The 2025 GonzoBanker® Awards

It’s that time of the year!

Gonzo readers, there is always another gear. As fast as we thought things were changing before, 2025 upped the ante. Just a sampling:

• Fintech players, once the weirdos at the party, have redefined the retail banking model. The relationships and dollars they have siphoned from banks can’t be ignored.
• Practical AI leaped from talk to walk with applications and solutions that have hit the ground for both back-office functions and customer delivery. Full-service AI agents aren’t here yet, but we can see them in the headlights.
• Agentic commerce and stablecoins are fundamentally changing the payments landscape that is so integral to banking.
• Mergers are back with conviction (no, not the criminal kind), with 122 announced in the third quarter alone. 2026 acceleration is likely.

That’s a lot of change in 365 days. A whole lot.

But in the face of this, Smarter Bankers responded. With, maybe, the help of a few cold compresses and therapy sessions, they challenged and adjusted their business models. Earnings and other performance metrics held or improved. Growth has been solid. Customer trust is higher than ever. We’ve seen remarkably steady performance in a decidedly unsteady environment, and we’re amazed and proud to be a small part of it.

Today, we present our annual GonzoBanker awards to those who excelled, and maybe one or two who didn’t. So, grab your favorite consumable (legal, preferred, but not required) and enjoy.

THE BANKER AWARDS

The Smarter Bank Awards

• Smarter Bank Hyper-Efficient Award - Goes to WinTrust Financial. This Midwest player, founded by banking legend Ed Wehmer, runs at a 54% efficiency ratio while operating 15 different community bank charters and a host of other subsidiary businesses. The bank is a real testament that diversity doesn't have to mean bureaucracy and inefficiency.
• Smarter Bank Differentiated Award - Goes to commercial deposit niche player Metropolitan Commercial Bank. Mark DeFazio and his team have built an interesting bank full of deep niches. This commercial-focused player has been growing deposits, on average, more than 20% per year for the past eight years. Whether it’s municipalities, title companies, property managers, or even bankruptcy trustees, Metropolitan shows the financial power of niching.
• The Smarter Bank Nimble Award - Goes to Grasshopper Bank and President & CEO Mike Butler. Grasshopper, a digital bank serving small businesses, recently partnered with Narmi to develop the first Model Context Protocol (MCP) server by a U.S. bank, enabling the bank's customers to leverage the Claude AI tool to interact securely with their financial institutions.
• The Smarter Bank Data-Driven Award - Goes to BECU. This Pacific Northwest credit union drew notice when it acquired EarnUp’s AI Advisor product and related tech and team. The team from EarnUp will essentially become BECU's center of excellence for AI and help the credit union accelerate innovation in this area.
• The Smarter Bank Opportunistic Award - Goes to the Midwest regional Huntington Bank. Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer Steve Steinour and his team decided to head south in 2025, acquiring Veritex Community Bank in Texas and then acquiring Cadence Bank, which operates in 10 states.

Bank Acquisition of the Year, Regional Banks - It’s a tie:

• Fifth Third Bank announced the planned acquisition of legendary Comerica. A big M&A move for Tim Spence, chairman, CEO, and president, and his team. It’s not only a footprint expansion, but it’s also a great way to bring 5/3’s core deposit base to Comerica’s commercial franchise.
• Capital One finally closed its Discover We wanted to give this award last year, but there was a lot of uncertainty around the deal's approval. So, now we can say, “deal closed,” and watch Capital One’s moves with the Discover network for debit in 2026.

Banks Acquisition of the Year, Mid-Size Banks - Goes to Nicolet Bancshares, Inc. for its acquisition of MidWestOne Financial Group, Inc. This was a nice Midwest consolidation move for Chairman, President & CEO Mike Daniels and the Nicolet team, with a respectable exit for Chip Reeves and the turnaround he executed at MidWestOne.

Bank Merger of the Year - Synovus Financial Corp. merged with Pinnacle Financial Partners to create an $118 billion Southeast bank with a beautiful growth footprint. While skepticism appeared from stock analysts and pundits, Synovus CEO Kevin Blair is showing excitement and confidence that these two respected franchises and cultures can do the 1+1 = 3 dance. Stay tuned on this one.

Credit Union Merger of the Year - ENT Credit Union and Wings Credit Union announced a merger of equals to allow both to shoot past their $10 billion asset Durbin revenue loss and scale to create a $19+ billion institution serving Colorado, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Lots of work ahead, but congrats on recent approvals for CEO Chad Graves and the team at ENT and CEO Frank Weidner and the team at Wings. This was indeed credit union history-making.

