NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 13, 2026--
Citi’s U.S. Consumer Cards business today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Kard Financial, Inc. (Kard), a company that operates a commerce media and rewards platform that helps banks and fintechs deepen customer engagement through personalized offers.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260813060478/en/
With billions of transactions and a network of leading fintechs, banks and neobanks, Kard provides an innovative commerce media platform that connects financial institutions and merchants through verified transaction data and merchant-funded rewards. Its embedded, machine learning-powered personalization and matching capabilities simplify rewards for issuers, deliver meaningful value to customers and help brands reach high-intent consumers with measurable outcomes.
By combining Citi’s scale and payments expertise with Kard’s technology, talent and merchant relationships, the proposed acquisition will strengthen Citi’s commerce ecosystem, enabling more personalized rewards and offers while creating new opportunities to connect customers, merchants and brands.
“We’re focused on helping customers get more value from their everyday spending,” said Abhinav Anand, Citi’s Head of Value Cards, Lending and Commerce. “Kard has built advanced capabilities that complement our vision for the future of commerce and loyalty. With this acquisition, we believe we can work with Kard to accelerate innovation and deliver more personalized experiences for customers while creating new opportunities for brands and merchants to reach, engage and reward consumers in more meaningful ways.”
“Joining forces with Citi marks an exciting new chapter for Kard, our team and our customers,” said Ben Mackinnon, Kard’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “I started Kard with the goal of building more rewarding experiences for consumers. Now being able to do that for Citi’s 70 million cardmembers 1, on top of the millions we support today, accelerates that original vision towards building the future of commerce.”
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed and are not material to Citi’s financial results. The transaction is subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Until the transaction closes, Citi and Kard will continue to operate as independent organizations. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, A Stifel Company, acted as exclusive financial advisor to Kard in connection with the transaction. Sullivan & Cromwell LLP acted as counsel to Citi and Latham & Watkins LLP acted as counsel to Kard.
1 As of December 31, 2025. Includes General Purpose and Private Label Credit Cards and Installment Lending, primarily in the U.S.
About Citi
Citi is a preeminent banking partner for institutions with cross-border needs, a global leader in wealth management and a valued personal bank in its home market of the United States. Citi does business in more than 180 countries and jurisdictions, providing corporations, governments, investors, institutions and individuals with a broad range of financial products and services.
Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | X: @Citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi
About Kard
Kard is the leading rewards infrastructure powering next-generation personalized rewards through a commerce media network. Using predictive AI and first-party transaction data, Kard helps financial institutions, fintechs, and brands understand and influence real consumer spend. Its flexible, API-driven platform enables partners to deliver personalized, data-driven rewards that deepen engagement, build loyalty, and turn rewards into revenue-generating marketing channels. Kard is backed by leading investors including Underscore Ventures, Fin Capital, and Tiger Global.
Certain statements in this release are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. These statements are not guarantees of future results or occurrences. Actual results may differ materially from those included in these statements due to a variety of factors. These factors include, among others, satisfaction of the closing conditions to the transaction, including required regulatory approvals; and the precautionary statements included in this release. These factors also consist of those contained in Citi’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, the “Risk Factors” section of Citi’s 2025 Form 10-K. Any forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of Citi speak only as to the date they are made, and Citi does not undertake to update forward-looking statements to reflect the impact of circumstances or events that arise after the date the forward-looking statements were made.
Citi Expands Customer Engagement and Commerce Media Capabilities With Addition of Kard
Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010.
The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985 and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.
Having three executions in one day is a coincidence in scheduling, but it also reflected a trend of increased executions in the U.S. Eleven states executed a total of 47 people in 2025, the highest number since 2009. With Thursday's executions, 22 inmates have been put to death this year with nearly a dozen more scheduled.
The last time three executions were carried out on the same day was on Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas put inmates to death. Three executions were scheduled on the same day in 2018, but only one went forward after a Texas man was granted a reprieve and prison officials in Alabama had problems with the IV line.
Florida executed two men on the same day in July and has put 31 prisoners to death since the start of 2025.
Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, died by lethal injection at the state’s penitentiary in rural McAlester, the third person put to death this year in Oklahoma.
Cuesta-Rodriguez turned his head to look at his two relatives who attended and mouthed “I love you” but said he had no last words. His breathing was labored for several minutes before he was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. CDT.
