{"id":25777,"date":"2026-02-19T22:45:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T22:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=25777"},"modified":"2026-02-19T22:45:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T22:45:48","slug":"medallion-stresses-home-improvement-loans-to-drive-2026-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=25777","title":{"rendered":"Medallion stresses home-improvement loans to drive 2026 growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul class=\"rte2-style-ul\">\n<li><b>Key insight:<\/b> New York&#8217;s Medallion Financial is counting on a newly hired home-improvement lending team to boost loan growth in 2026.<\/li>\n<li><b>Supporting data:<\/b> At the one-time taxi lender, medallion loans now comprise less than 1% of total loans.<\/li>\n<li><b>Expert quote:<\/b> &#8220;The last five years, we&#8217;ve made more than we have in the first 85 combined. Things are flowing really well for us today.&#8221; \u2014 Medallion CEO Andrew Murstein<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Medallion Financial, a New York City-based lender that has diversified away from its roots in taxi-medallion lending, expects to grow home-improvement loans at a rapid clip in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Processing Content<\/p>\n<p>CEO Andrew Murstein told analysts Thursday that the company is &#8220;excited&#8221; about the growth opportunities in home-improvement lending. &#8220;We think we&#8217;re going to grow mid-teens, which is substantially above where we&#8217;ve been for the last year or two,&#8221; he said during a conference call.<\/p>\n<p>Medallion, the holding company for Medallion Bank, has been active in home-improvement lending since 2012. Though the portfolio has experienced rapid growth historically, 2025 was an off year. Total home-improvement loans actually shrank 2%, totaling $810.2 million on Dec. 31.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, the $3 billion-asset Medallion named veteran consumer lender Joel Cannon senior vice president of sales and marketing. Cannon heads a team of seasoned home-improvement lenders that Medallion lured away from the $159.6 billion-asset Regions Financial in Birmingham, Alabama.<\/p>\n<p>Murstein is counting on Cannon and his team to help galvanize Medallion&#8217;s results in 2026.<\/p>\n<div class=\"Enhancement\" data-float=\"\" data-align-left=\"\">\n<div class=\"Enhancement-item\">\n<figure class=\"Figure\">  <\/p>\n<div class=\"Figure-content\"><figcaption class=\"Figure-caption\">Andrew Murstein<\/figcaption><p>Medallion Financial<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been tracking how well they&#8217;ve been doing through the years,&#8221; Murstein said on the call with analysts. &#8220;We approached them and brought them in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cannon&#8217;s brief at Medallion covers both of the company&#8217;s biggest consumer-lending business lines: loans for recreational vehicles and home improvements.<\/p>\n<p>Medallion is not the only bank to forecast big home-improvement loan numbers for 2026. The $32.3 billion-asset First National Bank of Omaha is projecting a 30% year-over-year increase in the loan volume generated by its Slice home-improvement loan platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Medallion takes its name from the taxicab lending business Leon Murstein, Andrew&#8217;s grandfather, started in the 1930s. While the company expanded into commercial lending in the mid-1990s and founded Medallion Bank as a Utah-chartered industrial bank in the early 2000s, taxi lending remained a mainstay.<\/p>\n<p>But with the <ps-link><u>rise of Uber and other ride-share services<\/u><\/ps-link> since 2010, Medallion was forced to accelerate its diversification efforts. In addition to home-improvement and recreational vehicle lending \u2014 which is now Medallion&#8217;s single biggest business line, comprising more than 60% of its $2.6 billion-asset loan portfolio at Dec. 31, 2025 \u2014 the company maintains a <ps-link><u>growing fintech partnership operation<\/u><\/ps-link>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Medallion&#8217;s strategic partnership loan originations totaled $771.6 million in 2025, up materially from the $203.6 million it reported in 2024. &#8220;Originations continue to expand meaningfully quarter-over-quarter,&#8221; Murstein said Thursday. &#8220;We see great potential for this business over the next several years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Medallion on Thursday reported fourth-quarter net income of $12.2 million, up 20% from the same three months in 2024. Full-year 2025 net income totaled $43 million, compared with $35.9 million in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Medallion reported that its legacy portfolio of taxi medallion loans declined to $4.3 million on Dec. 31, representing less than 1% of total loans.<\/p>\n<p>Murstein said Medallion will &#8220;remain thoughtful and disciplined in evaluating new business lines and growth opportunities,&#8221; but he added that acquisitions aren&#8217;t &#8220;top of mind.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see us really buying any businesses in the near term,&#8221; Murstein said. &#8220;I think there&#8217;s just so much growth potential in the ones we have.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Murstein, who became CEO on Jan. 31, succeeding his father Alvin, also did not rule out a sale of Medallion. The company might &#8220;pull the trigger&#8221; if it received an offer with &#8220;a significant premium,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>All that said, steady-as-she-goes appears to be Medallion&#8217;s preferred course.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The last five years, we&#8217;ve made more than we have in the first 85 combined,&#8221; said Murstein, who previously served as the company&#8217;s president and chief operating officer. &#8220;Things are flowing really well for us today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanbanker.com\/news\/medallion-stresses-home-improvement-loans-to-drive-2026-growth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key insight: New York&#8217;s Medallion Financial is counting on a newly hired home-improvement lending team to boost loan growth in 2026. Supporting data: At the one-time taxi lender, medallion loans now comprise less than 1% of total loans. Expert quote: &#8220;The last five years, we&#8217;ve made more than we have in the first 85 combined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[3586,735,9697,469,6693,7943],"class_list":{"0":"post-25777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-banking","8":"tag-drive","9":"tag-growth","10":"tag-homeimprovement","11":"tag-loans","12":"tag-medallion","13":"tag-stresses"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}