Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) allows non-bank companies to offer accounts, cards, payments and lending to their own customers using a licensed bank’s regulatory permissions and infrastructure, typically accessed through APIs. Some BaaS providers hold banking licences themselves, while others operate as technology intermediaries between a brand and a partner bank.
Payment Expert profiles five BaaS providers that supply the infrastructure behind embedded finance products, each serving a different use case and customer type.
ClearBank
ClearBank was founded in the UK in 2015 and launched in 2017 as the country’s first new clearing bank in more than 250 years. The fully licensed bank provides clearing and agency banking services to fintechs, neobanks and other financial institutions through a single API, and does not serve corporates or consumers directly.
ClearBank is a direct participant in Faster Payments, Bacs and CHAPS in the UK. ClearBank Europe N.V., which received a European Central Bank licence in August 2024 under De Nederlandsche Bank supervision, provides euro accounts and payments.
ClearBank does not lend client money and holds deposits at the Bank of England, which removes the risk of a run on partner funds. Partners can offer their customers multi-currency accounts built on its cloud-native platform.
Some of ClearBank’s BaaS clients include:
- Coinbase
- Gemini
- GoCardless
- Revolut
- Tide
Speaking to Payment Expert in April 2026, Emma Hagan, CEO of ClearBank UK, explained the company’s BaaS strategy and how it is built for its partners to remain competitive.
“Our focus on being an infrastructure bank — rather than directly serving SMEs or consumers — has helped us concentrate on what we do best and do it well.
We expanded into embedded banking around 2019, starting with Tide.
“That was a natural extension of the same premise: cloud-native, API-led technology, resilient infrastructure, built-in compliance and controls. By partnering with other financial institutions that focus on the front end, we help them compete in the market while we focus on the banking infrastructure underneath.
“We now have nine embedded banking partnerships live in the market, including names such as Revolut and Chip. Again, competition exists in this space too, and we welcome that, because a thriving, competitive fintech ecosystem is good for the UK as a whole.”
Treasury Prime
Treasury Prime puts API’s first in its BaaS and embedded banking software services which are targeted to mid-market fintech firms and chartered banks.
The company focuses on delivering direct, multi-bank partner relationships by using a middleware API layer, bridging fintech software to traditional community bank core systems.
This allows Treasury Prime customers direct account opening, multi-bank deposit routing, FedNow and RTP (Real-Time Payments) integration, card issuing, and automated ledger management.
This can help fintech firms and small community banks to connect to over 20 banks across the US to launch bank-like products and form new partnerships with banks.
Treasury Prime uses real-time REST APIs, sandboxes and tools to integrate its BaaS systems to automate account openings, as well as KYC, money transfers and ledgers.
Some of Stripe Treasury’s BaaS clients include:
- Apollo
- Astra
- First Dollar
- OMB Bank
- Sydecar
Stripe Treasury
Global financial services company Stripe moved into BaaS in late 2020 with Stripe Treasury, enabling its partners to offer financial accounts to users without having to integrate core banking infrastructures.
Stripe Treasury performs embedded financial accounts and cash management to its partners’ management platforms.
Stripe’s BaaS offering integrates business accounts to its partners, alongside yield-bearing deposits, pay-in and pay-out functions utilising the ACH payment rail and wire transfers, as well as access to physical and virtual corporate debit cards within their software.
Also acting as an online payment, hardware, recurring payment and multi-party routing service provider, all of these payment functions can also be adapted to Stripe Treasury.
A financial services company at the scale of Stripe – $159bn in valuation – offers e-commerce companies and merchants security leveraging its trusted services to perform bank-like operations, without having to integrate infrastructure – which is often legacy-built – from a traditional bank.
Stripe Treasury also works with banks to offer Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) deposit insurance, and clearing connectivity through a network of partner banks.
Some of Stripe Treasury’s BaaS clients include:
- Arc
- Barclays
- Goldman Sachs
- Lopay
- Shopify
Swan
Swan is a native embedded banking company that works with software and digital platform companies to integrate its services through local IBANs and business bank accounts.
A European BaaS provider, with a license in France from the Banque de France, Swan services its European tech partners with IBAN accounts, access to the SEPA payment rail, and Mastercard-branded card issuance from within their native infrastructure.
One of Swans’ key offerings is that it leverages its regulatory license to handle backend compliance and other regulatory guidelines on behalf of its BaaS customers. This affords customers flexibility to focus on offering the BaaS services without being concerned with complying with various regulations.
Swans’ regulatory European license enables it to offer its BaaS operations across every European Union (EU) nation due to passporting capabilities.
This enables Swan’s BaaS partners to offer multiple business bank accounts across several European countries, enabling them to scale.
Some of Swans’ BaaS clients include:
- Aria
- Expensya
- Jump
- MyUnisoft
- Pennylane
Unit
Unit is a US-based BaaS provider which supports primarily startups with embedded banking products, such as deposit holding, wallets and for-benefit-of accounts.
The company supports startups with an all-in-one BaaS platform to enable them to support multiple payment and banking-like features, which includes lending, ACH and wire transfers, paper checks, real-time payments and push-to-card payments.
Unit also issues physical and virtual debit, charge and revolving credit cards, enabling access to credit for startups in the US. It can also lend money to small businesses to open up lines of credit.
Within its core BaaS offering it a white-lable checking and savings account, Unit is working alongside FDIC-insured banks to hold and save deposits on behalf of their partners.
Unit operates a built-in front-end user experience interface to be deployed into their partners’ infrastructure. This comes with automated KYC/AML checks and unified management dashboard, streamlining the user experience.
Some of Unit’s BaaS clients include:
- Cleo
- Homebase
- Invoice2go
- Thread Bank
- Wix
