Future of Financial Product Aggregators (Portage)

Summary

• Muse became the #1 app on the App Store and Instinct is growing 10% day over day on its way to $1B of annualized payment volume.p.1
• Credit Karma grew revenue 20% to $2.6B in fiscal 2026, with $101M of the increase coming from its credit card vertical.p.3
• NerdWallet's consumer credit card revenue fell, which the company attributes to organic search headwinds.p.3
• Insurify, a consumer insurance aggregator, holds agency licenses in all 50 states.p.3
• Direct-to-consumer accounts for only 27% of personal-lines premium among the largest P&C insurers.p.4
• Portage expects AI to split the marketplace industry in two: information-only aggregators will be disintermediated, while those owning customer data or a regulated transaction will become more valuable.p.4

Key insights

1. Aggregators that only surface prices without underwriting or regulatory barriers face major headwinds from personal AI agent platforms.p.2
2. Credit Karma monetizes a logged-in member with credit bureau records, while NerdWallet monetizes an anonymous visitor from search.p.3
3. P&C and life insurance intermediaries need an agency license in each state where their customers live.p.3
4. The risk for aggregators is concentrated in carriers that let AI agents quote directly on their sites, a subset of the market that is expected to move slowly.p.4
5. Surviving platforms are expected to look like infrastructure for agents, offering APIs and MCP-style integrations with a transaction layer.p.4
6. Aggregators can build the pipes connecting AI agents to issuers and carriers, but the window closes once issuers and carriers build the capability themselves.p.5