The Free Toaster

Carlos flies solo this week (Nick is wheels-up from NYC to SF after FinTech Week) to break down three stories from this week's newsletter: OnePay's no-deposit credit builder card, Credit One Bank's embedded integration with Bright Money, and Aven's new Bitcoin-backed Visa with credit limits up to $1M. He also opens up the floor on five format ideas for the September 23rd Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders event in San Francisco and wants your vote.
The Free Toaster publishes every Wednesday at thefreetoaster.com, curating the strongest stories at the intersection of consumer lending, marketing, and technology, so you can stay informed without slogging through ten newsletters and an off-topic LinkedIn feed.
******
To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:
 
Spinwheel:
 
Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!
https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr
 
Fintel Connect
Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.
https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast
 
Bulldog Media Group:Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/
 
New Market Growth:
 
New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.
If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Carlos and Nick expand on the headline story from this week’s Newsletter. And they speculate on what this might mean for consumer lending distribution platforms.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thefreetoaster/p/openai-doubles-down-hiro-finance?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
 
*****
To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:
 
Spinwheel:
 
Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!
https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr
 
Fintel Connect
Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.
https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast
 
Bulldog Media Group:Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/
 
 
New Market Growth:
 
New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.
If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Carlos and Nick try to make sense of Wells Fargo's 60% YOY increase in new credit card customer bookings.They covered this story in Wednesday's Newsletter and they dig deeper into potential sources of their growth: https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/wells-fargo-books-631000-new-credit
 
 
Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter (www.thefreetoaster.com) to get our curated news at the intersection of consumer lending & marketing, published every Wednesday.And then come here on Fridays to get our hot takes on a select story (or two) from that edition. The events they mentioned on the show:Private Dinner - Eliminating Friction from Marketing Funnels:https://luma.com/733al355
 
FTW: The Official New York Fintech Week Conference | April 28–30https://luma.com/FTW_NYC26
 
 
*****
To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:
 
Spinwheel:
 
Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!
https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr
 
Fintel Connect
Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.
https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast
 
Bulldog Media Group:Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/
 
 
New Market Growth:
 
New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.
If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Rachael Olson spent years running product strategy on Discover's $6 billion personal loan business, and she joins the show to walk through a real lender's application from marketplace click all the way to the hard pull, screen by screen.
Using a hypothetical billion-dollar lender for round numbers, Rachael shows why the highest-leverage work isn't always at the top of the funnel. A 3% lift in soft-pull submit is worth $50M. Another 3% at hard-pull submit adds $80M. That's $130M+ of upside before anyone touches the credit box.
The teardown gets specific. Forced email verification before any offer is shown. Rent-or-own and vehicle questions that the soft pull will answer anyway. A long pre-soft-pull confirmation page surfacing stale data the borrower doesn't remember entering, including education and net worth. After the offer, a wall of tooltips, footnotes, and filters that could induce decision paralysis. And the origination fee: a $16,900 loan that funds at $14,872, is disclosed towards the end of the process and came as a surprise.
Carlos and Rachael also dig into why mobile starters finish on desktop, why "more data is always better" breaks down once you account for the customers you scare off, and how to actually A/B test your way through changes that touch credit, compliance, and engineering at once.*****Want to meet Rachel and Carlos in New York?If you'd like to discuss eliminating friction in application funnels with your peers, The Free Toaster in hosting a private dinner in New York City on April 27th to facilitate that discussion. And we'll be there!Register for the event here:https://luma.com/733al355*****Find Rachel Olson on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachael-olson-7b13525/
 
Find Carlos Caro on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-carlos-caro/
 
 

Carlos and Nick welcome Amanda Braslow to the show as the newest partner in the business and GM of events. Amanda brings fifteen years from Capital One, most of it in the co-brand trenches. Her first big project putting together the Free Toaster Affiliate Marketing Summit on September 23rd in San Francisco at the Exploratorium. 
Three stories this week.
First, Experian extended its no-ding decline feature from credit cards into personal loans. Rakesh at Experian gave us an exclusive data point: over 40 percent of cards and loans acquired through the marketplace now come through no-ding, even though the partner roster seems to be still filling in. Carlos's take for fintech lenders is simple. Get on the phone with Experian and Credit Karma, understand how no-ding and the Karma Guarantee actually work, and get enabled.
Second, Citi and American Airlines are deepening their nearly forty-year co-brand partnership, with Citi branding going up at Admirals Club entrances in Chicago, Dallas, LA, and Miami. Amanda reads this as much more than a logo refresh. American ran a real RFP, dropped Barclays as a second issuer, and Citi almost certainly paid up to lock in solo status and plant a flag for Strada Elite in the premium lounge wars.
Third, Cash App rolled out buy now, pay later on peer-to-peer transfers. Send $25 or more in the last 30 days and you can convert it to a six-week installment plan at a 7.5 percent fee. Nick flags the distribution implications of 59 million monthly transacting users getting BNPL rails, and the group riffs on where this goes next. Amanda's prediction: DraftKings in your inbox offering to finance your next bet. Carlos notes the WSOP is now taking up to $10,000 in buy-ins on credit cards with no fee. Someone is going to get hurt at the end of this, and card issuers should be watching the gambling MCCs closely.
Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter (www.thefreetoaster.com) to get our curated news at the intersection of consumer lending & marketing, published every Wednesday.And then come here on Fridays to get our hot takes on a select story (or two) from that edition. 
 