GonzoBanker of the Year, Regional Banks - Goes to Phil Green, CEO of Frost Bank, San Antonio, Texas. Through all the turbulence of the past decade, Green and the team at Frost have served communities and grown shareholder value like a finely tuned Swiss watch. Green is a humble and sharp banker who has positioned Frost as JD Power’s #1 rated bank in Texas for the past 16 years while demonstrating a disciplined organic growth strategy. Frost is one of the most timeless, respected institutions in the business.

GonzoBanker of the Year, Mid-Size Banks - Goes to the ever colorful and sometimes controversial Greg Garrabrants, president and CEO of Axos Financial. Greg is truly a next-gen leader, combining his education in engineering law and business with stints at Goldman, Skadden Arps, and McKinsey to think about the banking industry in new ways. Over 18 years at the helm of Axos, Greg has guided the institution’s growth from $1 billion to $26 billion in assets. We encourage Gonzo readers to check out Axos investor presentations and see how the team incorporates niche businesses and technology into its shareholder story.

GonzoBanker of the Year, Credit Unions - One of the industry’s most respected CEOs announced his pending retirement late this year, and the Gonzo team tips our hat to Gerry Agnes at Elevations Credit Union. Gerry took the helm of a struggling institution in late 2007 and helped grow the institution from $67 million in capital to nearly $400 million, all while winning the Malcolm Baldrige award twice and building a truly wonderful workplace in financial services.

Special Mention: Gonzo CEO Sidekick of the Year - Goes to Cindy Agnes, Gerry Agnes’ wife. Cindy gets a nod from the Gonzo team for her mass holiday effort to show appreciation for the Elevations employees. Each year, Cindy bakes more than 8,000 cookies and hand-delivers goody bags to 500+ Elevations team members. Talk about your holiday spirit!

Gonzo Quote of the Year - Goes to Jamie Dimon for this quote: “When you see one cockroach, there are probably more. Everyone should be forewarned on this one.” Dimon warning fellow bankers about potential underlying issues in the credit market. Let’s hope for bankers that the cockroaches don’t come out in 2026.

In Memoriam:

• Barb MacLean, a true fintech playlist creator and innovator. The CEO and co-founder of Velocita was truly one of a kind, bringing passion to the intersection of technology and people. We will miss you, Barb.
• LendingTree founder and CEO Doug Lebda, who tragically died in an ATV accident this year. Lebda clearly innovated a key portion of how consumers shop and how lenders originate their production. RIP to a true maverick.
• Selma Bartlett, a pioneering Nevada banker and philanthropist, worked as a private banker at Meadows Bank until retiring at age 93 in 2021. She is remembered as one of Nevada’s first female bank officers and is widely credited with helping transform the Henderson community and economy.

THE FINTECH AWARDS

Bank Technology of the Year - Goes to Tokenization. It's been something of a hidden story over the last five years, overshadowed by the speculative nature of cryptocurrency. But this year, tokenization stepped into the spotlight with the passage of the GENIUS Act and the Clarity Act now in motion. While attention is largely centered on tokenized deposits and stablecoins, we may also begin to see slow but steady traction in secured lending and investment assets.

The New Shareholder Buzzword of the Year Award - Goes to “stablecoin.” In banks’ earnings and conference calls between July 1 and Sept. 18, stablecoin was mentioned 141 times, up from just three times between Jan. 1 and March 31 and 13 times between April 1 and June 30. The surge coincides with the passage of the GENIUS Act in July.

Fintech Startup of the Year - Goes to GiveCard and founder Lurein Perera for innovation in simple money movement to help those in need. Lurein led the development of GiveCard from a student project into helping to disburse money to thousands of individuals across the U.S. Today, Lurein runs a mission-driven technology company serving nonprofits and government agencies.

Core Deal of the Year, Banks - Thread Bank signed with Fiserv Finxact and Infinant. This interesting deal stitched together a cloud-based core with the BaaS middleware and integration layer of Infinant. Thread has high aspirations for its embedded finance offerings and is banking on this new tech stack direction to fuel future growth.

Core Deal of the Year, Credit Unions - Corelation won at CEFCU. On a home-grown core for 40 years, CEFCU recognized it needed to move away from a mainframe and COBOL. The team selected Corelation, giving this fintech its second-largest win and the largest client to be hosted through the SwitchThink credit union service organization (CUSO).

Digital Deal of the Year, Banks - Q2 signed $18B-asset, Virginia-based Towne Bank across consumer, commercial, and small business. Q2 once again attracted a large bank with the combination of treasury, small, and retail coming through a single platform.

Digital Deal of the Year, Credit Unions - It’s a tie:

• Lumin Digital won the future by combining digital platforms in the ENT/Wings historic credit union merger. A big Lumin win in a competitive situation.
• Backbase won at digital credit union pioneer Alliant. It will be interesting to see Alliant leverage the customizable Backbase platform for its national digital growth strategy.

