Valley National Bancorp to acquire digital small business bank Bluevine

Valley National Bancorp has agreed to acquire Bluevine, a nationwide digital banking platform for small businesses founded in 2013. The deal brings Valley $2.1 billion of low-cost, digitally sourced deposits, roughly 175,000 active small business customers, and an integrated suite of banking, payments and lending products. Bluevine's platform deposits have grown at about a 35% compound annual rate since 2023, with roughly 99% coming from non-borrowing customers.

Why it matters: Regional banks are buying fintech platforms outright to fix their funding costs and import engineering and AI talent rather than rent it from vendors.