Big Bank + Fintech: Fifth Third Taps Brex to Power New AI-Driven Commercial Card

Fifth Third Bank has partnered with Brex to launch a new commercial card that gives the bank’s commercial banking clients direct access to Brex’s intelligent finance platform. Through the Fifth Third Commercial Card powered by Brex, clients can issue corporate cards, automate expense management, enable real-time payments, and leverage AI-powered agents to reduce manual review while strengthening spend control, the companies announced in a December 9th 2025, press release.

Built on Brex Embedded payments infrastructure, the card will become Fifth Third’s default commercial card solution for its commercial banking clients.

Key Takeaways

• By making the Brex-powered card the default solution for commercial clients, Fifth Third is shifting a foundational banking function onto an external platform rather than running it as a standalone in-house product.
• The value proposition centers on reducing manual finance work, expense review, reconciliation, and controls. By embedding automation directly into spend workflows, rather than layering reporting tools on top of traditional cards.
• Access to a meaningful share of U.S. commercial banking clients through Fifth Third gives Brex a faster path to adoption than selling company by company, while keeping the bank as the primary client relationship.
• Instead of rebuilding legacy card and payables systems internally, Fifth Third is relying on embedded fintech infrastructure. It shows a model that other regional and national banks may follow to stay competitive.

Fifth Third Commercial Card with Brex Signals a Shift in How Banks Deliver Corporate Card Programs

Corporate card programs are becoming less about the plastic and more about the operating system behind spend. Fifth Third Bank’s new partnership with Brex is a clear example of that shift. On December 9, 2025, the two companies announced the Fifth Third Commercial Card powered by Brex, giving Fifth Third’s commercial banking clients access to Brex’s finance platform for card issuance, expense workflows, and payments.

For many mid-market and enterprise finance teams, the pain points are familiar – employees spend across dozens of categories and geographies, receipts arrive late (or not at all), approvals happen over email, and month-end reconciliation becomes a recurring scramble. Traditional card programs often deliver basic reporting, but they can fall short on automated policy enforcement, real-time controls, and clean data flowing into accounting systems. Fifth Third’s approach here is to offer a card program coupled with tooling that aims to reduce the manual work that typically sits around business spend.

The practical change for Fifth Third commercial clients is that they can issue corporate cards, automate expense management, and make real-time payments within the Brex platform, alongside AI agents designed to reduce manual review and help enforce spending controls. Rather than treating expense review as a fully after-the-fact process, the intent is to address common issues earlier in the workflow through tighter rules, faster categorization, and automated approval routing.

The partnership is also meaningful from a product architecture standpoint. The new offering is built on Brex Embedded payments infrastructure and is expected to become the default commercial card solution for Fifth Third’s commercial banking clients. That signals a broader industry trend: banks increasingly rely on fintech partners to modernize commercial card and payables capabilities without undertaking multi-year rebuilds of legacy platforms.

Tim Spence, Chairman, CEO, and President of Fifth Third Bank, said the partnership reflects a shift in what businesses need from financial platforms: not just payment processing, but tools that support operational efficiency and growth. He noted that combining Fifth Third’s banking capabilities with Brex’s AI-based technology is intended to simplify complex workflows, improve control and visibility, and help companies scale more effectively, including across global operations.

Pedro Franceschi, CEO of Brex, said Fifth Third shares Brex’s view that businesses increasingly expect financial tools to be proactive and intelligent, not purely transactional. He added that the partnership expands Brex’s reach to a meaningful portion of the U.S. commercial banking market and enables broader delivery of automated, AI-enabled finance capabilities. Together, the companies aim to provide commercial teams with faster processing, more consistent expense management, and tighter integration with the bank relationship clients already rely on.

In day-to-day terms, organizations evaluating a program like this should focus less on the headline “AI” and more on what it changes operationally. The value typically shows up in a few places:

• Fewer hours spent chasing receipts, coding expenses, and correcting submissions
• Clearer policy controls at the point of spend (limits, merchant restrictions, approval routing)
• Faster month-end close due to cleaner, more complete transaction data
• Better visibility for finance leaders into spend patterns and anomalies as they happen

There are also second-order effects worth paying attention to. When expenses are categorized consistently and matched to documentation earlier, finance teams can spend more time on analysis and forecasting rather than transactional clean-up. And when rules are enforced systematically, compliance becomes less dependent on individual reviewers remembering policy details under time pressure.

It’s also notable that Fifth Third’s corporate card program, which had been operated in-house, will be powered by Brex under this arrangement. This is an important reminder that partnerships like this are not just product launches; they can represent a foundational shift in how a bank runs a core commercial offering.

Bridgit Chayt, Head of Commercial Payments at Fifth Third, said the partnership brings together Fifth Third’s banking capabilities and Brex’s AI-enabled technology to streamline commercial finance operations. She emphasized that the combined platform is designed to automate routine workflows, improve real-time visibility into spending, and reduce manual work that often slows finance teams. The goal is to give businesses faster insight, stronger controls, and tools that can support growth across regions, allowing teams to spend more time on decision-making rather than reconciliation.

Art Levy, Chief Business Officer at Brex, said the partnership expands access to Brex’s AI-native finance tools for a broader set of commercial businesses. He noted that features such as automated spend controls, real-time reporting, and AI-assisted receipt capture and accounting are intended to reduce administrative effort and help finance teams close books more quickly. Together, the companies aim to support tens of thousands of businesses with more efficient, reliable spend and expense management connected to an established banking relationship.

For clients, the right questions now are pragmatic.

How well does the workflow integrate with current accounting and ERP tools?

What approval structures can be mapped directly into the platform without workarounds?

What data controls and audit trails are available, especially if AI-driven automation is part of the review process?

And what will change for employees submitting expenses on day one?

About Fifth Third

Fifth Third Bancorp is a U.S.-based financial services company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, providing a broad range of banking solutions to consumers, businesses, and government clients through its branch network and digital channels. The bank’s capabilities span retail and commercial banking, lending, treasury and cash management, payments, commercial card programs, and wealth and asset management, with a focus on supporting middle-market and larger enterprises through financing, liquidity management, and operational banking services.

Fifth Third is a regulated U.S. bank publicly traded under the ticker FITB, combining core banking services with continued investment in technology and partnerships to enhance the customer experience and modernize commercial finance.

About Brex

Brex is a U.S.-based financial technology company founded in 2017 that provides corporate cards and software to help businesses manage spending, expenses, and payments. Its platform typically includes tools for issuing cards, automating expense reporting and approvals, managing bills and reimbursements, and connecting spend data to accounting workflows, with additional capabilities such as travel and cash management products offered through partner institutions.

Brex operates as a fintech (not a bank) and is used by a range of companies looking to reduce manual finance work, improve real-time visibility into spend, and strengthen controls across teams and locations.

Conclusion

Taken together, Fifth Third’s partnership with Brex reflects where commercial cards are headed: spend management as an integrated finance function, not a standalone payment method.

For organizations that feel stuck between legacy card programs and piecemeal expense tools, this embedded model offers a path to consolidate controls, simplify operations, and improve financial visibility without asking the finance team to work harder just to keep up.

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