Hi there, my dear Fintechers!
Before going through this issue’s roster of fintech growth stories, I wanted to share with you some personal news.
I was laid off from Neo Financial (I did not take it personally, as 10% of the staff was terminated the same day), and I’m currently looking for something new to build in fintech.
After founding Hardbacon and leading content growth at Neo, I’m looking for a product manager, head of SEO/GEO or head of marketing at a fintech startup or scale-up.
If you happen to know about an opportunity you think would fit my specific set of skills, feel free to reply to this email.
Julien Brault
🇨🇦 AI Agents Are a New Audience and 1Password Just Grew $100 Million Serving It
AI agents are becoming a new audience, and 1Password just passed $500 million in annual recurring revenue by serving it.
The Canadian cybersecurity company says its ARR is up from $400 million in November 2025, with a double digit free cash flow margin. Net new ARR has grown around 60% through the first three quarters of 2026, including 90% year over year growth in the third quarter. It now serves more than 200,000 businesses, including 85% of the Forbes AI 50.
CEO David Faugno (pictured above) credits the surge of coding assistants and agents in the enterprise, since these agents need access to company secrets and systems. “The agents can actually take those secrets and do things that are unpredictable,” he said, adding that companies must control what access they give, monitor it and be ready to revoke it, with humans staying in control.
As agents log in, hold credentials and act on behalf of customers, they become a new type of user that products, messaging and trust need to be built around, and the buyers worrying about them are already spending.
Source: Wall Street Journal
🇬🇧 Revolut Is Hiring a Nose for Its Brand
London-based neobank Revolut is looking for a scent branding agency to turn its identity into a fragrance. Gareth Morgan (pictured above), the company’s head of global brand design, put out the call on LinkedIn, asking agencies to combine “olfactive discovery, creative thinking and expert perfumery” to create something “unmistakably ours.” The post drew more than 300 comments in a day, many from agencies eager to take on the challenge.
Revolut isn’t the first financial brand to try this. JPMorgan’s new $3 billion Park Avenue headquarters has a signature fragrance and China Merchant Bank has tasked scent branding agency Air Aroma to develop two exclusive scents for its branches.
The timing reflects the neobank’s move into the physical world. Revolut chose Barcelona for its first Apple-style store, which is set to open at the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027.
Source: Finextra & Fintech Growth Insider
🇺🇸 Kalshi Uses Free Election Data to Put Trading Markets in Front of Non Traders
The US prediction market Kalshi, where users trade contracts on the outcome of real-world events, has added a feature called My Ballot to its 2026 Midterms Hub. The hub is a section of Kalshi’s website and app that brings together election information such as polling, campaign finance data and past results, alongside the prices traders are putting on each outcome.
Visitors enter their address, and My Ballot uses Ballotpedia’s Sample Ballot Lookup data to show the races and ballot measures they will actually vote on. Wherever Kalshi has an active contract on one of those contests, it displays the market price next to it. The feature works on the website and mobile app and will cover every race with an active Kalshi market through Election Day.
While Tarek Mansour (pictured above), co-founder and CEO of Kalshi, said on Kalshi’s corporate blog that the feature was all about creating “accurate forecasts that help people understand the world better”, the move was more likely about customer acquisition, although Kalshi says more than 80% of Midterms Hub visitors do not trade and come only for the information.
Kalshi, which market itself a prediction market, is more accurately a massive sport betting platform. While politics was Kalshi’s largest category around the 2024 presidential election, in July 2026, it generated $169 million in trading volume versus $31.4 billion for sports.
Sources: Fintech Growth Insider
🇸🇬 Singapore Agency Wins Gold for Making Wise’s “No Hidden Fees” Feel Local
A Wise campaign built on bubble tea and carpark rates just won Gold at the 2026 MarCom Awards. Singapore-based agency Creative For More took the top prize in the Social Media category for “Turning Everyday Money Moments Into a Local Reason to Switch,” a campaign that adapted the money transfer company’s “no hidden fees” message for Singapore and Malaysia. The MarCom Awards are an international competition administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals, with around 6,000 entries submitted each year.
The brief was to make Wise’s global promise of transparency feel closer to everyday life in Singapore and Malaysia. Founded by Geraldine Pang (pictured above), the agency used bubble tea comparisons to make fees easy to weigh up and carpark rates to illustrate clear pricing. Creators also shared real experiences of sending money home, paying for trips and helping family abroad, with every video shot natively for short-form platforms.
The campaign ran across Meta, TikTok, Google Display and The Trade Desk, with static visuals, carousels, animated explainers and creator videos built as one creative system that kept Wise’s global look but gave each piece a local voice.