*****
To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:
A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect
Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.
https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast
 
A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/
 
A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:
 
Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!
https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr
 
 
A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:
 
New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.
If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Deposits aren't loans. That sounds obvious, but the implications for affiliate marketing are anything but.
Alana Levine joins Carlos Caro to break down how affiliate marketing works on the deposit side of the house: different unit economics, different optimization cadence, different failure modes, and a compliance environment that will humble anyone coming over from lending.
Topics include how CP1K pricing works and why CPAs for high yield savings have more than doubled in the past year, what the application funnel looks like for best-in-class deposit products versus regional banks still figuring it out, why younger consumers are stickier depositors than boomers (counterintuitive but true), how Fintel runs daily budget pacing to hit billion-dollar quarterly deposit targets, and what a fintech needs to have figured out before touching affiliate at all.
Alana also shares her take on the publisher landscape, the emerging LLM visibility play that's changing sponsored content strategy, and why a one-basis-point rate discrepancy on a publisher page can end up in a regulatory inquiry.
If you work in lending and have always wondered how the other side operates — this one's for you.
 
Contact Alana at: alana@fintelconnect.com
 
*****
To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:
 
Fintel Connect
Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.
https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast
 
Spinwheel:
 
Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!
https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb
 
Bulldog Media Group:Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/
 
New Market Growth:
 
New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.
If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Carlos and Nick sit down with John Doppke, VP at Upgrade, to unpack Boost Money — a four-in-one financial account combining a checking account, secured credit-building card, high-yield savings, and interest-free cash advances.
 
John explains the product's free and premium ($9.99/month) tiers, the rationale behind launching Boost Money as a standalone brand with its own app and microsite, and how cash flow underwriting powers the Boost Cash advance product.
 
The conversation also covers the regulatory complexity of structuring cash advances as loans, the surprisingly broad income profile of Boost Money's target customer, and John's experience building alongside founder Renaud Laplanche from Lending Club to Upgrade.
*****
 
Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter (www.thefreetoaster.com) to get our curated news at the intersection of consumer lending & marketing, published every Wednesday.And then come here on Fridays to get our hot takes on a select story (or two) from that edition. 
 
*****
To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:
A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect
Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.
https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast
 
A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/
 
A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:
 
Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!
https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=mar
 
 
A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:
 
New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.
If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Carlos Caro chats with Rakesh Patel, the Executive Vice President of the Experian Marketplace. For those of you not familiar with the Experian Marketplace, it got started in 2017 and it's quietly become one of the largest consumer marketplaces in the world for credit cards, personal loans, and auto insurance. 
 
In today's episode we'll cover:
-Experian's vision to become a financial co-pilot for consumers
-The scale of the marketplace
-The Experian Activate targeting platform
-How Experian innovates with lending partners
-Rakesh's advice for lenders looking to scale
 
*****
To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:
 
A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:
 
Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!
https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb
 
A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/
 
A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect
Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.
https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast
 
A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:
 
New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.
If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

Carlos sits down with Dennis Fish and John Minalga of the ICS Corporation following a roundtable dinner with 16 consumer lending executives in New York City to talk about one of the most misunderstood channels in financial services: direct mail.We discussed:
 
Busting the "Direct Mail is Dead" Myth Direct mail accounts for roughly 40% of new accounts for many lenders. Dennis pushes back on the idea that FinTech companies should default to digital-only and shares a story from a lending conference that proves the point perfectly.
Cutting Through The Clutter John argues that direct mail offers something digital can't: uncontested attention. A physical pre-approval offer carries implicit credibility and builds trust. That trust is fragile though. One misleading offer or buried fee and it's gone.
Attribution DM chronically gets underfunded because digital teams harvest leads that direct mail planted. John's fix: design clean holdout tests (mailed vs. not mailed) to measure true incrementality rather than chasing perfect last-touch attribution. Dennis adds that the best marketers measure channel mix holistically. Rising waters raise all ships.
USPS Discount Programs Worth Knowing Dennis breaks down postage discounts available in 2026 that most mailers aren't fully utilizing, including tactile/sensory enhancements, QR code integration, Informed Delivery, sustainability, and growth incentive programs. Stacked together, mailers can recover around 7% of postage costs, with growth incentives returning up to 30% of increased spend.
 
Find Dennis and John on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisfish/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnminalga/
 

Carlos and Nick sit with Kelvin Chen, Head of Policy at the Consumer Bankers Association. We discuss Kelvin's recent post on LinkedIn that challenges a commonly cited fact in the media that credit card balances are at record highs.Kelvin's LinkedIn post below:
"Is the consumer in trouble, or is the math just misleading? 🤔Multiple times a day, we hear affordability stories about consumers struggling with "record-high" credit card debt ($1.28 trillion). But that math is missing two massive variables:💳 39 million more cardholders since 2017.📈 A 40% increase in the cost of goods since 2014 ($1.00 then = $1.40 today).Once you adjust for inflation and a larger cardholder base, the real per-cardholder balance has actually stayed flat—and even dipped by about $75—over the last decade.At CBA, we believe serious debate requires starting from the same facts. That’s why we’ve published this analysis using public data—with the methodology open and the math checkable by anyone.Skeptical of research from a trade association? Good. That skepticism is why we’ve published every assumption.Read more here: https://consumerbankers.com/blog/facts-matter-once-adjusted-for-inflation-consumers-credit-card-balances-have-remained-largely-flat-for-a-decade/ "
 
*****
 
Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter (www.thefreetoaster.com) to get our curated news at the intersection of consumer lending & marketing, published every Wednesday.And then come here on Fridays to get our hot takes on a select story (or two) from that edition. 
 
*****
To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:
 
A word from our sponsor, Bulldog Media Group:Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche. https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/
 
A word from our sponsor, Spinwheel:
 
Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo!
https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=feb
 
A word from our sponsor, Fintel Connect
Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine.
https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast
 
A word from our sponsor, New Market Growth:
 
New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others.Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators.
If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com