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10 Companies Leading the BaaS and Headless Banking Revolution
Enhancing the Customer Experience with Innovative Banking Solutions
With customer experience a top priority for just about every industry across the globe (and if not, it should be!), there are some organizations that clearly come out on top. When it comes to providing banking/financial products and services, there are often distinct winners in terms of engaging customers and ensuring a streamlined, positive experience. And a lot of that comes down to innovative, cutting-edge technology. Two such models of innovation are headless banking (decoupling the front-end user interface from the back-end banking process for greater flexibility without altering underlying banking mechanism) and Banking-as-a-Service, otherwise known as BaaS (which enables non-financial companies/non-banks to offer banking/financial services by integrating with a bank’s existing regulated infrastructure through APIs).
We’re looking at 10 companies that are using these banking models to bring customer experience, flexibility, and efficiency to the forefront of financial services.
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Based in the U.S., Column is a nationally chartered headless bank built to enable developers to create new financial products, including card programs, bank accounts, lending services, and debt financing. With the notion of helping finance be both customer and internet first, the company is first and foremost a software company (with a banking license!) that enables its customers to build exactly what they need without relying on outdated, agility-limiting systems.
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With a BaaS platform that enables companies to build their own unique banking products, Solaris Bank, headquartered in Germany, empowers its customers to offer embedded financial services with ease. As Europe’s largest embedded finance platform and possessing a full banking license, the company features straightforward APIs that allow fully embedded digital banking services.
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UK-based Griffin is known as ‘the bank you can build on,’ with simple, quick, and cost-effective solutions that allow UK companies to develop and launch their own financial products. Combining the power of a licensed bank with the flexibility of modern SaaS technology, the company is built on secure, regulated banking infrastructure but also features modern APIs for the ability to seamlessly embed financial services into tech apps.
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One of Singapore’s tech success stories, Pave Bank is aiming to reimagine how banking is built. With regards to product design and build, they are firmly a tech company, and when it comes to risk and compliance, they are a fully regulated bank, blending the best of both worlds to ensure security and transparency combined with innovation and flexibility for safer, more integrated banking experiences.
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Billed as Europe’s BaaS leader, Paris-based Treezor offers a white-label solution that allows its customers to embed financial services directly into the client experience. With a wide range of available use cases (including gift cards, restaurant cards, neobanks, and employee benefits), the company enables creative banking with a modular, one-stop-shop solution, allowing customers to outsource payment needs to their tech experts.
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Known as ‘the bank for banks,’ ClearBank doesn’t provide any services directly to consumers, but enables financial services providers, including fintechs and FCA-regulated companies, to build their own solutions and services that put customer experience and innovation at the forefront. Financial institutions use their cloud-based API to offer consumers fully regulated banking infrastructure, allowing FIs to focus on customer service instead.
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Powering the next generation in Fintech, U.S.-based Green Dot offers an integrated bank, program management, and enterprise-grade APIs in one single platform. With major customers including Walmart and Uber, Green Dot provides end-to-end infrastructure for banking programs (including branded cards, payments, and payroll and tax services) that power growth and innovation.
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BBVA:
Far from a startup tech company, multinational banking group BBVA is now offering BaaS products via API, connecting to BBVA’s core digital banking program. Their API market enables innovation in digital transformation, in a variety of combinations of use cases and regions (including Mexico, Spain, and global versions focusing on accounts, payments, collections, loans, and more).
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Headquartered in Amsterdam but servicing customers across the globe, Mambu is a SaaS cloud-banking platform that enables its clients to build innovative banking experiences for their customers, quickly and flexibly. Featuring a composable approach to banking that overcomes some of the challenges of legacy banking systems, Mambu allows customers to build exactly what they need, using only the components required, and focusing strongly on the end-consumer experience.
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10x:
With the belief that tech can enable real transformation for the banking industry, 10x aims to build better banks that put the customer first. With a proprietary cloud-native core banking platform, 10x offers a transformational end-to-end approach that empowers financial institutions to become agile and competitive.
There are plenty more innovative companies focusing on headless banking and BaaS, enabling truly customer-centric embedded banking and financial services. We’re keeping our eyes on where the industry is going next, but it’s clear that any organizations that offer the capabilities for integrated, frictionless customer experiences, while improving operational efficiency and flexibility, and enabling business growth, are the ones that will come out on top.
Additionally, headless banking can significantly impact your cost efficiency. By utilizing APIs to connect disparate systems and services, you can reduce the need for an extensive overhaul of the backend every time the front-end technology evolves or customer expectations change. This modular approach reduces development and maintenance costs, but also strengthens security protocols, enabling potential security breaches to be isolated and managed more effectively, and minimizing overall risk.
When it comes to regulatory compliance, headless banking offers an adaptable framework that simplifies the integration of compliance measures into both existing and new products. This flexibility is crucial for global expansion, and embracing open banking standards, allowing you to easily customize and localize your offerings to meet specific regional regulatory requirements as well as cultural preferences. The opportunity to expand your global footprint while enhancing your service delivery will help to drive business growth and customer satisfaction.
For more info on how headless banking and BaaS are transforming the industry, read the blog.
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