By PYMNTS | October 20, 2026
Cross River Bank plans to add branded wallet, stored value and loyalty rewards technology to its regulated financial infrastructure by acquiring FinTech company Accrue, Cross River said in a Tuesday (Oct. 20) press release emailed to PYMNTS.
Cross River’s parent company, CRB Group, has entered into an agreement to acquire Accrue. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, according to the release.
Accrue powers customer loyalty at the payment layer with its branded wallet, stored value and technology that allows customers to earn and track incentives, the release said.
Upon completion of the transaction, these capabilities will join Cross River’s technology stack that offers embedded financial solutions across accounts, cards, payments, lending, digital assets and agentic commerce. Cross River will then enable its partners to offer their customers payments and loyalty rewards, per the release.
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“Payments and loyalty are becoming one,” Cross River Founder and CEO Gilles Gade said in the release. “Every brand wants its own wallet, and with Accrue, all of our clients can now build one on our platform.”
Accrue’s team will join Cross River, and the company’s founder and CEO, Michael Hershfield, will take on a leadership role building out Cross River’s embedded finance offerings, according to the release.
Hershfield said in the release that Accrue enables financial products to live inside brands and merchant experiences.
“Cross River shares that vision, and with its technology, scale and global reach, we can take it much further,” Hershfield said.
Cross River announced Tuesday that the company selected Lazard Asset Management CEO Evan Russo as its new president and that Russo will work with Gade to help establish the bank as a “trusted infrastructure layer“ for payments, banking, digital assets and artificial intelligence-enabled financial services.
CRB Group raised $50 million in March to continue expanding Cross River’s embedded finance capabilities. The company said it would use the new funding to scale its crypto capabilities, accelerate its AI and global expansion strategy, and bring new products to market.
Gade said at the time that Cross River is pursuing a strategy of “embedded finance 2.0” that includes crypto, lending, payments and cards on one platform together with an AI layer.