When it comes to the practice of fintech companies asking their customers for tips, the answer to that second question is “obviously not.”

You know why?

Because it’s embarrassing. That’s why. It’s embarrassing for EarnIn to argue that its First Amendment rights and the First Amendment rights of its customers are being violated because Maryland passed a law barring it from asking its customers for tips. EarnIn is not the ACLU. It’s not a non-profit struggling to get grant money. And unlike restaurants and taxicab services, it’s not a business that delivers its services through human employees, which is the normal criteria for asking for tips!

EarnIn is a privately-held, for-profit technology company that has raised $190M in equity capital from name-brand venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Ribbit, and Coatue. It should be embarrassed to ask its customers for tips.

And you know what else?

Tipping is a bad business model!

Just look at Dave. For years it ran the same optional-tip playbook EarnIn is now suing to protect — an “add a tip” slider on its ExtraCash advances and members able to pay as little as $0. Then, in late 2024, with the FTC breathing down its neck over exactly that model, Dave scrapped it. No more tips and no more optional express fees, just a flat 5% fee, $5 minimum, $15 cap.

And guess what? It worked out great.

In its first full year on the mandatory fee, Dave’s revenue grew 60% to $554M, ARPU jumped 36%, adjusted EBITDA more than doubled to $227M at a 41% margin, and net income more than tripled. Revenue growth hit its fastest pace since 2021. Tips weren’t funding the business. They were suppressing it, by leaving money on the table and making the revenue too variable to borrow against. Once Dave killed it, it could securitize receivables and start raising credit limits.

And did Dave’s customers mind? No! Management reported “positive member feedback” during early testing, said the clean fee improved transparency for members, and — crucially — saw no adverse selection and no hit to conversion or retention when it made the fee mandatory. In fact, credit performance actually hit all-time lows.

Turns out customers would rather be told the price than be guilted into guessing it.

2 READING RECOMMENDATIONSCopy anchor linkCopied

#1: SoFi's Tokenized Deposit Strategy Doesn't Need Tokenization (by Ron Shevlin, Fintech Snarktank) 📚Copy anchor linkCopied

Good stuff from Ron on SOFIE and how banks should be thinking about tokenized deposits.

#2: NBA League Pass Rankings (by Zach Lowe, The Lowe Post) 📚Copy anchor linkCopied

Not a fintech content recommendation. Apologies. But when my favorite sports writer (and one of my favorite writers overall) comes back to writing after a long, podcast-only hiatus, I’m going to recommend him.

The League Pass Rankings, in particular, are a treasure.

*Bonus: How Federal Benchmarking Exposed Real Separation in Identity Verification 📚 (by Microblink)Copy anchor linkCopied

You have to appreciate a blind test in a market where every vendor’s accuracy claims look the same. DHS tested 7 anonymized document verification systems against thousands of real and fake IDs. Microblink was the only one to meet its “high performing” thresholds across every category. Here's what the results reveal, and what buyers should be asking.

*This rec is brought to you by one of our fantastic brand partners.

1 QUESTION FROM FINITYCopy anchor linkCopied

There are a TON of interesting questions being asked in Finity (our digital community for fintech and banking nerds). I’ll share one question, sourced from the community, each week. However, if you’d like to join the conversation, please apply to join!

Do I have to read the Anthropic S-1? As someone who covers fintech in 2026, am I obligated to read it?

If you have any thoughts on this question, reply to this email or DM me in Finity!

Thanks for the read! Let me know what you thought by replying back to this email.

— Alex