The Most Powerful Women in Banking, No. 24, Bridgit Chayt, Fifth Third Bank

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With digital commerce growing rapidly, it's important to pick up the pace of development, Bridgit Chayt said.

"Last year has shown a lot of progress in the way we work," said Chayt, executive vice president and head of commercial payments and treasury management. "We have been able to onboard at the 'speed of fintech' rather than the 'speed of banking,' which is gratifying." 

Chayt was pivotal to Fifth Third's acquisition of Rize Money in late 2023 and the subsequent launch of Newline, the bank's embedded payments business. Embedded payments refers to payment products that are integrated into software or a platform. Consumers or businesses use embedded payments to complete a transaction without leaving an app or website. Embedded payments are often grouped with embedded finance, which refers to the delivery of banking services via relationships with third parties, another strategy that is a big part of Fifth Third's business. 

The acquisition is starting to bear fruit. Newline in 2024 launched 10 products as it responded to evolving customer needs in an increasingly digital economy. 

That development pace enabled Newline to grow deposits by 30% and revenue by 50% in 2024, with $700 billion in sponsorship acquiring and $30 billion in sponsorship issuing. Newline signed several high-profile fintech clients during the year, including Stripe, Trustly, Brex and Nuvei.

The shift to the "speed of fintech" is a cultural change, Chayt said. "Most of our tech competitors are monolines. They only need to think about one part of the market. That gives them more speed than a traditional bank," she explained.

The strategic shift resulting from the Newline launch enabled Fifth Third to operate with the "engineering quality" of a Silicon Valley firm combined with the operational expertise of a bank, said Chayt, who at Fifth Third leads a nearly 500-person team guiding the nation's sixth largest commercial payments bank.

During her time in her current job, Fifth Third embarked on a multi-year review of core payments and commercial cards, in an effort to achieve $1 billion in new annual recurring revenue by 2028.

In 2024, the bank processed $17 trillion in total payments volume, $770 million in gross commercial payments revenue and $739 million in total fee income. Commercial payments fees grew 8% for the year, and commercial payments revenue was up 7%. 

The role of payments is also showing up in new client signings. As of March 31, commercial payment fees represented 8% of the bank's total revenue and 22% of total non-interest income. At the end of 2024, payments products or services led 42% of Fifth Third's new client acquisitions.

Commercial payment volumes have grown at an 11% compound annual rate over the past five years. Fifth Third originated nearly 400 million ACH disbursements, more than 90% of the total ACH disbursement volume of the other Category IV banks combined. 

"It's great when you see a plan come together," Chayt said.