August 8, 2026

The Epic Report Hall of Fame!

  • Jim Stewart
    Jim Stewart
  • Ben Brake
    Ben Brake

Three Things We’re Hearing

  • The Epic Report Hall of Fame!!!
  • They Bank with You. They Swipe Elsewhere.
  • Quick Takes: 100th Edition Version

A four-minute read

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Epic Report Turns 100

The Epic Report Hall of Fame

100 Issues. A Few Trophies. Zero Objectivity.

When we published our first Epic Report in early 2020, the world was a different place. Covid had just appeared. Rates were low. BNPL was going to replace credit cards. And nobody had heard the word “forbearance” outside of a mortgage attorney’s office.
One hundred issues later, we’ve covered rate cycles, fintech explosions, a pandemic that rewrote the consumer lending rulebook overnight, and enough BNPL death rattles to fill a graveyard. To mark the occasion, we’ve raided the archives and handed out some hardware.

🏆 Best Headline

Winner: “BNPL-ooza!” (November 2021)

  • The exclamation point
the portmanteau
the sheer confidence of a single made-up word describing an entire market phenomenon
  • In a newsletter known for punchy headlines, this one stands alone
  • Honorable mention to “BNPL’s Death Rattle!” (February 2024) — because the audacity of declaring something dead that we named two years earlier is its own kind of artistry

🏆 Most Prescient Call

Winner: “Fintechs Dominate Personal Loans” (August 2022)

  • We saw it coming before most banks did — fintechs Best Egg, SoFi, and LendingClub weren’t just nibbling at the edges of personal lending, they were eating the whole sandwich
  • The banks that paid attention got ahead of it, the ones who didn’t are still wondering where their personal loan volume went

🏆 The “We Told You So” Award

Winner: Direct Mail (Perennial Champion)

  • We’ve lost count of how many times, across 100 issues, someone declared direct mail dead
  • We’ve also lost count of how many times we showed data proving it isn’t
  • Direct mail has been declared dead approximately as many times as it has outperformed digital acquisition benchmarks — it keeps mailing, we keep reporting, the cycle continues

🏆 Most Dramatic Character Arc

Winner: BNPL

  • Introduced as a revolutionary fintech darling, celebrated wildly (“BNPL-ooza!”), questioned, doubted, given a death rattle, resurrected as BNPL 2.0, now facing credit reporting requirements and consolidation pressure
  • If BNPL were a TV series, it would have been canceled and revived twice, with a spinoff nobody asked for — we’ve covered it all, and we’re not done yet

🏆 Most Durable Topic

Winner:  Delinquency (The Dog That Won’t Stop Not Barking)

  • Issue after issue, year after year, the delinquency story has been some version of “it’s rising — but not as fast as you’d think” or “it stayed surprisingly low”
  • We’ve written about it in a pandemic, a rate spike, a consumer spending boom, and a grocery-on-layaway economy
  • Delinquency is the topic that never gets boring because it’s always just about to do something dramatic — and then mostly doesn’t

🏆Best Timing (Unintentional Division)

Winner: “Optimism for Q4?” (July 2020)

  • Published in the summer of 2020, when “cautious optimism” was the industry’s favorite phrase and nobody actually knew anything
  • We asked the question and Q4 2020 was fine, mostly
  • We’ll call it a win

🏆The Longevity Award

Winner: Home Equity / HELOC

  • HELOC has been “poised for growth” since at least September 2021
  • It has also been “finally back,” “paradoxically underperforming,” and “vaulting”
  • Home equity is the sector that has been perpetually on the verge of its moment
  • In 2025, it actually had one and we remain cautiously optimistic about 2026

One hundred issues in, the consumer lending market is more complex, more competitive, and more interesting than ever. We’re grateful to the clients, prospects, and readers who’ve followed along…and occasionally argued with us, which we also enjoy.