Convicted of fatally shooting his girlfriend at their Oklahoma City home in 2003, Cuesta-Rodriguez had said he regretted killing Olimpia Fisher and told a board he didn't want clemency. His attorneys said he had a difficult childhood in Cuba and suffered from brain damage and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Fisher, 43, planned to leave Cuesta-Rodriguez when he shot her in one eye and then he waited about eight minutes as she screamed for help before firing the fatal shot into her other eye.
Fisher’s daughters, Cinthya Allen and Katya Wallis, said in a statement that they hoped the execution brings awareness to preventing domestic violence and they honor their mother by "raising our families to reflect the love and faith in God that she taught us.”
Anthony Darrell Hines received an injection in Tennessee for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jenkins. He was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT.
Hines stabbed Jenkins to death while the 54-year-old was working as a motel maid in Kingston Springs.
Hines said “not right now, thank you” when asked if he had final words, then said, “Tell my son hello" before he died. Hines' son witnessed the execution. He reconnected with his father four days earlier after not seeing him since he was 3 years old.
About four minutes after the curtain to the death chamber opened, Hines asked his spiritual adviser: “How long do I have?” Not long afterward, witnesses heard groans and heavy breathing as the spiritual adviser put her hands on his shoulders and prayed over him.
Afterward, Jenkins’ son detailed how his mother had only a plastic spray bottle to defend herself against the knife attack.
“I hope he felt severe pain because what he did to my mother is nothing compared to what he may have just gone through,” Dennis Jenkins said.
Hines' execution comes just three months after the attempted lethal injection of another man was stopped after medical staff couldn’t establish a backup IV line for more than an hour.
Hines, 66, appealed unsuccessfully to the governor and the courts, saying that the doctor who oversaw the May execution was unqualified and likely to botch his execution as well.
Alabama executed Jeremy Williams for the 2021 rape and murder of the young Georgia girl. He was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. CDT following the injection.
“I want to thank God for forgiving me for my sins so I can meet him in peace,” Williams said in his final words. He rocked his head back-and-forth and smiled and appeared to sing or speak before slowing become still on the gurney.
Williams, who pleaded guilty to killing Kamarie Holland, had declined to appeal and requested that his death sentence be carried out. In letters to the Alabama attorney general’s office, Williams sought an immediate execution date so his victim's family "may have some type of closure and satisfaction which they deserve.”
Williams, 42, raped and strangled Holland after offering her mother $2,500 for the child to perform a sex act, prosecutors said, adding he filmed his attack.
“To see on video what he did to this baby, what a grown man could do to a child, it’s shocking, it’s horrible, it’s disgusting,” Russell County District Attorney Richard Chancey said. “It’s just a level of evil.”
The girl’s mother is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sex trafficking.
Williams also was a suspect in the 2005 death of his infant daughter in Alaska but charges were not filed until 2022.
Corey Holland, Kamarie’s father, said she was an exuberant child who loved princesses and made people laugh.
“She loved playing dress-up, all her little Halloween costumes and her princess stuff I got her. She liked anything girly,” Corey Holland said.
It was Alabama’s first execution of the year. A nitrogen gas execution was put on hold in June after a federal judge ruled the method unconstitutional.
Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins and Hallie Golden contributed.
Katherine Dix, left, attorney for Anthony Darrell Hines, joined by his spiritual advisor Diana Gallaher, speaks after the execution of Hines at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada speaks at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution after the execution of Anthony Darrell Hines Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Pastor Ingrid McIntyre, left, and Pastor Wesley King talk outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before the planned execution of Anthony Darrell Hines Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
A man enters the area reserved for protesters opposed to the death penalty outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before the planned execution of Anthony Darrell Hines Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Dennis Jenkins, left, son of murder victim Catherine Jean Jenkins, speaks outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution following the execution of Anthony Darrell Hines Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
This Aug. 18, 2025, photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, who was sentenced to death for the 2003 fatal shooting of his girlfriend. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)
This undated photo, courtesy of the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC), shows death row inmate Anthony Darrell Hines at an unknown location in Tennessee. (TDOC Communications via AP)
FILE - This Oct. 9, 2014, file photo shows the gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
