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A Year-End Message from Gilles

Gilles Gade, Founder, President and CEO, Cross River

January 5, 2026

min read

Please join me as we reflect on the transformative year 2025 was for the world, our industry and Cross River.

The confluence of two life-changing technologies—digital assets and AI—pushed our legislators, regulators and stakeholders to seek solutions, understanding and guidance. A period of boldness replaced a period of unease plagued by regulatory uncertainty, legislative confusion and the politicization of financial products. Everything shifted in 2025 and confidence returned with renewed energy to innovate and dare to dream.

For Cross River too, 2025 was a defining year.

What began in 2008 as a bold idea—to build a technology that expands access to financial services—has evolved into an engine of innovation, powering the next era of financial infrastructure. This year, that engine ran at full speed.

Across the organization, our teams pushed boundaries, launched new platforms, expanded capabilities, and broke our records across payments, lending, and capital markets. Above all, we stayed true to our mission: using technology to expand access, empower innovation, and build the financial system of tomorrow, one that works well for everyone.

Product & Technology Milestones

Our teams solved real problems for real people and businesses. A few highlights:

International Payments: We broadened our global footprint and launched rail-agnostic cross-border payments, giving our partners faster, clearer, more reliable ways to move money around the world.
Request-for-Payment (RfP): We became one of the few banks offering RfP – enabling instant down payments for automobiles and improving gaming experiences with instant pay-ins. For users, that means less friction, more trust, and a smoother experience.
Advanced Authorization: We gave our partners real-time control over card approvals. Today, that’s transforming how payments are processed in gaming and moving forward it will extend to more sectors that depend on speed, security, and smart decisioning.
In-House Card Processing Engine: Bringing card processing fully in-house was a key strategic objective over the last few years. Now that we own the entire card stack, we have the speed, control, and flexibility we always envisioned. It places Cross River in a category of its own as a one-stop financial infrastructure provider and reinforces our responsibility to use that capability wisely.
Stablecoin Infrastructure: After years of disciplined building and developing in-house expertise, we launched our stablecoin payments platform. By bridging the speed of blockchain with the trust of regulated banking, we created a unified system for fiat and stablecoins with near-instant settlement across a variety of interoperable payment rails.
Pre-Approval API: We strengthened Fair Lending oversight by building a flexible pre-approval system that allows partners to bring their own schemas and customize the flow. Our approach to Fair Lending brings discipline, accuracy and fast response to a traditionally slow and cumbersome process.
Online Banking Launch: We took our platform from theory to production, enabling account and transaction visibility and the ability to send and receive ACH, wires, and instant payments (including CRNow). It’s another step toward a more unified, partner-centric experience.
Upgraded COS: We delivered High-Performance Core Balance Decisioning, improving real-time processing speed and reliability. These upgrades are key to delivering a reliable and scalable product.
A Major Payments Milestone: We surpassed 1 billion payment transactions since Cross River opened its doors 17 years ago. We’re proud to have earned the trust of our partners and customers, repeatedly, to move their money safely and efficiently.

Record Growth in Commercial Lending

Our Commercial Banking Group had an exceptional year, not just in numbers, but in the quality and depth of the relationships they have developed and the performance they have achieved.

In 2025, the team facilitated nearly $1.5 billion in loans and welcomed more than 25 new institutional investors and programmatic partners, including leading banks, funds, insurance companies and financial advisors. This reflected disciplined credit management, strategic expansion, and the use of data-driven insights and technology to see around corners, uncover opportunity, and strengthen portfolio management.

Across Healthcare, Lender Finance, Construction, Business Lending, and Commercial Real Estate (CRE), originations were strong, with CRE volumes doubling year-over-year.

We also marked a key milestone in Cross River history: our inaugural $288MM CMBS transaction—the largest single loan sale we’ve ever executed. This is the first of many, signaling the market understands and appreciates our innovative structuring, underwriting standards, and overall capabilities in commercial lending—positioning us for continued growth in 2026 and beyond.

Enabling Growth at Scale Across Platform Lending and Capital Solutions

Our Capital Solutions Group continued to leave a meaningful imprint on the broader ecosystem, solving the financing needs of innovative, mission-driven lenders. Their work continued to enable our platforms’ success and reinforced our role as a dependable, forward-leaning partner across credit markets.