Here’s to the next 100!!! đŸ„‚

Your Checking Customers are Carrying Someone Else’s Cash Back Card

  • Most regional and community banks assume they can’t win in credit cards — the national giants own rewards, so why bother?
  • Our latest consumer survey* says the real problem isn’t losing the rewards race — it’s never entering it
  • Start with what consumers actually want: 68% own a cash back credit card and 44% use it as their primary credit card — more than 3x any other type (Consumers defined as US adults 21+ with an annual household income of $50k+ who have a checking account; primary credit card defined as one you use most often or consider your main credit card)
CREDIT CARD OWNERSHIP VS. PRIMARY USAGE
  • It’s the deciding factor, too: among those consumers who own a credit card, 33% name cash back rewards as the single most important reason for their primary credit card, versus just 9% for travel rewards
MOST IMPORTANT REASON FOR USING PRIMARY CARD
  • The map of who issues those credit cards is lopsided
  • National banks: 51% of consumers keep their primary checking with national banks, but 68% of those with cash back cards have those cards from national banks — they over-index hard (Primary checking defined as the account where your paycheck or main income is deposited, or the account you use to do most of your day-to-day banking)
  • Regionals and community banks: 21% of consumers keep their primary checking with regional and community banks, but only 12% those with cash back cards have those cards with regional and community banks — they do the reverse
REGIONAL BANKS GET CHECKING, NATIONALS GET CARDS
  • That gap is the opening — regionals already have the customer; a national has the card
  • The split runs through the whole base: 56% keep their primary credit card at a different bank than their checking, so less than half consolidate
ONE BANK OR TWO BANKS
  • So, we asked the non-consolidators "Why?”
  • The top answer is rewards, not brand loyalty: 41% say “better rewards somewhere else,” the exact objection a competitive cash back card removes
  • Another quarter cite pure inertia: 15% “never thought about it” plus 11% “my bank didn’t offer one then” — demand waiting for an offer
  • Only 24% truly prefer to keep card and banking separate: a real ceiling, but a minority one
  • Rewards, not brand loyalty, send customers elsewhere
WHY KEEP YOUR CHECKING & PRIMARY CARD SEPARATE
  • “But we’d need branches everywhere to compete” — the data says no
  • Consumers were divided on the importance of a bank/financial institution offering a credit card having physical branches near them, branch importance splits 48% very/somewhat vs. 49% not very/not at all. Our take: branches may drive checking choice, but barely move credit card choice
  • Translation: in addition to branches, you need a card worth carrying and you need to market it aggressively
BRANCH IMPORTANCE IS SPLIT
  • The payoff reaches past the credit card: 41% are more likely to move other banking products to a local or regional bank after a good card experience, versus just 15% less likely
LIKELIHOOD OF BANK PRODUCT MIGRATION
  • And the cheapest place to find these buyers is your own deposit base where 45%+ are willing to consider a card offer from their existing local bank:
  • 27% would act on a targeted offer from their existing bank
  • 21% would act on direct mail (as you may recall we’ve mentioned before: direct mail is still not dead!)
Applying For A Credit Card: Influencing Factors
  • Why this matters for regional marketers: half your checking customers carry a competitor’s cash back card for one reason — better rewards — and a relationship-priced cash back offer mailed to your own base is the rare acquisition play where the customer is already in hand

* Methodology: All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 1,004 US Adults 21+ with an annual household income of $50k+ who have a checking account. Fieldwork was undertaken between 12th – 18th June 2026.  The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all US adults 21+ with an annual household of $50k+.

100 Issues In: What We Know for Sure

Across 100 issues we’ve made calls, eaten crow, and watched the same debates loop on a six-month timer. Here’s what actually stuck.

💬 On Consumers

  • Nobody brags about their credit card interest rate at dinner. Nobody.
  • They say what matters most is trust. Offer a $300 bonus and they open the account anyway
  • Gen Z wants a great mobile app. They’re opening accounts at Chase

💳 On Credit Cards

  • APRs skyrocketed. Balances didn’t drop. Nobody is rate-sensitive on credit cards
  • Balance transfers are a product consumers love and banks tolerate
  • Premium cards are adding benefits faster than anyone can actually use them

🛒 On BNPL

  • BNPL was going to replace credit cards
  • It did not replace credit cards
  • It grew enormously anyway
  • It had a death rattle. It recovered
  • BNPL 2.0 showed up with credit reporting and compliance questions — now it’s consolidating
  • Layaway called. It wants its concept back

📬 On Direct Mail

  • Direct mail has been declared dead at least a dozen times in 100 issues. It keeps outperforming
  • Nobody reads the back of the envelope. Design it anyway
  • Mail volume is the single best leading indicator of lender confidence
  • When it drops, something’s wrong. When it surges, everyone’s chasing the same customer

đŸ“± On Fintechs & Neobanks

  • Fintechs were going to eat the banks. Banks are still here. So are fintechs
  • Cash App is a bank for people who don’t want to call it a bank
  • Goldman Sachs exited consumer lending. The market kept going

🏠 On Home Equity

  • HELOC was poised for a comeback in 2021. And 2022. And 2023
  • It actually came back in 2024–2025. We told you it would

📈 On Rates & the Industry

  • Low rates feel permanent until they aren’t. High rates feel permanent until they aren’t
  • The Fed’s moves show up in our mail-volume data about 60–90 days later
  • Discover had a good run. Capital One noticed
  • Regional banks have a real opportunity in credit cards. Most still haven’t taken it
  • Search was the aggregator’s best friend. AI may be its biggest problem

📰 On the Epic Report

  • We launched in March 2020. Timing is everything, and sometimes it’s terrible
  • We’ve been wrong. We’ve said so. We’ll be wrong again
  • The next big thing is always coming. Sometimes it arrives
  • Whatever happens, we’ll be watching the mail volume

Thank you for reading.

Jim Stewart and Ben Brake
www.epicresearch.net

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