Fed Cuts Again; Flex Raises Series B; Airwallex Valued at $8Bn

The Fed cuts rates another quarter point. Employment picture remains mixed. Flex announces Series B. Airwallex valued at $8Bn in latest funding round. Socure acquires Qlarifi. Brex to power Fifth Thirds corporate cards.

We’re expanding our card program with our new in-house processing engine, built directly into our banking core. It delivers real-time controls, customizable analytics, API-driven settlement, and instant virtual cards, giving partners more flexibility and a faster path to market.

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A Divided Fed Expects Just One Cut in 2026

The Fed held its last rate-setting meeting of the year last week, and the headline decision is as expected, with the central bank cutting its benchmark rate 1by 25bps to 3.5% - 3.75%. Beneath that headline decision, however, there is plenty of nuance about what may unfold next year and how it may impact markets. For starters, the Federal Open Market Committee, the group that votes on rate policy, was split on whether or not to cut rates, voting 9-3 in favor. That marks the first time in six years that three officials cast dissenting votes. Further, the prospects for additional rate cuts seem slim. The FOMC has penciled in just one rate cut next year. Fed Chair Powell, whose term as Chair is up next May, implied that the Fed has done enough to support the economy and to mitigate downside risks to employment in remarks he gave following the meeting. Powell also raised some eyebrows by explicitly linking lingering inflationary pressures to tariffs, saying, “This further normalization of our policy stance should help stabilize the labor market while allowing inflation to resume its downward trend toward 2% once the effects of tariffs have passed through.”

The Fed’s job hasn’t been made any easier by incomplete or hard to interpret economic data, particularly related to the job market. Powell said that official indicators may be overestimating employment gains by as many as 60,000 jobs per month. The challenge comes in part from a model the Fed uses when it can’t directly survey companies either because they have gone out of business or because they are newly formed. Inaccuracies with the “birth-death” model the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses to estimate employment impact for newly formed or shut down businesses has contributed to sometimes large revisions to employment numbers after the fact. The number of U.S. job openings in October rose slightly to 7.67Mn, though the number of layoffs in October also rose, hitting 1.85Mn. October saw the highest number of layoffs since early 2023.

Flex Announces Series B Fundraise

Flex, which describes itself as “AI-native private banking” for business owners, announced it has raised a $60Mn Series B. The round was led by Canadian VC firm Portage, with participation from Crosslink Capital, Titanium Ventures, Wellington, Firstlook Partners, and others. Flex targets middle market businesses, especially those that lack in-house finance teams, with its platform and suite of financial management tools. Flex has introduced AI agents that customers can leverage to streamline financial operations across areas that include payments, finance, credit, and treasury management. The company plans to use the new funding to continue development of its AI agent infrastructure and to build personal finance capabilities.

Airwallex Now Worth $8Bn

Cross-border banking and payments startup Airwallex announced it has raised $330Mn in new funding. Investors in the latest round include T. Rowe Price and Robinhood Ventures. The new investment values Airwallex at $8Bn, an approximately 30% jump from just six months ago. Airwallex is roughly comparable to a mashup of Wise and Brex, in that it offers day-to-day banking and spend management, coupled with an emphasis on cross-border payments and multi-currency support. The company, which is based in Singapore, also announced it would open a second global headquarters in San Francisco, where it plans to double its headcount to more than 400 over the course of the next year. In October, Airwallex reached more than $1Bn in annualized revenue, up some 90% from the year prior, the company said.

Socure Acquires Qlarifi

Identity verification platform Socure is acquiring Qlarifi, a credit and fraud data infrastructure firm focused on buy now, pay later use cases. Socure characterized the acquisition as enabling it to offer a unified identity, fraud, and credit infrastructure tailored to the needs of BNPL providers. Qlarifi had just officially launched earlier this year, in March, with the announcement it had raised £1.4Mn in pre-seed funding, with the goal of helping BNPL providers fill gaps in traditional credit bureau data. Qlarifi’s data set, the company has said, can help BNLP providers expand credit to trusted borrowers while identifying and mitigating risk from potential problem users, including loan stacking and first party fraud.

Qlarifi cofounder and CEO Alex Naughton commented on the acquisition, saying, “We built Qlarifi to solve a very real pain point: the lack of infrastructure to protect consumers from overextending themselves across multiple BNPL providers. By joining forces with Socure, we now have their tremendous commercial scale, balance sheet, and world-class analytics behind us to build the infrastructure that will enable responsible lending at scale and demonstrate to regulators that the industry can protect consumers while expanding access to credit.”

Brex to Power Fifth Third’s Corp Cards

Super regional Fifth Third has inked a deal with corporate card and expense management startup Brex to make the young company the official provider of the bank’s commercial cards. Fifth Third’s commercial card, powered by Brex, will run on Brex’s API-driven infrastructure, with the offering becoming the default solution for Fifth Third’s commercial banking clients, according to a joint news release. This means that Fifth Third’s commercial clients will have access to Brex’s software platform, with capabilities that include card issuing, automated expense management, real-time payments, and Brex’s AI agents that can be used to automate complex workflows.

Fifth Third CEO Tim Spence commented on the deal, saying, “The future of business demands financial platforms that do more than process payments—they must power growth. Our partnership with Brex is a commitment to redefine how companies leverage financial technology. By combining the strength of a leading bank with Brex’s AI-driven innovation, we’re creating intelligent solutions that simplify complexity, drive efficiency and enable businesses to scale globally with confidence.”