No Banking Charter? No Problem. Fintechs Team Up With Small-Town Banks

Customers of Square Inc., the Silicon Valley payments behemoth, might assume that the cash they send to friends on the platform is housed in a glassy building in Silicon Valley, tended to by hoodie-clad tech workers. Actually, that money is more likely to be sitting in a 117-year-old community bank in Iowa.

Partnerships between high-flying tech companies and traditional banks, many of them tiny by comparison, are a key force behind the financial technology boom. Because virtually no tech companies have the license required to perform banking services, many of them partner with existing banks to offer a suite of services including checking accounts, credit cards and the back-end and regulatory work the tech companies aren’t equipped—or allowed—to handle.