Lauren Crossett
Head of GTM Spade
Lauren Crossett is currently Head of Go-to-Market for Spade, the industry leader for transaction enrichment and merchant meta data. Concurrently she is the Co-Founder of GTM Guild, a boutique firm specializing in training, advising, and recruiting for B2B go-to-market initiatives, with a particular focus on fintech. Before founding GTM Guild, Lauren served as Chief Revenue Officer at Pinwheel, where she built the go-to-market team from the ground up. Her extensive fintech experience also includes leading the Wealth division at Plaid and serving as Head of Fintech at Quovo, which was acquired by Plaid. Earlier in her career, Lauren worked in traditional financial services, running her own financial advisory practice and launching a registered investment advisor (RIA) for a quant-driven hedge fund Rebellion Research.
2026 Agenda Sessions
Are institutions losing balance in an open banking world?
This panel explores why first party transaction data remains uniquely valuable — and why banks and fintechs have both the opportunity and the obligation to do more with the data they generate themselves. Institutions that lean into owned data will be far better positioned than those relying heavily on intermediaries.
This isn’t a critique of open banking as policy. It has an important role. But it cannot be the whole strategy. When it becomes the default, it introduces noise, inconsistency, and lowest common denominator insights.
The gold standard is still an owned card program. Leading institutions are investing in their card portfolios, data infrastructure, and customer experiences to build differentiated, network driven insights that power better products and deeper engagement.
Takeaways:
• Owning your data — and the card programs that generate it — is a competitive advantage.
• First party card data is the gold standard. Issuer native transaction data is cleaner, richer, and more structured, enabling accurate budgeting, personalization, and guidance.
• Open banking is access, not strategy. Aggregator data can add noise, weaken categorization, and limit differentiation. It’s a supplement, not a foundation.
• Winners will own their data experience. Institutions that invest in their own card programs, data infrastructure, and customer journeys will outperform those that outsource insight to third parties.
Sponsored by Spade
Monday 30 March 12:30 - 13:10 Banking
This isn’t a critique of open banking as policy. It has an important role. But it cannot be the whole strategy. When it becomes the default, it introduces noise, inconsistency, and lowest common denominator insights.
The gold standard is still an owned card program. Leading institutions are investing in their card portfolios, data infrastructure, and customer experiences to build differentiated, network driven insights that power better products and deeper engagement.
Takeaways:
• Owning your data — and the card programs that generate it — is a competitive advantage.
• First party card data is the gold standard. Issuer native transaction data is cleaner, richer, and more structured, enabling accurate budgeting, personalization, and guidance.
• Open banking is access, not strategy. Aggregator data can add noise, weaken categorization, and limit differentiation. It’s a supplement, not a foundation.
• Winners will own their data experience. Institutions that invest in their own card programs, data infrastructure, and customer journeys will outperform those that outsource insight to third parties.
Sponsored by Spade Banking US/Pacific
