Fintech Meetup 2025!

I’m currently attending Fintech Meetup for the first time. It’s been wonderful to say hello to friends, meet many new folks, and feel the energy in the industry. If you are here in Las Vegas, look for me and say hello. I have discount codes for Goldman Socks as a prize! (If you’re not there, don’t worry, our inventory is strong and we’ve lowered prices to $16 per pair. Get yours today!)

Network Perception Survey

Thanks to everyone who completed the network perception survey last week. We still have room for more respondents. Remember, qualifying participants will earn $50 for about 10 minutes of sharing your opinions!

Crypto Cards

Last week in CardsFTW #145, I highlighted the waitlist for the new Fold app credit card. It was a popular link. After the newsletter published, MetaMask, a crypto wallet provider, announced a new debit card with 3% cashback. While MetaMask has had a debit card in the market since last year, this new entry is quite surprising.

What DOES the fox say?

The metal card rewards users with 3% cashback (in USDC)  on the first $10,000 spent per year, followed by 1% cashback on purchases above the threshold. This has me, and everyone I know asking, “How?” Debit cards in the U.S. typically earn a max of about 1.4% interchange, although the reality of interchange earned by the program is usually closer to 0.9% to 1.1% these days, due in large part to the emergence of secondary network routing and high levels of card-to-card transfers (think of using your card to send money to Cash App, etc.).

So how can MetaMask pay $300 per year in cashback when they are earning $100, plus splurge on a hefty metal card (typically $24 - $45 in manufacturing costs)? No idea.

Crypto cards two weeks in a row is something we haven’t seen in a few years. With the change in political landscape, I expect we will see more crypto and stablecoin card launches later in 2025.

Amex Acquires Center

Traditional corporate and small business credit card providers, like Capital One and American Express, have been under pressure from fintech providers like Ramp, Brex, Mercury, and Rho. We’ve previously estimated that these new providers are capturing an important share of the market. While the credit terms and rewards are not as strong on the fintech cards as the traditional providers, the ease of useand spend management side is noticeably improved.

I did research with my friends at This Week in Fintech which showed that business owners don’t want to give up their Amex Platinum Cards for themselves, but do want their employees to use solutions like Ramp that are easier to manage. Seeing this trend, Amex has announced its acquisition of fintech Center, a spend management platform, hoping to tie their world-class cards to world-class software.

I haven’t used Center, but if they can match the Ramp experience with a real Amex charge or credit card on the backend, it will be compelling. Amex’s small business card management leaves a lot to be desired. I can’t get Amex to provide my bookkeeper with online access to all my cards AND every time I do anything with access, I get a physical letter. One time, while messing with this problem, I received two dozen separate pieces of mail letting me know I had adjusted my access controls. Not great.

Virtual Card & Account Numbers

Newline, Fifth Third Bank’s fintech business, announced the availability of virtual bank account numbers last week. (In classic bank fashion, they uploaded a PDF to LinkedIn for this.) Virtual account numbers (or virtual reference numbers as Newline calls them), allow you to be 100% certain of what payments are going where and to ease reconciliation. If, for example, you bill all of your customers $1,000 per month and they all deposit to a single account, it can be confusing. If, on the other hand, each customer deposits to a separate VRN you will know exactly who paid, regardless of the incoming data.

Just trying to be a bank

It’s a good feature, and something that other fintech providers, like Increase have been providing for some time.

OK, so this isn’t a card feature, but it IS related to the growth of virtual cards and the work required to make bank accounts capture some of the features of cards. For many years card programs have enabled users to spin up virtual card numbers to track and reconcile payments. These capabilities are on business cards (like with Ramp) and personal cards (like with Privacy.com), and enable users to control spending.

There is a convergence of the features of cards and bank accounts, especially as we move from batch-processed ACH to real-time payments. The dual-message format of cards provides a lot more certainty (ask for an auth, get an approval, capture the funds) than the slow work of a bank. Will bank accounts be able to build in enough features to match cards? Perhaps, but will those types of transactions remain cheaper? Unlikely. It is a space to watch.

CardsFTW

CardsFTW, released weekly on Wednesdays, offers insights and analysis on new credit and debit card industry products for consumers and providers. CardsFTW is authored and published by Matthew Goldman and the team at Totavi, a boutique consulting firm specializing in fintech product management & marketing. We bring real operational experience that varies from the earliest days of a startup to high-growth phases and public company leadership. Visit www.totavi.com to learn more.

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