Money20/20 USA runs October 18–21 at The Venetian in Las Vegas. Two of this year's four content pillars are Partnerships as the Engine to Scale and Brave New World: Setting Guardrails (Money20/20 content pillars; Caliber). In other words, the event is about how banks and the companies building on them grow together, and the rules that apply while they do.
If your company has a strategic reason to launch a financial product (a card, embedded payments, lending, accounts) and you plan to build it with a partner bank, that makes this a useful week for the right conversations. It also means the conversations go better when you arrive with more than a pitch deck.
The timing matters this year
Two regulatory clocks are running during the show:
- Third-party risk. On September 11, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the NCUA and the OCC proposed new guidance on how banks manage third-party relationships. Comments are due November 16 (Federal Register). We covered what it means for partners in Build the diligence packet before the bank asks.
- Stablecoins. The Treasury's comment period on its proposed payment-stablecoin rules closes October 19, the Monday of the show (Caliber).
Neither is final, and either may change. The bankers you meet in Vegas will likely be reading both, though, and their questions may reflect it.
What to bring
You already know your customers and your industry. What the bank across the table is working out is whether it can stand behind your program with its examiners. These five questions tend to come up, and having answers ready gives the conversation somewhere to go.
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1. Who owns what? Know which obligations sit with you and which stay with the bank: complaints, disclosures, monitoring, reporting. If the answer is "we'll figure that out in the contract," expect a slower second meeting.
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2. Can you show last month's monitoring? Banks want evidence, not assurances.
"The packet that impressed me most wasn't the longest," says Tyler Ferguson, Chisel co-founder. "It was the one where every answer had an owner and a date, and the fintech could show me last month's monitoring without scrambling."
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3. Who are you depending on? List your processor, your network relationships and any middleware in between. If one of them failed, what would happen to your customers? The bank will ask.
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4. What's the exit plan? Under the proposal, banks are asked to plan for how a relationship ends. Have a short, honest answer on how customers, data and funds would move.
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5. What does it cost to do this twice?
"Budget for it like infrastructure, not paperwork," says Darin Petty, Chisel co-founder and CEO. "Who owns the diligence answers, how many hours a quarter does it take, and what happens to that cost when you add a second bank?"
Sessions worth your time
If you're building on a partner bank, these are the sessions we'd plan around. Times are from the Money20/20 agenda as of October 12, so confirm them in the app.
- Sponsor Banking at Scale: Driving Revenue Across the Lifecycle, Sunday, October 18, 9:30 AM, Marco Polo 801–803. Thread Bancorp, Hatch Bank and Pathward, moderated by EY, on building governance, automation and data in "from the start instead of bolted on after the exam."
- The Data Flows That'll Allow You to Bank More "High-Risk" Businesses, Tuesday, October 20, 10:15 AM, Master Track Deep Dive. Better data is often the difference between a bank's "no" and "yes, with controls."
- To Buy/Not Buy a Bank: The Great Fintech Debate, Tuesday, October 20, 1:45 PM, The Intersection Stage. TabaPay, Fiserv, Pathward and Stripe's merchant acquirer bank on partnering versus buying versus chartering. After September's deals, it's timely.
- A View from the FDIC: The Future of Financial Innovation. The regulator's own view, during the week the third-party risk proposal is out for comment. Check the agenda for the time.
- Trust Isn't a Soft Metric; It's All You've Got in Uncertain Times, Wednesday, October 21, 9:00 AM, Meridian Stage. A good closer for anyone whose product depends on a customer trusting someone else's balance sheet.
Before you fly
- Write one page: what you're building, who the customer is, and how the money moves. Keep the product decision separate from the partner and operating-model decisions.
- Assign an owner to each stage of the bank's diligence lifecycle: due diligence, contracting, monitoring, documentation, remediation, termination.
- Pick the sessions above that matter most to your roadmap, and block your meetings around them.
Meet us in Vegas
The Chisel team will be at Money20/20 all week. In 20 minutes we can look at where your product is today, which of the five capability families it depends on (Build, Connect, Comply, Operate and Grow), and what partner readiness will involve. You'll also get a straight answer on fit. If Chisel isn't the right partner, we'll say so.
- Darin Petty, Co-Founder & CEO: product architecture, program economics, and what you own versus rent.
- Tyler Ferguson, Co-Founder, President & COO: bank relationships, and what the bank side will ask for.
This post is for general information and is not legal or regulatory advice. The guidance and rules referenced are proposals and may change.