Uncle Sean's Update - 7/17/26

Happy Friday!!!
 
Thoughts and prayers 🙏 to all those affected from the record Texas Hill Country flooding this week…  Here is the Uncle Sean Update for 7/17/26 (subscribe here for free):
 

• 💥 Big news from CSI this week as they continue on their multi-year acquisition trail.  CSI has acquired Qolo, a fintech provider of modern treasury solutions and payments infrastructure, to strengthen and expand CSI’s commercial banking and embedded finance capabilities. 🎉
  • A quick look at recent CSI acquisitions (since going private following Centerbridge and Bridgeport acquisition of CSI in 2022 for $1.6B):
    • Jul 2026 – Qolo (treasury and payments).  This was kind of scripted in this PR from 2025 - CSI targets commercial deposits, payments for M&A.
    • Aug 2025 – CSI to Acquire Apiture (digital banking platform) allowing for scale in online and mobile on a core agnostic platform.
    • Sep 2024 – CSI Acquires Velocity Solutions (deposit acquisition, customer engagement, and overdraft management platform).
    • Dec 2023 – CSI Acquires Hawthorn River (loan origination system).

 

• Congrats to our friends at Primax 👏 as Finovifi selects Primax to power debit card processing for its MBS Core platform.  Very nice!!! 🚀

 

• Stripe and Advent (private equity firm) made a $53B bid for PayPal this week.  Although PayPal has not made a formal response, Reuters is reporting that the PayPal board (according to unnamed sources) sees the offer as inadequate and undervalues the company.
  • Not a new development as this article from February reminds us - Payments processor Stripe expresses interest in PayPal.
  • Also recall in April that the new CEO segmented PayPal into business segments - PayPal makes Venmo a standalone business unit as potential buyers circle.
    • Worth noting that PayPal shares peaked in 2021 at $305+ per share with a market capitalization of approximately $360B.  Yesterday, PayPal closed at $55.52 with a market cap of $50B (source https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PYPL/); and this is after a 17% increase due to the Stripe bid.

 

• On the economic front, the BLS June CPI Report came in on the light side at 3.5% (May was 4.2%) as energy prices decreased.  Core CPI came in at 2.6% (May was 2.9%).  CNBC has a good summary.
  • Of course this is only through June and the Iran conflict has escalated again in July with oil prices (WTI Crude) jumping from $69.50 on 6/30 to $82.22 as of this afternoon (7/17) – an 18% increase.

 

• PlexPay announced the launch of its merchant processing and patient finance program powered by U.S. Bank Avvance® point-of-sale financing solution.
  • 👉 This is interesting…  PlexPay (Plex Payments, Inc.) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Panacea (Panacea Financial Holdings, Inc. – “the financial platform built for doctors”), which is the direct digital bank division of Primis Bank (FDIC 57968; total assets $4.2B).
    • So it seems that the direct digital bank has launched a white-label patient financing and payment solution.  Pretty cool! 👍

 

• Unfortunately, we had our third bank failure of 2026 late last Friday as Kentland Federal Savings and Loan Association (FDIC 28722; total assets $3.8M) was closed on July 10. The bank had a FedFis Rating© of 4.58 as of March 2026 placing them in the lowest possible percentile of all U.S. banks.  For more info, you can see the FedFis Bank Failure Alert here - https://www.fedfis.com/bulletin/bank-failure-alert-kentland-federal-savings-and-loan-association.

 

• Capital Community Bank (dba CCBank – soon to be rebranded as Accordia Bank; FDIC 33823; total assets $1.5B) partners with Synctera to launch credit card products as a direct FI issuer for their business and consumer customers via Synctera’s modern credit card infrastructure.

 

• GoCardless expands its strategic partnership with Sage to embed the GoCardless Pay by Bank payment functionality directly within Sage Business Cloud Accounting software platform. 💪

 

• Pliant (B2B payment solutions and credit card platform) announced its official launch in the United States via strategic partnership with Coastal Community Bank (Nasdaq: CCB; FDIC 34403; total assets $5.7B and growing rapidly).

 

• Oportun inks a new lending partnership with Column N.A. (FDIC 58224; total assets $1.4B) as sponsor originating bank for unsecured personal loans.

