Symposium Insights

July 2025

In a room full of financial institutions and fintech veterans, no one hesitated to acknowledge the shift: bank-fintech partnerships are no longer casual arrangements—they’re becoming compliance alliances.

At this year’s Payments & Banking Symposium, a panel of regulatory attorneys with deep experience advising banks and fintechs laid out the evolving risks shaping those relationships. What emerged was a striking reality: it’s not just fintechs under scrutiny anymore; banks are starting to feel the heat, too.

As one bank executive in the audience put it: “If we help a fintech by banking them, and their product crosses the line into illegality, it’s not just the fintech that’s exposed. The bank enabling it could be held liable as well.”

That risk calculus is forcing banks to look much more closely not just at who they partner with, but how those partnerships are structured, marketed, and governed. Several panelists noted that where banks once assumed fintechs would “cover compliance,” many are now bringing in third-party auditors or creating in-house review teams to verify product integrity before launch.

“The nature of partnerships is changing,” said one panelist. “Banks are going deeper—not just into contracts, but into the product itself.”

And it’s not just scrutiny at the federal level. As national guidance around money transmission, earned wage access, and Buy Now Pay Later remains murky, state regulators are stepping in.

“It used to be: deal with one or two federal regulators. Now you’re dealing with 50 different regulators,” said a panelist, with “fintechs being aggressively pursued on the state level.”

The result: Caution is creeping into the innovation cycle. Some banks are pulling back from newer categories.

While new partnerships continue to emerge, their structure is changing. Some in the industry are responding by building from the ground up. “You’re going to have a period of massive new bank formation by non-banks because of the environment,” was one prediction.

Despite the friction, the panel wasn’t pessimistic. If anything, it pointed to a maturing industry, learning to operate more confidently within an evolving set of rules and responsibilities.

Thanks to these panel members:

Keith Barnett, Troutman Pepper Locke
Mark Furetti, Troutman Pepper Locke
James Stevens, Troutman Pepper Locke
Brad Miller, Priority