A banking-as-a-service provider is a company that lets other businesses offer bank accounts, debit cards, payments or loans to their customers under their own brand. The provider may be a licensed bank that sells this access directly, or a technology company that packages one or more banks' services for fintechs. The full explanation of the model, its economics and its risks is in the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) entry.
The distinction matters. The bank in the arrangement, often called a sponsor bank, holds the deposits and the licence and answers to regulators. A technology provider in the middle builds the connections, usually as a bank API, and handles onboarding and records for its fintech clients. When the middle layer fails, customers can be left unable to reach their money, as happened after the US middleware firm Synapse Financial Technologies went bankrupt in 2024.
BaaS providers are the supply side of embedded finance, in which financial services are built into non-financial apps and platforms.