Mercury captures deposit economics
Immad Akhund, CEO of Mercury, on the business models of fintechs vs. banks
This revenue stream is powerful because Mercury gets the economics of deposits without taking the balance sheet risk of a bank. Customers park cash in Mercury, Mercury sweeps it to partner banks, and those banks use the deposits in their own lending and treasury operations, then share part of that economics back. That lets Mercury stay a software layer with a lighter risk profile while still making deposits its biggest revenue engine.
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The workflow is simple. A startup opens one Mercury account, Mercury routes funds across partner banks for FDIC coverage, and the underlying bank keeps the legal banking relationship and asset liability management. Mercury owns the interface and customer relationship, while the bank owns the lending book.
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This is the core difference from SVB. SVB borrowed short by taking startup deposits and then invested or lent against them itself. Mercury instead takes a share of yield generated by partner banks, plus interchange, wires, FX, and some venture debt economics.
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The model also explains why Mercury looks different from peers. Mercury has been much more deposit driven, while Brex has historically mixed interchange, deposits, and software. As rates rose after 2022, deposit revenue became the main profit pool for fintech banking platforms.
Going forward, the winners in business banking will be the companies that control deposits and daily money movement without carrying too much bank style risk themselves. Mercury is already moving in that direction, pairing a software first distribution model with deeper bank partnerships, and over time that creates room to add more treasury, credit, and workflow products on top.