Have you ever watched a 160-year-old bank basically admit that a 7-year-old startup does something better than they ever could?
That’s exactly what happened this week when Fifth Third Bancorp announced it’s outsourcing its entire commercial card and expense management program to Brex. Not a pilot. Not a side project. The whole thing.
In an industry that still loves to brag about “in-house everything,” this feels like the financial equivalent of Coca-Cola announcing it’s buying its secret formula from Pepsi. And honestly? It might be one of the smartest moves a regional bank has made in years.
The Deal Everyone Saw Coming (But Still Feels Shocking)
Let’s be real for a second. Traditional banks have been losing the commercial card war for a while now.
Business clients don’t want clunky expense reports, manual receipt matching, or waiting three days for a spending limit increase. They want what Brex, Ramp, Airbase, and a dozen others have been delivering: real-time controls, automated bookkeeping, and software that actually feels like it was built after 2010.
Fifth Third looked at the cost of building that themselves versus partnering with someone who already nailed it and, for once, the math was pretty obvious.
“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.”
Tim Spence, CEO of Fifth Third
Translation: “We’re really good at holding deposits and meeting regulators. They’re really good at making software people actually enjoy using. Everybody wins.”
What Brex Actually Brings to the Table
For those who still think Brex is “just another corporate card,” here’s what Fifth Third is actually getting:
- Embedded issuing platform that lets banks launch cards in months, not years
- AI that auto-categorizes expenses and catches policy violations in real time
- Native integrations with NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero, and basically every accounting system that matters
- Dynamic spend controls that update instantly (goodbye, calling the bank at 2 a.m. from an airport)
- Rewards that actually make sense for growth-stage companies
And perhaps most importantly for the bank: none of the regulatory headache of running the program themselves.
Brex handles the tech. Fifth Third handles the balance sheet and compliance. The customer gets a product that finally feels modern.
Why This Matters More Than Just Another Partnership
I’ve been writing about banking for over a decade, and I can’t remember the last time a top-15 U.S. bank essentially said, “Yeah, we’re done building this ourselves.”
This isn’t like buying a third-party loan origination system or outsourcing check processing. Commercial cards and spend management are increasingly the front door to the commercial banking relationship. They touch treasury, accounts payable, accounting, and often determine which bank gets the operating deposits.
Handing that front door to a fintech used to be unthinkable. Now it’s table stakes.
And Fifth Third isn’t alone. We’ve seen similar moves from J.P. Morgan (with Ramp), PNC (with Qolo), and others quietly testing the waters. But Fifth Third just went all-in.
The Comerica Acquisition Changes Everything
Timing-wise, this couldn’t be more fascinating.
Fifth Third is currently in the middle of acquiring Comerica, a $85 billion-asset bank heavy in middle-market commercial lending. When that deal closes (expected mid-2025), Fifth Third will jump to roughly $288 billion in assets – solidly in the top ten U.S. banks.
They’re not doing this because they’re desperate. They’re doing it because they’re about to inherit thousands of new commercial clients who will expect modern tools on day one.
Building a Brex-level platform in-house while integrating Comerica’s systems? That would have taken years and probably billions. Partnering? They can roll this out in 2025.
What This Says About the Future of Banking
Here’s my take, and I’ll probably get some hate for it: the age of every bank trying to build everything themselves is dead.
We’re moving into what I’ve started calling “Lego Banking” – best-of-breed providers snapping together via APIs to create experiences that no single institution could build alone.
- Need great commercial cards? Call Brex or Ramp.
- Want embedded lending for your SaaS product? Pipe or Arc or one of a dozen others.
- Looking for treasury management that doesn’t suck? Treasury Prime, Modern Treasury, or Method.
- Need banking-as-a-service infrastructure? Synctera, Unit, Bond.
The winners won’t be the banks that build the most features. They’ll be the ones that assemble the best ecosystem fastest.
Fifth Third just proved they get it.
The Competitive Landscape Just Got Interesting
Think about the ripple effects:
Truist, Huntington, Regions, M&T – all regional banks with big commercial books – are now on the clock. If Fifth Third can launch a world-class card program basically overnight, what excuse do they have?
And for the fintechs? This is massive validation. When a conservatively-run Midwest bank chooses you over building in-house, that’s the kind of reference that closes enterprise deals.
Brex’s enterprise pivot just got rocket fuel.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes the most revolutionary moves look quiet on the surface.
A press release about a card program doesn’t scream “paradigm shift.” But make no mistake – this is what the unbundling and rebundling of banking actually looks like in practice.
Fifth Third didn’t just sign a vendor contract. They admitted that the future of banking isn’t about owning every layer of the stack. It’s about owning the customer relationship and being smart enough to partner for everything else.
In a world where software is eating finance, sometimes the smartest thing to do is let the software company handle the software.
Revolutionary? Maybe not.
Obvious in hindsight? Absolutely.
Welcome to banking in 2025.