 

• Visa (NYSE: V) announced AI Financial Assistant allowing banks to offer a conversational, in‑app experience for understanding spending, receiving personalized insights, and taking action, all inside their existing banking apps.  “The feature helps banks bring AI-powered financial insights to cardholders under their own brand, look and feel with no custom development required.” 🤙
  • AI Financial Assistant will be available to U.S. financial institutions for pilot in August 2026, with a planned global rollout to follow.

 

• 👀 De Novo watch…  Former BNY exec, Brian Tabb, is seeking approval to launch Sagehaven Bancorp, a community bank in Pittsburgh focusing on serving small and mid-market companies and mid- to high-net-worth individuals, and is projected to open in April 2027.

 

• Notre Dame FCU (charter 24034; total assets $1.3B) announced a new partnership with My First Nest Egg to provide a family-first financial education platform designed to help children and teens build strong money habits early.
  • Uncle Sean loves this as I am a strong advocate of financial literacy – particularly with children and young adults. 🫶  Nicolle Hood and Annie Shoen – keep up the good work at My First Nest Egg!!!

 

• Notable FinTech funding for the week (lots of celebrations):
  • Shoutout to Linker Finance for their additional $5M Seed funding bringing their total Seed funding to $8.7M. 🎉
    • This LinkedIn post from Angels Ventures sums it up perfectly:
      • “We first backed Jorge Garcia, Claudia Bardales, and Alejandro Corpeño in 2023, right after Techstars, and since then, contracted ARR is up 600% year over year, the live customer base has grown 5x, and Vault.bank (built on Linker) helped Bank of Brodhead grow deposits 20% in its first full year.” (bold emphasis added by Uncle Sean) 🚀
  • A virtual high-five to Lumin Digital as they raised $70M in client investments following a recent $45M growth equity round totaling more than $115M in new capital at a $1.6B valuation. 🦄
  • And Flex (fka Flexbase – an AI-driven private banking platform for high-net-worth business owners) gets in on the unicorn action 🦄 as they picked up $70M in Series B1 funding round and doubled their valuation to $1.2B in six months while “its revenue has tripled since December.”  WOW!!!

 
 
Random Uncle Sean stuff:

• ⚽ The World Cup has come down to Spain vs. Argentina on 7/19 for the Final and France vs. England on 7/18 for the Bronze final.
• Be sure to check out The Oldest Bar in Every US State - Business Insider with some very cool pics.  Spoiler alert – the oldest in the U.S. is The White Horse Tavern in Newport, RI established in 1673 (History | The White Horse Tavern, Newport, Rhode Island).
• Okay – here are the Dad / Bad jokes for the week:
  • If you get sick at the airport, is it a terminal illness??? 😏✈️
  • A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat…. 🙄🤦‍♂️
  • My life coach called and told me I didn’t make the team… 😂🤣
  • If you can’t think of a word, say “I forget the English word for it.”  That way people will think you’re bilingual instead of just an idiot. 🤔🙃😆
  • Cyclospora cayetanensis is the microscopic parasite responsible for the current cyclosporiasis outbreak from contaminated shredded lettuce.  Primary symptoms of cyclosporiasis include severe watery diarrhea, fatigue, and loss of appetite.  Without treatment, symptoms can last anywhere from a few days to a month or longer (😲 oh dear Lord!)…
    • I’m just sayin’ that donuts won’t do you that way! 🍩😋  Be sure to follow me for more health and fitness tips! 🤠

 
 
“The world needs good people - be one of them.”
 
Have a GREAT weekend and please stay safe!
 
Uncle Sean
 
Sometimes known as Sean Mayo – contact me directly for scope and pricing of custom reports / analysis projects at [email protected] | 214-604-6961 – or you can contact FedFis Sales Team at 512-960-0911 | [email protected] #FedFisHasTheData FedFis
 
FedFis, LLC disclaimer – The views and opinions of Uncle Sean are of his own and may not necessarily represent the views, endorsements, and/or opinions of FedFis, LLC and its affiliates – we all know he’s a little bit different; but that’s why we love him.