U.S. Bank wins Innovation of the Year award

• Key insight: U.S. Bank and Edward Jones's Everyday Solutions product was selected as American Banker's Innovation of the Year for 2026.
• Quote: "We are certainly grateful for American Banker's recognition of our investments and innovation." - U.S. Bank's Derik Farrar
• Forward look: The project is an example of embedded banking, a trend that experts say will grow in coming years.

American Banker announced on Tuesday night that U.S. Bank is the recipient of the Innovation of the Year award for 2026.

The award was given at the annual Innovation of the Year awards dinner at American Banker's Digital Banking Conference in Orlando, Florida.

"While we do the work for our clients, we are certainly grateful for American Banker's recognition of our investments and innovation," said Derik Farrar, head of everyday banking and borrowing at U.S. Bank. "We are just getting started."

Late last year U.S. Bank and Edward Jones introduced Edward Jones Everyday Solutions, a multi-account manager powered by U.S. Bank and available only through Edward Jones financial advisors.

Edward Jones Everyday Solutions, nicknamed "bank in a box" by its builders, enables the firm's clients to manage bank, credit card and investment accounts through an all-in-one interface. 

Everyday Solutions comprises three elements: co-branded checking accounts offering co-branded debit cards and nationwide ATM access, along with mobile wallet, check deposit and bill pay capabilities; three co-branded credit cards with no annual fee; and a digital platform for clients that marries access to credit cards, banking, and investment products and services.

"The bank‑in‑a‑box model allows U.S. Bank to deliver modern onboarding and servicing capabilities directly inside like‑minded partner ecosystems, meeting clients where they already are," Sean Scott, SVP and head of digital partnerships and alliances at U.S. Bank, previously told American Banker. "The platform was intentionally designed to be configurable and repeatable, allowing us to move faster with future partners while maintaining consistent standards."

Other honorees for this year's Innovation of the Year list include (in alphabetical order) Ally Financial in conjunction with its partner LangChain, Bank of America, Fifth Third Bank, HSBC, Huntington Bank in conjunction with its partner Payabli, Morgan Stanley in conjunction with its partners Refinitiv, Bloomberg, MorningStar, Hazelcast and Snowflake, Synchrony Financial, TD Bank and Wells Fargo.

The awards dinner also recognized honorees in American Banker's inaugural Most Innovative People in Finance list, a new annual ranking that recognizes the top 50 individuals who are driving waves of digital transformation in the banking industry. 

Leading this year's list is Vantage Bank CEO Jeff Sinnott for the launch of the first U.S. bank-issued stablecoin.

"We want to be a multi-generational bank," he previously told American Banker. "We presented a strategy to the regulators seven years ago to bridge decentralized assets, tokenization and traditional finance."

Rounding out the top five spots are Custodia Bank CEO Caitlin Long (#2) for the debut of a tokenized deposit network for community banks; Goldman Sachs CIO Marco Argenti (#3) for developing and deploying the firm's widespread internal use cases for agentic AI; TD Bank SVP and Chief AI Scientist Maksims Volkovs (#4) for the development of its predictive foundation AI model; and Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley (#5) for becoming the issuer of Tether's U.S.-regulated stablecoin USA₮.