Sources: Fintech Growth Insider
🇺🇸 69% of Fintech CMOs Already Invest in AI Search Visibility, But Only 6% Plan To Reduce Headcount
According to a new study from The Fletcher Group, 69% of fintech CMOs are already investing in generative engine optimization (GEO), and all of them plan to spend more heading into 2027.
Answer engine and generative engine optimization is the practice of making sure a brand shows up when buyers research vendors through AI tools like LLM-powered search. CMOs say prospects now arrive later in the sales cycle with a shortlist already assembled, so a company missing from AI-generated results can lose the deal before it starts.
However, fintech CMOs don’t seem to intend to use AI to reduce their staff. 56% of CMOs plan to add headcount and only 6% expect reductions, while half are redesigning roles to include AI fluency, with new hybrid jobs like GEO specialist and GTM engineer. And 94% will not let AI lead at least one high-stakes area of marketing. “There is work that cannot be handed off,” said Shachar Scott (pictured above, right), CMO of Sunbit.
CMOs are also restructuring site content so models can quote it, and investing in earned media, analyst relations and executive thought leadership. “A lot of the ranking is going to come from earned media,” said Vanita Pandey, CMO of Microblink, who said she has spent years justifying PR spend and that it is now “very directly attributable.”
The findings come from the The Fletcher Group’s fifth annual study of women marketing leaders across fintech, payments and banking, based on interviews with 16 female CMOs and marketing executives from companies including Nium, Microblink, Sunbit and Mission Wealth Management.
Source: Fintech Growth Insider
🇬🇧 Monzo’s Olivia Colman Campaign Lifted Ad Awareness by 5 Points and Consideration by 3
According to YouGov BrandIndex, the UK neobank’s “Get Busy Living” campaign, launched at the end of July 2026 with actress Olivia Colman narrating the TV spots, has improved how the public sees the brand. Created by BBH London, it is billed as Monzo’s first global brand campaign, with ten spots that position the bank as part of life’s meaningful and mundane moments, set to tracks like “Baba O’Riley” by The Who and “Careless Whisper” by George Michael.
Ad Awareness, which measures whether people noticed an ad for the brand in the past two weeks, rose from 12.2 on 27 July to 17.2 on 5 October. Net Buzz went from 7.9 to 12.1, meaning more people were hearing positive things about Monzo. The commercial metrics moved too, as consideration climbed from 15.1 to 18.4. The timing is notable, as Monzo has been rumoured to be weighing either an IPO, a merger with Nubank or a sale to private equity.
Source: YouGov
🇺🇸 Fintech Ad of the Week: Block’s Bitcoin Ad Taps Into Gen Z Anger at the Financial System
Block just released a Bitcoin ad on Meta built on Gen Z frustration with the financial system. It’s set in a record store and a nail salon, where people vent about money. One guy says his rent is up 30% and his landlord wants even more. Another says investment firms are buying up all the houses. Someone else asks why the Wall Street boys crash the economy and always get to keep the money. Every scene wraps with the last protagonist verdict: “That makes no sense”, which is quickly followed by the following text: “Bitcoin does”. Why the ad leaves the why to the viewer, it puts Block on the side of people fed up with the financial establishment, and it reminds everyone that Cash App is where you can buy Bitcoin.
Source: Fintech Growth Insider
Who Am I?
Hi, my name is Julien Brault.
From 2017 to 2024, I was the CEO of Hardbacon, a fintech I co-founded, which reached 400,000 unique visitors at its peak.
A Google update ultimately sealed the company’s fate, and I started this newsletter to keep myself busy in the aftermath.
I then joined Neo Financial as Head of Content Growth. During my tenure, I worked on Neo’s SEO and GEO, and launched a media brand called MooseMoney.
Why share this?
Because my goal is to use my experience as an economic journalist, fintech entrepreneur and product manager to present the most essential fintech news from around the world through the eyes of an insider.
If you like what I do, feel free to share this newsletter and follow me on LinkedIn, X, Reddit, YouTube & TikTok.
If you would like me to accompany you on your fintech entrepreneurship journey and provide you with ongoing feedback, feel free to hire me as coach on MentorCruise.
If all you need is to pick my brain on specific topic in the field of fintech marketing, product or strategy, feel free to book a one hour consulting call with me instead.
P.S : Once you refer a new subscriber to the newsletter using your unique share link, you'll receive a personalized social media shout-out from me to promote your work or professional profile. Just write to me at jrbrault@icloud.com once your referral is confirmed on our leaderboard and include your social media account(s) URL(s) and who you are.
Very sorry to hear about the layoff!
A “scent branding agency” - How fascinating! First I’m hearing about this and now I’m intrigued.
I know high-end hotels have distinct smells but never considered that (a) other brands would get into scents and (b) that there would be agencies out there specialized in this. Thanks for mentioning it in the newsletter. I’ve got a rabbit hole to go down now