In December 2025, our Managing Member, Adam T. Hark, published his end-of-year letter with a fresh set of predictions for 2026 on interest rates, stablecoins, private credit, and a handful of other fintech fault lines. Six months later, in the spirit of intellectual honesty (and mild self-scrutiny), we’re pulling those calls back out to see how they’ve held up. Some aged well. Some aged well for the wrong reasons. And at least one got outrun by a geopolitical curveball nobody had on their bingo card. Below, we grade ourselves prediction by prediction.ow onto the second half.
Interest Rates
“We feel strongly that interest rates will be tightly range-bound…”
This call held up well. The Fed kept rates steady at 3.5%-3.75% through three consecutive 2026 meetings (January, March, April), essentially the range-bound outcome that was predicted. The skepticism about Trump landing an aggressive rate-cutter also proved out, though not quite the way we framed it. His pick, Kevin Warsh, was confirmed and took over when Powell’s term ended May 15, but Warsh has publicly rejected being a “human sock puppet” for the administration and vowed his and the Fed’s independence. What we didn’t fully anticipate was inflation: the US-Iran war spiked energy prices and pushed CPI up to 3.3%+ by spring, a geopolitical event that kept inflation hotter than we modeled. Verdict: directionally correct, but for different reasons than predicted.
Banking-as-a-Service
“BaaS continues to expand throughout the ecosystem as more and more banks get comfortable with the necessary compliance protocols.”
This is playing out almost exactly as forecast. BaaS has kept expanding as banks get comfortable with compliance, especially in serving digital asset firms, combined with continued OCC Trust charters for the same and other types of fintechs under the Trump administration. BaaS is actively transforming banking from a destination into an integrated service embedded within everyday digital experiences. By utilizing secure application programming interfaces (APIs), licensed banks provide core financial infrastructure to third-party businesses, allowing non-financial companies to offer financial services without becoming banks themselves. While the customer interacts directly with a retailer or digital application, the partner bank operating behind the scenes remains responsible for regulatory compliance, security, and risk management. Nothing in the market has contradicted this call-the regulatory environment and market demand are aligning cleanly with the prediction, even as banks navigate the strategic challenge of maintaining accountability for compliance and managing operational risks across third-party distribution partners. Furthermore, open banking and Banking-as-a-Service are increasingly reinforcing one another to encourage greater interoperability, pushing banks to modernize technology architecture and strengthen data portability to support ecosystem growth. Verdict: correct.
Open Banking
“Expect more fallout for sub-scale firms.”
Still playing out, though it’s more nuanced than a blanket “small firms get bought.” Mollie’s acquisition of GoCardless remains the clearest example, on track for a €1.1bn close in the second half of 2026, with GoCardless opting to sell rather than brave a weak IPO market. Plaid took the opposite path. Once a plausible acquisition target, it’s now sitting at an $8bn valuation and exploring an IPO with banks. This is an example of the same industry pressures leading to two different outcomes. Overall, it’s not open banking broadly under threat, it’s the firms that can’t grow fast enough.
UK regulators seem to see it the same way, with the UK Payments Initiative’s commercial VRP scheme finally going live on June 2 (a few months behind its original Q1 target) and pulling together 31 members, banks and independents like TrueLayer, GoCardless, and Yapily, who decided sharing infrastructure beat competing on it. VRPs now make up roughly 16% of UK open banking transactions. Verdict: developing / directionally correct.
Stablecoins & Digital Assets
“We expected the CLARITY Act to pass in early 2026 with GENIUS Act momentum.”
This one is a miss on timing. As of today, the bill has missed a White House-targeted July 4 signing, remains stuck on the Senate calendar with no cloture motion filed, with prediction markets showing movement against 2026 passage altogether- Polymarket odds are down to 43%, from 64% just two months ago. The sticking points are more or less what you’d expect from a bill this ambitious: stablecoin yield rules, an ethics provision tied to the President’s own crypto holdings, and law-enforcement objections to a DeFi-related section regarding no AML, FinCen oversight for these types of firms. Verdict: incorrect, bill has not been killed, but overstated imminent timing.