Fintech Acquisition of the Year - It’s a tie:

• Alkami acquired deposit origination and point-of-sale provider MANTL in March, once again showing that digital account opening and growth are high on the priority list of tech solutions.
• CSI acquired digital banking provider Apiture in October. Apiture has invested heavily in recent years in its digital platform with an increased focus on business services. This deal fits nicely with CSI’s future strategy and required capabilities.

Fintech Investor Deal of the Year - The biggest industry investment splash was CenterBridge Partners’ $2 billion October acquisition of lending tech gorilla MeridianLink. SavvyMoney’s $225 million October fund raise with PSG and Canapi Ventures joining Spectrum Equity also had our attention.

The Liam & Noel Gallagher “Reunion Tour” Award - It’s a tie:

• Steve Maloney, Dan Cheney, and crew at lending provider Sync1 Systems, whose team is built around a kernel of former Teres and Appro (both eventually part of MeridianLink) colleagues.
• Barb Morgan, Sai Rangachari, and Tom Snyder at global core/digital/lending provider Temenos, whose new U.S. team has quite a few FIS product and sales team members. It’s a testament to leadership when band leaders can get back together and draw from prior bands.

Swanky Swag of The Year Award - Quavo’s custom baseball jersey wins the final heat in a photo finish against Alkami’s espresso demitasse set and Plinqit’s sunsafe hat-sunglasses-pullover care pack. Swankadelic!

The Fintech Entrepreneur Back in the Saddle Award - Ethan Bloch, founder of Digit, is back in the ring after co-founding Hiro Finance. It's an AI financial planner that lets you be really chatty with your transaction data.

The Fintech Quote of the Year - Goes to Fiserv CEO Mike Lyons, noting, “We messed up execution and communication” after the company’s earnings fell short of the street’s expectations. Shares cratered 44% ... the company’s worst day ever after the fintech company slashed full-year guidance. A major story of a CEO working to address challenges from the past and execute a turnaround.

GRAB BAG AWARDS

The “Do Your Diligence” Award - Goes to JPMorgan Chase for all the lax effort exposed in a fraud suit centered around the bank’s purchase of the fintech known as Frank, where CEO Charlie Javice was sentenced to 85 months in prison for the $175 million fraudulent transaction with JPM. It seems somebody should have done a B.S. test on the grossly inflated customer numbers by Javice.

The Bold Remarks and Warnings Award - Goes to Sam Miller, CEO and co-founder of Kasheesh, describing the dangers of BNPL on Money isn't Everything: “I often liken it to the 2008 housing crash where you have a lot of individuals taking out loans for things that they don't fully understand, whether it's the interest rate or hidden fees or the fact that they are, you know, subpar credit.”

The Most Prolific Social Media Follow (outside of Cornerstone loudmouths) - Goes to Todd Baker, a very reliable source/read.

Unsung Fintech of the Year - Goes to Consumer Reports, which became a sort of smarter understudy for the CFPB with the publication of a playbook for bank app and fintech developers on how to offer great products to consumers.

The Stop Bashing Friction Award – Goes to Austin Capital Bank for making friction a selling point in the Fort Knox High Security Savings Account it launched in 2025.

The Killing it on TikTok Award - Goes to Charlie CEO Kevin Nazemi for making waves on TikTok with punchy fraud tips. If a neobank for older adults can make content work on TikTok, so can bankers.

Community Banking Visionary Award - Goes to Darrin Williams, President and CEO of Southern Bancorp, a leading Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) focused on financial inclusion and economic empowerment for underserved communities across Arkansas and Mississippi.

IN CLOSING

That was a fast 2025! It didn’t turn out to be the wildly bullish time of serial rate cuts and economic growth that was anticipated this time last year. Things feel solid, but sometimes they don’t. Banks expanded their margins, controlled costs, and kept credit quality airtight, but the market occasionally yawned or panicked with risk concerns.

Technology and more innovative competition blew up this year with an AI frenzy, stablecoin startups, and the impressive figures of large, scaling fintechs. While bankers nailed the fundamentals, their anxiety about future competition and relevancy grew.

2026 will be a year in which more focused efforts on becoming “Smarter Banks” will be table stakes to grow shareholder value in the future. Management that spends time in credit, finance, and M&A will need to dig deeper into the worlds of technology, data, and marketing in a completely different financial industry.

The grassroots need to modernize to keep delivering the amazing community support that these institutions provide day in and day out. So, beyond the fundamentals, let’s step up innovation in 2026, GonzoBankers. As the pop artist HUNTR/X and friends would say:

I'm done hiding, now I'm shining like I'm born to be

We're dreaming hard, we came so far, now I believe

We're goin' up, up, up, it's our moment

You know together we're glowin'

Gonna be, gonna be golden

Happy holidays and blessings to you and your loved ones in this new year, GonzoBankers. Stay crazy.