2025 Fintech Recap & 2026 Predictions: Annual Trends Report

Every year we pull together what actually moved in payments and card issuing, and where we think it’s heading next. The short version of 2025: stablecoins stopped being a sideshow, credit got harder for everyday Americans, and brand loyalty quietly became a luxury good. Here’s the recap, plus the five trends we’re watching in 2026, each paired with a “Totavi Wishlist” concept we’d love to see built.

2025 in review: three forces reshaped the card

1. Institutional finance finally embraced crypto

For years, “crypto card” meant a novelty. In 2025 it became infrastructure. Stablecoins settled roughly $15.6 trillion in 2024 (neck-and-neck with Visa’s annual payment volume) and the regulatory mood shifted with the passage of the GENIUS Act. The plumbing matured, too: issuer-processors like Rain and new programs such as Stripe’s Open Issuance made stablecoin-backed cards genuinely easy to launch.

The result was a boom in crypto, yield, and DeFi cards: the Coinbase One Card, Crypto.com, the Fold Bitcoin Card, Gemini’s Solana and XRP cards, Nexo, Kast, Ether.Fi, Uphold, and more. Three of the four major networks now power Bitcoin rewards programs, Mastercard moved to acquire Zerohash for around $2 billion, and both Gemini and Fold went public. Crypto didn’t just get a seat at the table; it started rebuilding the table.

2. The economy pushed challenger credit into the spotlight

Underneath the headlines, household balance sheets were straining. Household debt rose $197 billion in Q3 2025, the national average FICO score slipped to 715 (its fastest decline since 2009, with Gen Z averaging just 676) and credit utilization climbed to 35.5%, up from 29.6% in 2021. Consumers are increasingly leaning on credit to cover everyday life.

That pressure accelerated a more inclusive, accountable model of credit. Buy Now, Pay Later kept surging, prompting Chase to ban BNPL on its cards in favor of its own “Pay Over Time,” Galileo and Equipifi to help banks build native BNPL, and FICO to fold BNPL data into its new Score 10. Challenger products like Aven and Trovy (HELOC cards), Tilt (the rebranded Petal), and Pesto (asset-backed credit) showed what “credit that works for everyone” can look like.

3. Loyalty became a luxury

With inflation and rising costs, Americans stopped being loyal and started being strategic. The average consumer now belongs to roughly 17 loyalty programs (McKinsey), and 62% of Gen Z say they search for a cheaper alternative before buying, even from a preferred brand. Forbes reported brand search and engagement down more than 40%, with social-follower growth off 90%.

Brands fought back with co-branded cards from bargain platforms (the Hotels.com One Key card, Booking.com’s 6%-back Genius Rewards card, Rakuten’s Amex) while legacy programs scrambled to refresh, and often to raise prices. Southwest hiked fees around 50%, the Chase Sapphire Reserve jumped from $550 to $795, and the Amex Platinum climbed from $695 to $895.

Five predictions for 2026

1. We’ll see more crypto, specifically stablecoins

Expect the institutions to keep leaning in: Visa is expanding stablecoin settlement, SoFi is adding staking, borrowing, and stablecoin support, PayPal is enabling 100+ cryptocurrencies, and JPMorgan and Coinbase are converging on on-chain settlement. With 1 in 5 Americans owning crypto and 39% already using it to pay for goods and services, the major exchanges are poised to become full financial ecosystems rather than trading apps.

Totavi Wishlist: the Wandr Card. A stablecoin-powered card that recognizes when you’re shopping abroad, auto-converts purchases at the best rate, calculates your VAT refund at checkout, and handles customs in the background. No forms, no kiosks.

2. Mortgage providers will offer HELOC cards

About 55% of U.S. homeowners hold a sub-4% mortgage, so refinancing is off the table, yet the average mortgage-holder still has roughly $302,000 in equity (around $195,000 of it borrowable). HELOC cards turn that equity into spendable credit at dramatically lower rates: Aven reports averages near 11.24% versus 24.19% for a typical credit card. With HELOC balances up 20% since 2021, we expect traditional lenders to follow the fintech pioneers into the category.

Totavi Wishlist: Homie. An end-to-end home-buying platform that brings searching, financing, and closing into one place, and hands you a low-rate HELOC card the moment you close.

3. Ultra-personalized rewards will be the norm

Card programs already reward niche categories: flowers, pet supplies, rent, self-care. Next, AI and data tools (like Spade) will let issuers design rewards around who you are and what you’re working toward, not just merchant category codes: 3x on protein shakes and running shoes while you train for a marathon, say, or on golf if you’re chasing a better handicap.

Totavi Wishlist: the SmartRewards Platform. White-label infrastructure that blends real-time spend data, open-banking feeds, and lifestyle apps to adjust each cardholder’s rewards against their goals and milestones.

4. Fintechs will fill the credit gap for freelancers

The U.S. freelance workforce is projected to grow from 72.9 million in 2025 to 90.1 million by 2028, but legacy underwriting still assumes a steady W-2. Nearly half (48.9%) of 1099 workers say they’ve been denied something they were confident they could afford (Argyle). Fintechs willing to underwrite on cash flow, transaction history, and platform earnings are well-positioned to win this fast-growing demographic.

Totavi Wishlist: the Fusion Freelancer Card. A guaranteed minimum credit line that flexes up and down with verified income: expanding in busy seasons, contracting when business slows.

5. Super apps may emerge as AI assistants

Super apps never took off in the U.S. the way WeChat did in Asia (4.3 million internal mini-programs), but embedded finance is spreading fast, and the AI assistant may be the wrapper that finally makes it click. With X chasing an “everything app” vision (a card is reportedly in the works) and OpenAI rolling out Instant Checkout and Apps, the race to own a user’s entire day is on.

Totavi Wishlist: the Everyday Concierge App. An assistant that books the restaurant, pays the bill, messages friends to split the tab, orders tomorrow’s groceries, and calls the ride, automatically.

The thread tying it together

These five trends share a common cause: tighter consumer wallets, a more interconnected global economy, real-time granular data, and increasingly programmable money. For incumbents, the mandate is to build for that new reality rather than constrain innovators with legacy technology. The teams that thrive in 2026 will be the ones willing to rethink assumptions, embrace modern infrastructure, and move quickly on emerging opportunities.

Want the full breakdown: every notable card launch, the data behind each trend, and all five Totavi Wishlist concepts in detail? The Totavi Annual Trends Report: Recap of 2025 and Predictions for 2026 is available to download for free here.