AI in Fintech / Agentic Commerce
“We expected 2026 to expose generative AI’s ‘high trust’ limitations, with agentic commerce growing only in niche verticals rather than achieving mainstream adoption.”
We’ll take this one. Agentic commerce is real and major players are quickly scrambling to build its infrastructure, as protocols like ACP, UCP, and MCP are live, and ChatGPT Shopping, Copilot Checkout, and Google’s Business Agent have all launched. But adoption remains low: AI platforms account for roughly 1.5% of total retail spend, conversion rates lag traditional channels by about 86%, and consumer interest is best described as lukewarm but growing. Verdict: correct, hype outpaced commercialization.
Private Credit
“We expect continued spread tightening favoring borrowers.”
Mixed bag here. On direction, we got it backwards- spreads have widened 50-100+ bps in several segments since late 2025, driven by AI-disruption jitters in software credit and rising redemption pressure on evergreen funds, alongside a genuine test of underwriting discipline. But the broader thesis held up better than the headline number suggests: M&A and exit activity did pick up, hybrid capital solutions did gain traction, and our call that weaker borrowers would get shut out of the market has largely materialized. Verdict: correct on the stress dynamics and volume, incorrect on which way spreads would move.
Take-Privates
“We fully expect the take-private trend [re legacy payment companies] to continue in 2026 despite a meaningful thawing in the IPO markets this year. But in 2026 we’ll be paying closer attention to B2B software companies that got caught flat-footed in 2025’s generative AI explosion.
This prediction was accurate. The take-private trend has continued through the first half of 2026, with private equity-backed acquirers taking public companies off the market rather than the reverse. Nuvei, itself taken private by Advent International in a $6.3bn deal in 2024, is now the one doing the taking, agreeing to acquire publicly traded Payoneer for $2.75bn in an all-cash deal expected to close mid-2027, pairing Nuvei’s payment acceptance business with Payoneer’s cross-border payout and banking infrastructure, while explicitly incorporating stablecoin support. The trend is escalating further. Stripe and Advent International have submitted a non-binding joint offer to take PayPal private for $60.50/share (~$53bn, a 28% premium), backed by roughly $50bn in committed bank financing, with the two would-be acquirers proposing to hold PayPal jointly rather than break it up. PayPal’s board formally rejected the offer on July 20, calling it inadequate and pushing for a price closer to $70/share, though talks are expected to continue rather than end there. Verdict: correct.
Crypto Wallets:
“Expect to see more businesses, both large and small, add corporate digital wallets for digital asset pay-ins and pay-outs.”
This prediction was accurate, and accelerating faster than we expected. Adoption has moved well beyond simple pay-in / pay-out functionality, with cross-chain wallets now letting businesses unify treasury management and liquidity across multiple blockchain networks. We’re also seeing more platforms combine crypto wallets with traditional banking rails, further blurring the line between digital asset infrastructure and conventional treasury tools. This blurring of lines is further supported by the rise of enterprise platforms integrating banking capabilities directly into treasury, ERP, and accounting systems to simplify financial workflows and deliver integrated liquidity management across corporate ecosystems. Verdict: correct.
InsurTech:
“implementation of rate escalator caps to stem the outrageous increases in YOY premiums… we expect to hear the rumblings of consumer protection issues relating to carriers’ incorporation of IoT everywhere…”
We’ll call this prediction largely accurate, with an added layer. Hard rate escalator caps haven’t fully materialized, but states have moved in that direction with tighter transparency and justification requirements, like laws requiring insurers to disclose prior premiums at renewal and prove rate hikes are justified before they’re approved. The IoT rumblings are now full conversations: several states introduced telematics privacy bills this year, and the NAIC is drafting model rules on consumer consent and data use. Verdict: mostly correct with nuance.
Original predictions by Adam T. Hark, edited by Grace Highum
Revised and graded by Caroline Bae, Marina Guzzi and Jessica Wang
