Americas Fintech 3Q26 Preview Weighing key investor debates and near term earnings setups

Equity Research 13 October 2026 | 12:01AM EDT

3Q26 Preview: Weighing key investor debates and near-term earnings setups

Fintech shares have broadly underperformed in 3Q, which we believe has been Will Nance | driven in large part by the increase in rates and re-inflation in oil prices, which Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

together serve as both negative indicators for low-end consumer health and more Jack Evans | fundamental macro headwinds for fintech lenders where funding costs are facing Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC upward pressure. Consumer spending trends have broadly held in well, despite these Chandru Ravikumar | concerns, with low-end consumer wage growth continuing to serve as a cushion. So Goldman Sachs India SPL in the near term, we believe the focus will be on whether the shifting backdrop will derail the structural market share gains across the group. Heading into earnings, we Ryan Wolf | are short-term positive on the setup into earnings for CHYM, XYZ, RELY, UPST and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

more cautious on SOFI, KLAR, and WU. Finally, as in prior quarters, we spotlight Dan Duggan, Ph.D. | several mini-deep dives across our fintech coverage, including 1) a bottom up risk Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

loss build for XYZ, 2) a sizing of the Apple Upgrade program for KLAR, 3) a build out of the high value sender opportunity for RELY, and 4) bottom-up build of UPST CP margin improvement in the back half of the year.

n XYZ Risk Loss Build: XYZ risk losses have missed expectations every quarter given the strong growth in lending products, and we expect this quarter to be no exception. Inside we spotlight our bottom-up build for risk losses on a product-by-product basis. We believe continued scaling of Afterpay products within Cash App, and the duration extension of Cash App Borrow put an upward bias on risk losses, and believe the elevated focus on these dynamics recently means this could be a deciding factor of how the stock reacts immediately following earnings. We believe a risk loss miss is expected and believe the interplay of the growth in lending products and the associated risk losses will be the deciding factor in how the market digests this aspect of the quarter. n KLAR / Apple Upgrade Program: We spotlight the potential impact of the AAPL upgrade program on both volumes and transaction margins. Overall, we see a strong upward bias to this program over time, as we believe favorable funding dynamics for Apple devices (higher prices, sunsetting legacy programs, mobile carriers pulling back) will create a growing financing gap for KLAR to fill. However, we are more cautious on the transaction margin for this program in the near term, as we believe KLAR’s capital constraints are leading the company to

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sell the receivables, resulting in third parties capturing the bulk of the program economics. We see this as a major source of long-term earnings power once KLAR’s organic capital generation improves and allows them to internalize the funding. n RELY High Value Sender: We spotlight our recent analysis on RELY’s high value sender business, which has been growing healthily. While we expect disruptions in the Indian corridor to depress HVS growth in 3Q, company commentary suggests this headwind will be less than expected, although the low take rate nature of the volumes means the impact to the quarter is low. We remain positive on the TAM expansion and growth accelerators at RELY, as well as the increased mgmt focus on driving higher profitability. n UPST Contribution Margin Build: We remain more optimistic on the potential for CP margin expansion at UPST given the scaling of new…