Beyond the Agreement: What MoneyLIVE Reinforced About Successful Fintech Partnerships

I recently had the opportunity to represent NEACH Payments Group at MoneyLIVE North America in Chicago, joining banking leaders from BMO and Citi for a panel discussion on what it takes to build successful fintech partnerships.

Our conversation brought together different, but complementary, perspectives. The BMO and Citi panelists discussed how their institutions approach strategic investments and shared examples of investments that have produced successful outcomes. I focused on what I see after a bank identifies a promising fintech and begins translating that opportunity into an actual operating relationship.

That is often where the real work begins.

In my work with financial institutions, fintechs, and other participants across the payments ecosystem, I have seen partnerships built around a strong business case, innovative technology, and genuine enthusiasm. Yet even with those elements in place, relationships can struggle because the parties never fully define how the partnership will work in practice.

The agreement may be signed. The technology may be ready. The strategic value may be clear. But has anyone mapped the entire flow and documented who is responsible for each step?

That was one of the most important messages I wanted to leave with the audience.

A Strong Agreement Is Not the Same as a Clear Operating Model

Banks and fintechs understandably devote significant time and resources to negotiating their agreements. Those agreements are essential, but they are often filled with legal terms, broad commitments, and contractual protections that do not tell the people managing the relationship what they are expected to do each day.

An agreement may state that one party is responsible for compliance, oversight, monitoring, or reporting. But what does that mean operationally?

Who performs the activity? Who reviews the results? Who maintains the supporting documentation? Who communicates with the customer? Who escalates an exception, and who makes the final decision?

If those responsibilities are not clearly defined, each party may enter the relationship with a different understanding of who owns the work. The disconnect may not become apparent during implementation. It usually surfaces later, when an exception occurs, a compliance question arises, information is needed, or one party discovers that the other has not been performing an activity everyone assumed was covered.

That is when frustration begins.

One of the most practical steps a bank and fintech can take is to map the relationship from beginning to end. The process flow should identify the parties, systems, data, decisions, controls, handoffs, and escalation points involved. It should be supported by a responsibility matrix that clearly establishes who performs, approves, monitors, documents, and escalates each activity.

This is more than an administrative exercise. It reveals whether the contractual relationship can actually function as intended.

Due Diligence Should Fit the Relationship

I also discussed a challenge I see frequently: banks do not always understand which regulatory and compliance requirements apply to a fintech’s specific role.

That uncertainty can create problems in both directions.

In some cases, a bank may not conduct enough due diligence because it has not fully examined the fintech’s activities, access to data, or role in the transaction flow.

In other cases, the bank may request extensive documentation that does not apply to the fintech at all. The institution follows its standard due diligence checklist without first considering the company’s actual role, responsibilities, services, and risk exposure.

Neither approach produces meaningful oversight.

A standardized due diligence program can provide a valuable foundation, but it should not replace informed judgment. Before issuing a document request, a bank should understand the service being provided, the activities the fintech will perform, the data it will access, the responsibilities it will assume, and the requirements that apply to those activities.

The goal should not be to collect the largest possible volume of documentation. The goal should be to obtain and evaluate the information needed to understand the relationship and determine whether the fintech can fulfill its responsibilities safely, effectively, and consistently.

More documentation does not automatically mean better due diligence. Relevant documentation, thoughtful review, and clearly defined follow-up do.

Banks Must Evaluate Their Own Readiness, Too

Fintechs have also shared another side of this challenge with me. Some entered a relationship only to discover that their banking partner was not fully prepared to support their activity.

The bank may have approved the opportunity and completed its review of the fintech, but it did not adequately assess what would need to change inside its own organization.

A new fintech relationship can affect transaction volumes, exception handling, reconciliation, customer service, compliance monitoring, reporting, data management, and escalation procedures. It may require different systems, additional staffing, new expertise, or greater coordination across departments.

Before moving forward, a bank needs to look inward.

Do its systems have the functionality and capacity to support the activity? Does it have enough people with the right expertise? Can its monitoring and reporting keep pace with the anticipated volume? Which existing processes will need to change? Have all affected departments been included in planning?

This is another reason I place so much importance on process mapping. A complete flow does more than show how the fintech’s technology works. It allows the bank to see where the activity enters its environment, which teams and systems it touches, and where internal processes will need to change.

