CRB Group, the parent company of Cross River Bank, has agreed to acquire Accrue, a New York fintech whose platform lets merchants offer their own branded wallets that combine stored value, payments and rewards. The deal was announced on October 20, 2026, from Fort Lee, New Jersey, and New York.
Terms were not disclosed. The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions, and no closing date was given.
Accrue's team will join Cross River, and its founder and chief executive, Michael Hershfield, will take a leadership role building out Cross River's embedded-finance products. Cross River said its clients will be able to build branded wallets on its platform.
What Accrue built
Accrue was founded in 2021, according to Finovate, and first marketed itself as Accrue Savings, a "save now, buy later" alternative to buy-now-pay-later credit.
The company, legally Accrue Money, Inc., later broadened that idea into a wallet platform. Merchants can embed wallets, payments, stored value and rewards directly into their own checkout and apps, so that loyalty programmes work like a payment method rather than a points scheme bolted on afterwards.
Cross River was already part of the product. According to Finance Magnates, the bank held the funds in Accrue's wallets and issued its Visa cards, which makes the deal a purchase of the customer-facing layer that sat on top of Cross River's own infrastructure.
“Payments and loyalty are becoming one. Every brand wants its own wallet, and with Accrue, all of our clients can now build one on our platform.”
Why Cross River is buying
Cross River provides banking and payments infrastructure that fintech companies and brands build their products on. Adding Accrue gives it a ready-made wallet and loyalty product it can offer across that client base.
"Payments and loyalty are becoming one," said Gilles Gade, founder and chief executive of Cross River. "Every brand wants its own wallet, and with Accrue, all of our clients can now build one on our platform. We never stop innovating, and we are excited to work with Michael Hershfield and his team to help our clients build the financial super apps of the future."
"I started Accrue with the belief that financial products would increasingly live inside the brands and experiences customers use every day," said Hershfield. "Accrue brings that to life by embedding wallets, payments, stored value and rewards directly into the merchant experience. Cross River shares that vision, and with its technology, scale and global reach, we can take it much further."
The deal means Accrue moves from being one of Cross River's fintech clients to being part of the bank's own product line. Cross River did not say whether the Accrue brand will continue or how existing merchant clients will be moved onto its platform.
The founder and the funding
Accrue announced a $25 million round in January 2022 led by Tiger Global, which brought its total funding to close to $30 million. Cheddar described the round as a Series A. New investors in that round included Aglaé Ventures, Maple VC, UPS chief executive Carol Tomé and Fanatics chief executive Michael Rubin.
Existing investors that took part included Red Sea Ventures, BoxGroup, Twelve Below, Ground Up Ventures, Silas Capital and Good Friends. Accrue has not reported any funding since, and neither side disclosed its headcount or the value placed on the business.
Banks move up the stack
The deal reflects a broader shift among banks that power fintech products. Instead of only holding deposits and issuing cards for other companies' apps, some are buying the software those apps run on, so they can offer clients a finished product rather than raw infrastructure.
For merchants, branded wallets are a way to keep customer money and loyalty inside their own apps and checkout. For Cross River, owning Accrue means it no longer has to rely on a partner for that layer, and can sell wallets directly to the brands it already serves.
