Rebundling Financial Services into Platforms
Roy Ng, EVP, Chief Business Officer at FIS, on the future of BaaS
The big shift is that financial services is moving from a single bank bundle to a software bundle. Cards, accounts, KYC, fraud checks, lending, and ledgering used to come from one bank relationship. Fintech split those functions into specialist vendors, which made it much easier for a software company to launch one financial product first, then add more once it owned the customer workflow. That is why breadth is becoming valuable again at the platform layer.
-
A company that starts with card issuing is usually not just buying card issuing. It also needs a sponsor bank, identity checks, compliance workflows, transaction monitoring, settlement, and often a ledger. That is why issuer processors like Marqeta and all in one BaaS platforms solve different problems, one provides a core rail, the other coordinates the full stack.
-
The money explains the unbundling. BaaS platforms and fintechs monetize through interchange, account fees, and subscriptions, while point providers capture one slice of that stack. As programs scale, more economics move to the customer facing fintech or software platform, which pushes infrastructure vendors to either go deeper in one function or own more of the bundle.
-
This is also why the market has consolidated. The first wave produced many thin wrappers serving startups. The newer winners are either broader platforms selling into larger brands and banks, or specialists with a clear wedge like card issuing, KYC, or lending. Bond moving into FIS and Atelio fits that rebundling pattern exactly.
The next phase is fewer standalone fintech features and more embedded financial workflows inside vertical software. The platforms that win will look less like simple API catalogs and more like operating systems for moving money, checking compliance, and launching multiple products from one system of record. Specialists will still matter, but mostly as ingredients inside larger bundles.