A few highlights include:

Principal Finance Group: We expanded both margin and balance sheet velocity by over 50% year-over-year and significantly expanded our coverage across five new asset classes, including Fund Finance, Earned Wage Access (“EWA”), Embedded Small Business, Residential Transition Loans (“RTL”) and Home Equity Agreements (“HEA”).
Broker-Dealer*: We advised on and structured over 50 distinct transactions, doubling activity year-over-year, while welcoming new clients. Every transaction was an important event in our clients’ history. We helped shape their growth engine, providing liquidity so they can focus on their core competencies.
Strategic Advisory: We supported a BaaS partner by advising on their capital raise, providing a credit facility, and investing in the business. This illustrated our 360° approach to partnership: not just a lender, not just an advisor, but a long-term ally.
Platform Lending Growth: Marketplace lending grew by over 30% YOY, underscoring our role as a dependable, forward-leaning partner across credit markets.

Community Impact: What Truly Defines Us

For all the complexities in our industry, our purpose remains simple: to do well by doing good. Every year, that mantra permeates our ranks deeper, so we collectively have a meaningful impact on those around us. Some of the moments that meant the most to us:

Deepening our support in Israel: We launched the Cross River MDA Venus Safadi Paramedic Life Saving Training Course, contributed $1 million to Ziv Hospital as part of the fourth installment of our Bays of Life initiative, and brought over 100 employees to Israel to deliver relief, supplies, and hands-on care to communities still healing and rebuilding from the devastation of October 7. Numbers can’t capture the people, the conversations, and the acts of kindness performed by our team. Those experiences have shaped us and made us better as individuals and as a group.
Expanding 50 States of Philanthropy: We extended our reach into five more states, Colorado, New York, Arizona, Minnesota, and Arkansas, strengthening our nationwide network of impact and support.
Supporting families during the federal government shutdown: By partnering with Easterseals NJ, we helped ensure that families affected by the shutdown had access to food and essential support at a time of real uncertainty.
Inviting an unparalleled cast of guest speakers to inspire our staff: We were fortunate to hear from Coach Bruce Pearl, freed hostages, families of fallen soldiers and hostages, victims of terror and more. We celebrated the return of all living hostages home and commemorated those who had fallen. We continue to pray for the return of Ran Gvili, the last remaining fallen hostage yet to be released, and for peace and harmony in the region.

These and many more accomplishments came in spite of the numerous challenges we faced. Since our inception, we’ve embraced a simple motto: to turn every challenge into an opportunity. We believe if it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. Yet the biggest challenge we’ve faced thus far is loneliness. As we blazed new trails, challenged the status quo and ventured into uncharted realms, we often found ourselves exposed, and until others could see some evidence of our vision, we felt alone.

Looking Ahead: A Future We Build Together

However, 2025 proved to be a year of reckoning, satisfaction and redemption for Cross River. We’ve embraced the mantle of leadership in financial innovation, although leadership is not a matter of status but of function. A leader is not one who holds himself higher than those he or she leads. That is a moral failing, not a mark of stature. At CRB, and hopefully this holds true at home as well, a leader is a servant and to lead is to serve.

For every event, milestone and celebration, the feeling that rises above all others is gratitude.

To our employees, the heartbeat of Cross River: thank you. Your dedication, creativity, and resilience have turned complex challenges into impactful progress.
To our partners and clients: thank you for your trust. You invited us into your journeys, relied on us during pivotal moments, and pushed us to be better. Together, we are building the future of finance—carefully, responsibly and with an eye always on the people behind the numbers.
To the communities we serve: thank you for grounding us. You remind us why we exist, the purpose of life, and what truly matters when the markets are closed and the screens are off.

The road ahead is bright, but it will also be demanding. We have big plans for 2026. It will be a year of growth for Cross River, one in which we take defining steps to expand our platform, our reach, and our role in the financial ecosystem.

The future of finance is unfolding right in front of us. We are armed with our values of humility, integrity, creativity, responsibility and compassion, so we may continue to challenge the status quo, act boldly and innovate—as long as it is what is best for humanity.

Ezra Taft Benson said that “pride is concerned with who is right; humility is concerned with what is right.” When we place the self at the center of our universe, we eventually turn everyone and everything into a means to our ends. That diminishes them, which diminishes us. Humility means living by the light of ‘that which is greater than me.’ The smaller the self, the wider the radius of our world.

With humility, I am grateful to every person who has walked this path with us. And I am deeply hopeful that together we will truly impact the world positively and meaningfully.

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Fondly,