Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS)
A provider that bundles accounts, payments, cards and compliance behind one licence and API, letting a non-bank embed regulated banking into its product.
BaaS collapses the stack: instead of composing an IBAN sponsor, a card issuer, a KYC vendor and a processor, you contract one provider that runs all of it under its licence. Fastest path to market; the trade-off is coupling - pricing, roadmap and risk appetite of one partner.
Sovereignty check: where is the data hosted (EEA?), who ultimately owns the provider, and which licence is behind it (bank vs EMI - deposit protection differs). The catalogue shows all three flags per provider.
Primary source: Directive (EU) 2015/2366 (PSD2) · EBA Guidelines on third-party risk management
In the verified data
- 61 live BaaS providers; 43 of them keep data inside the EEA (70%).
- Whose licence: 9 run on a banking licence (deposits guaranteed up to EUR 100,000), 34 on an e-money licence (funds safeguarded, not guaranteed), 4 on a payment-institution licence and 11 are technology vendors that bring a licensed partner - the class decides what happens to client money if the provider fails.
- 5 are US-controlled, by origin or by their ultimate parent (Mbanq, Striga, Synctera, Treasury Prime and 1 more) - CLOUD Act exposure that European hosting alone does not remove.
Recomputed from the catalogue and the official EBA, ESMA and FCA registers on every build — how we verify.
Questions to ask a provider
- Whose licence will my customers sit under, and what happens to my programme if that licence is restricted?
- Which components do you run yourself and which are subcontracted - processor, KYC vendor, IBAN partner?
- Where are customer and transaction data hosted, and who is your ultimate parent company?
Browse verified providers
Related terms
EMI licence (e-money institution) · IBAN sponsor · BYOL (bring your own licence)