LobbyCon 2025 (Now with Badges!)

Money20/20 is around the corner, and the Event Tracker is back. If you are looking for talks or panels, this is not that. This is for the other Money20/20, the one happening in private lounges, suite bars, sponsored dinners, and DJ’d patios with fintech-themed cocktails.

We will keep the tracker updated with what is happening, who is throwing which party, and where the free drinks actually are. It is meant to be useful, not exhaustive. If something is worth crashing, we will try to flag it. If it is already full, we will let you know.

This year, we will be on-site, badges and all. If you are hosting an event and would like it included, please send it over. If you are trying to get into something you were not invited to, same.

Find me at the LOVE sign, the Starbucks in the Venetian Lobby, or Ellen’s panel on Monday, October 27, at 10:10 at the Converge Stage.

Zeni Launches an AI-Powered Debit Card

Zeni, an AI-driven bookkeeping tool startup, launched a new debit card for businesses last week. On the surface, it appears to be a standard SMB card with modern packaging. But a few things stand out:

• 1.75% cashback on every transaction
• Instant virtual card issuance (physical optional)
• Real-time auto-reconciliation via Zeni’s AI Bookkeeper
• Spend controls by user, department, or project

Too bad you can't make a round credit card with a square EMV chip in the center

The pitch is that this isn’t just a payment method. It’s a fully integrated spend management platform (one that doesn’t require stitching together five vendors and a spreadsheet). You get rewards, automation, and live insights into who spent what.

Of course, there’s a catch: you need to use Zeni’s checking account. No account, no perks.

It’s also worth noting that this is still a debit card, not a credit or charge card. So no float, no rewards arbitrage, no balance carry. However, if your business is already using Zeni or dislikes dealing with receipts and categorization afterward, this card could be a good fit. I have some skepticism about AI bookkeeping, but maybe I’m a Luddite.

Aven and the Rise of the Modern HELOC Card

A recent trend in card fintech has quietly started picking up steam: the HELOC credit card. Home equity lines of credit, like mortgages, are cyclical products that move with interest rates. During the long era of low rates, they didn’t make much sense. But with rates climbing over the last couple of years, HELOCs have come back in a big way.

More than half of US homeowners have a mortgage with a lower rate than what’s available today. That means refinancing is effectively off the table. But home values are still rising, and many homeowners want access to that equity to pay for tuition, refinance other debt, or handle major expenses. Enter the home equity line.

A standard HELOC works like this: you’re approved for a limit, say $100,000, and you can draw from it as needed. Typically, you go to your bank’s portal, request a draw (maybe $5,000), it lands in your checking account, and you start paying interest immediately. Most HELOCs have an interest-only period of 10 years. At the end of that, you repay the full amount, either through a refinance, home sale, or another event.

Fintech has changed this a bit. Companies like Figure, which recently went public, and others have popularized forced draw lines. You take the full amount upfront. This makes it easier to securitize and sell the loan, but gives the borrower less flexibility. On the upside, digital lenders have simplified the experience with digital underwriting, digital appraisals, and fast origination.

Morty Gage

Traditional banks and credit unions may still offer better rates or more flexible terms, but the tradeoff is paperwork, in-person appraisals, multiple docs, and slower closes.

A new HELOC option

Aven, founded in 2019, built a credit card product backed by a home equity line. Unlike forced draw loans, the Aven product lets you access your line on demand, either via a direct transfer with a fee or by using their Visa credit card with no fee and, in fact, cashback rewards.

Because the line is secured by your home, the rate is lower. While average credit card APRs are hovering around 24.36 percent according to LendingTree, Aven’s rates are more like 11.24 percent on average, depending on your credit and property value. That is a huge spread.

On a $10,000 loan carried over three years, the interest savings are meaningful. At 24.36%, you’d pay roughly $4,191 in interest if you were making the estimated monthly payment. At 11.24 percent, it’s about $1,826. That’s a $2,365 difference.

What makes the card especially interesting is that it merges the ease and ubiquity of a Visa card with the cost structure of a home equity line. And this part initially confused me: you also receive a standard credit card grace period. You don’t start paying interest the moment you spend. If you pay off your statement in full, you’ve just used a normal credit card and earned rewards. If you don’t, it rolls into the home equity loan, and you begin paying interest at the lower rate.

It’s almost two products in one, but not really. You don’t toggle between credit card and HELOC. The structure remains the same, regardless of the payment method, with optionality depending on how you choose to pay it down.

Screenshot of the Aven app, showing the Aven Visa card with details on the balance and monthly payment.

I got a look at how it works from the Aven team, and the flow is cleaner than I expected. Use the card. Pay it off, or don’t. If you don’t, it becomes a HELOC draw and starts accruing interest. You can also draw cash directly to your bank account for a fee. Or you can initiate a balance transfer to pay off another card. It’s all tied to the same underlying line.

The bigger picture

Real estate-adjacent cards are trending. BILT did it for renters. Mesa and MCard are doing variations for mortgage payments and real estate cash flow. Aven’s product sits right in that ecosystem and recently announced a new funding round of $110 million in Series E financing at a $2.2 billion post-money valuation. They’ve issued around $3 billion in total credit lines, and their user count is reportedly in the tens of thousands.

Like BILT, Aven is launching a whole new category of card companies. It has already inspired a handful of startups, some backed by existing lenders, and others looking to bundle home equity access into new channels.

Is it a card or an access device?

There’s also a structural question under the hood. Is the Aven card a true credit card, or is it technically an access device, essentially a means to tap into a pre-existing loan? The answer matters. Access devices usually don’t include a grace period, and depending on how the loan is structured, you might be drawing funds directly from the home equity line without the option to avoid interest.

That model isn’t very consumer-friendly, but it does resemble older HELOC implementations. I took out a HELOC from Bank of America around 2010, and I’m reasonably certain they issued a debit card to access the funds (my memory fades). You can withdraw money from the line via ATMor transfer money online. It wasn’t elegant, but it worked.

Eventually, those types of cards faded. The Durbin Amendment and changes to debit card regulations made the economics less attractive. And during the zero-interest-rate period, it didn’t make sense to have a HELOC when you could just refinance your mortgage at a lower rate and pull out cash that way.

However, with high rates and rising home values, HELOCs are once again relevant. The card form factor makes it a lot easier to access and use those funds, especially when you factor in cashback and a familiar card experience.

Today, it’s mostly just Aven and one new startup, Trovy, which is issued by Cross River Bank and appears to be in private beta. Aven is issued by Coastal Community Bank, which already serves several fintechs and is comfortable with higher-volume lending. Expect more of these to emerge as interest in home-secured consumer credit increases.

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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