Cross River Bank, a Fort Lee, N.J., bank that provides banking services for fintechs, has entered a partnership with the U.K. software provider Railsbank. The deal will allow Railsbank to offer application-programming-interface software in the U.S. that facilitates cross-border payments and other activities.
The deal seems significant for a few reasons. One is that Cross River’s support has helped several fintech companies succeed, including Affirm, Coinbase and Quicken Loans’ RocketLoans.
Another is that Railsbank will be able to offer cross-border payment technology to U.S. banks at a time of heated competition in that business — Mastercard and Visa are tussling over Earthport, Swift announced an integration with R3 this week, and Ripple recently said that it now has 200 financial institution customers.
Third, Cross River and Railsbank plan to help Railsbank’s existing U.K. customers set up shop in the U.S.
And fourth, the two companies say they will offer banking-as-a-service to fintechs on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Cross River welcomes Railsbank as one of its key international partners to help provide banking services on a global basis,” Gilles Gade, founder, president and CEO of Cross River, said in a news release. “This partnership enables Railsbank to better serve new and existing global customers and provide them with seamless international use of banking services, including timely, cross-border cash payments and disbursements, while also being introduced to innovative solutions.”
