Proprietary Core Powers Embedded Finance
Anthony Peculic, Head of Cards at Cross River Bank, on building a fintech one-stop shop
Owning the core lets Cross River act like both the bank and the software vendor, which means it can change product rules, add rails, and launch new partner features without waiting for Fiserv style vendors or middleware layers. In practice, that means one system handles the ledger, compliance logic, payments, cards, and lending workflows behind fintech apps, so Cross River can move faster and offer more custom programs than banks stitching together outside providers.
-
A bank core is the system of record for accounts and money movement. If a fintech wants instant account opening, card controls, ACH, RTP, or loan funding through one API, Cross River can wire those functions directly into its own operating system instead of asking a third party core processor to make changes.
-
This is unusual among community banks. Many sponsor banks rely on legacy cores and let middleware platforms sit on top. Synctera describes those banks as outsourcing most of the tech stack, while calling Cross River and Column rare examples of banks that built and share their own internal stack with fintech partners.
-
The business impact is visible in how Cross River competes. It can sell a fuller bundle, deposits, payments, cards, lending, and now stablecoin settlement, through one integration layer. That helps explain why it has scaled to more than 80 fintech partnerships and a much larger revenue base than newer vertically integrated peers like Lead Bank and Column.
The next phase is a split market. More banks will improve API access, but the winners in embedded finance will be the ones that control both regulated banking and the underlying software. That makes proprietary cores less of a nice technical feature and more of the foundation for owning bigger partner relationships over time.