Without that assessment, a bank may sign an agreement that it cannot effectively operationalize. The fintech may encounter delays, inconsistent support, unclear answers, or service limitations that were not evident during onboarding. What began as a promising strategic partnership can quickly become frustrating for everyone involved.

Banks spend significant time asking whether a fintech is ready to work with them. They should apply the same discipline to asking whether they are ready to support the fintech.

The question is not only, “Can this fintech support us?”

It is also, “Are we prepared to support the fintech and the activity it will bring to our institution?”

AI Requires Alignment and Continuous Oversight

Artificial intelligence was another important part of our panel discussion. My focus was not simply on whether a fintech uses AI, but on whether its practices align with the bank’s own AI governance expectations.

A bank may have carefully established an AI policy, risk appetite, data-use standards, and approval processes. Those controls can be undermined if a fintech that receives bank or customer data operates under materially different standards.

Banks need to understand how the fintech uses AI, what data is made available to AI-enabled capabilities, whether that data is used to train or improve models, and whether third-party AI providers are involved. They should also understand how the fintech tests and governs its AI capabilities and how material changes are communicated.

But that evaluation cannot end after onboarding.

AI capabilities can change quickly. A feature may expand, a model may be updated, or a new use case may be introduced. Data may begin supporting functionality that was not contemplated when the agreement was signed.

If a fintech receives bank data and uses AI as part of its services, the bank must continuously evaluate whether the technology is still operating within the scope it reviewed, approved, and contracted for.

The practical question is straightforward:

Is the AI capability still doing what the bank agreed to, or has its functionality or use of data expanded beyond the original understanding?

That question should be addressed through ongoing governance, periodic review, change-notification requirements, and clear contractual limitations on data use. AI oversight cannot be treated as a one-time due diligence exercise.

Successful Investments Still Require Operational Discipline

I appreciated hearing how BMO and Citi approach strategic investments and partnerships. Their examples demonstrated what is possible when institutions connect innovation to clearly defined business needs.

My role in the discussion was to reinforce the operational discipline required to sustain that value.

A compelling solution and a successful investment can create the opportunity for a strong partnership. They cannot replace a complete process flow, clearly assigned responsibilities, relationship-specific due diligence, adequate systems and staffing, defined data-use parameters, or continuous oversight.

Banks that get fintech partnerships right do more than select promising technology. They build the operating framework needed to support it.

My Biggest Takeaway

MoneyLIVE reinforced for me that the industry's conversation about fintech partnerships is maturing. The focus is no longer limited to identifying an innovative solution, making a strategic investment, or launching a pilot. Institutions are asking more difficult and important questions about which partnerships can scale and what is required to create lasting value.

My biggest takeaway is also the message I hoped to leave with the audience: clarity and preparedness are two of the most important controls in any fintech partnership.

The parties need more than a signed agreement. They need a shared understanding of how the relationship will operate, who is responsible for each activity, which requirements apply, what information must be exchanged, and how changes will be governed.

The bank must also take an honest look at whether its own systems, staffing, expertise, and internal processes are prepared to support the proposed activity.

When responsibilities are unclear or either party is unprepared, even the most promising relationship can become a source of frustration and unmanaged risk. When responsibilities are thoughtfully defined, processes are mapped, due diligence reflects the actual relationship, and both parties understand what will be required of them, the partnership is far better positioned to scale.

I was grateful for the opportunity to represent NEACH Payments Group and bring an operational, payments, and compliance perspective to the discussion. Hearing how BMO and Citi approach strategic investments provided valuable insight into how large institutions evaluate, support, and scale innovation.

It also reinforced something I see repeatedly in my own work: the partnerships that create lasting value are not simply the ones with the best technology. They are the ones that translate strategy into clear responsibilities, practical processes, relevant due diligence, organizational readiness, and continuous oversight.

The discussion at MoneyLIVE is one that I am looking forward to continuing. Many of the themes we explored on stage, including partnership governance, operational readiness, risk management, process mapping, and fintech oversight, are the same topics we will be diving into during NEACH's Fintech Integration Series. As financial institutions continue to explore new partnership models and emerging technologies, having open conversations about what makes these relationships successful has never been more important.