Cross River Bank

Cross River Bank provides a white-label banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform for enterprises, combining banking services, payments, and marketplace lending infrastructure to build fintechs. Its solutions comprise demand deposits, savings accounts, credit and debit cards, and payment clearing services, including automated clearing house (ACH) and real-time payments. The company also provides banking and payment infrastructure for the crypto industry, including risk management services for its crypto clients.

Key customers and partnerships 

As of December 2020, the company had over 400 employees, and had entered into more than 30 partnerships. Moreover, as of March 2021, the platform had been used to support over 375,000 small businesses through the paycheck protection program (PPP).

Cross River Bank teamed up with UK-based BaaS provider Railsr in January 2019 to launch a common API for their platforms to be used globally. As of April 2022, Cross River had over 80 clients including lenders such as Affirm, Best Egg, and Upstart, neobanks such as Revolut , and blockchain-based payment processing platform GreenBox. The platform reportedly originated over USD 24 billion in loans per annum, around 10x the value of loans it originated in 2015.

Cross River Bank has expanded its operations by acquiring Betterfin, a platform offering lending-as-a-service (LaaS) solutions, in November 2021. Through the acquisition, Cross River Bank leveraged Betterfin’s software to digitize parts of the small-business lending process (such as origination and underwriting). 

The company partnered with American Express (Amex) to enable FinTechs to issue credit cards through Cross River Bank, on the Amex network, while also providing select Amex benefits to the FinTechs. 

Funding and financials

The company raised USD 620 million in funding co-led by Eldridge and a16z, at a valuation of over USD 3 billion, to invest in product developments, recruitment, international expansion, and boosting strategic partnerships.