Question 1

What is a sponsor bank?

Accepted Answer

A chartered depository institution that provides regulated banking capacity — deposits, payments, card issuance — to a non-bank fintech under a contractual program, while retaining ultimate regulatory ownership of the activity.

Question 2

What is a program manager?

Accepted Answer

The entity — often a BaaS middleware or the fintech itself — responsible for day-to-day operational management of a card or deposit program on behalf of the sponsor bank, including customer servicing, compliance operations, and reconciliation.

Question 3

What is a financial ledger?

Accepted Answer

A record of accounts and the transactions that affect them, structured so that every transaction has equal debits and credits and every account balance can be derived from its history.

Question 4

What is payment orchestration?

Accepted Answer

The software and operating layer that coordinates payment providers, rails, and internal systems so each transaction can be routed, retried, tracked, and reconciled through one control point.

Question 5

What is PCI DSS?

Accepted Answer

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard — the contractual security and operational standard, maintained by the PCI Security Standards Council, that any entity storing, processing, or transmitting cardholder data must comply with.

Question 6

What is embedded finance?

Accepted Answer

The delivery of regulated financial products — accounts, payments, lending, insurance — inside a non-financial company's product surface, usually powered by a sponsor bank and supporting infrastructure.