Kareem Saleh
Fairplay CEO and Co-Founder
Rob Seidman is a fintech leader with over two decades of experience driving innovation across embedded finance, digital lending, and consumer payments. As Senior Vice President and Head of Avvance, Rob lead the incubation, strategy and launch of Avvance, U.S. Bank’s embedded finance platform designed to make every purchase more affordable. His work bridges the gap between traditional banking and modern fintech, delivering seamless financing experiences at the point of sale.
Rob’s fintech journey began at Health Credit Services (HCS), a startup POS lender later acquired by Ally Financial. As the Chief Product and Experience Officer, he drove strategy and new segment business development landing marquee partnerships and acquisitions that significantly expanded the company’s footprint and originations.
Rob’s career spans both high-growth startups and major financial institutions. Prior to U.S. Bank, he held senior product, strategy and partnership roles at Sezzle and Ally Lending, where he led digital transformation initiatives across healthcare, home improvement, and retail verticals. He began his career in banking with roles at J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers, building a strong foundation in capital markets and client strategy.
Rob holds an MPA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a B.A. from the University of Maryland.
Rob is passionate about building financial products that are intuitive, inclusive, and impactful—and continues to shape the future of embedded finance through innovation and strategic leadership.
2026 Agenda Sessions
How are AI agents coming for lenders?
AI agents are poised to fundamentally reshape the lending landscape. Unlike traditional automation, these autonomous systems can analyze credit risk, process applications, adjust pricing, and manage customer relationships with minimal human oversight.
This session explores how banks and fintechs must adapt as AI agents transform everything from underwriting to collections and examines whether lenders are ready for a future where their customers might be AI agents too. We'll cut through the hype to focus on how innovative lenders can position themselves to lead in this brave new world.
Takeaways:
• Learn how AI agents differ from existing automation and why this distinction matters for lending operations.
• Discover which lending functions are most vulnerable to agent-driven disruption and which represent the biggest opportunity for efficiency gains and risk reduction.
• Explore how lenders can prepare for both deploying AI agents internally AND serving customers who use agents to shop for loans.
Tuesday 31 March 09:35 - 10:15 Lending
AI & Agentic Systems
Data & Personalization
Infrastructure & APIs
This session explores how banks and fintechs must adapt as AI agents transform everything from underwriting to collections and examines whether lenders are ready for a future where their customers might be AI agents too. We'll cut through the hype to focus on how innovative lenders can position themselves to lead in this brave new world.
Takeaways:
• Learn how AI agents differ from existing automation and why this distinction matters for lending operations.
• Discover which lending functions are most vulnerable to agent-driven disruption and which represent the biggest opportunity for efficiency gains and risk reduction.
• Explore how lenders can prepare for both deploying AI agents internally AND serving customers who use agents to shop for loans. Lending US/Pacific
