U.S. consumers hold a record $1.2 trillion in credit card debt. Right now, households are in a holding pattern, where the growth in card balances has been muted, and a spending pullback has begun in the face of tariffs and trade wars. PYMNTS Intelligence has found that 67% of the U.S. population lives paycheck to paycheck, so credit can be a vital lifeline towards meeting everyday expenses. Through the past three years, as inflation spiked to near double digits and FICO scores have remained lofty (averaging north of 700), there’s still a wide swath of the population — 60 million individuals, 15 million of whom are unbanked and 45 million are underbanked — that remains shut out from the traditional channels of financial services

Like the rest of the global economy, the FinTech IPO Index can be boiled down to a word: uncertain. Despite some notable performances from Oportun and OneConnect, the majority of the companies in the index took single-digit percentage stock price hits, leading the overall index down for the week by 1.7%. For the month, the index is up 9.5%, and YTD, it’s up almost 80%. The negative side of the ledger was dominated by companies that extend financial services products to underserved consumers and businesses. They were led by OppFi, which took a 21% reduction in its stock price despite securing an increase in its revolving credit facility