ShopifyFor journalists · key findings
Six things this dataset says
FINDING 01
5.7× more
companies disclose their sponsor bank than name their KYC vendor (814 vs 144). The compliance layer goes dark by design.
FINDING 02
844
third-party providers serve the 3902 fintechs in the dataset — defined as ≥2 disclosed buyers or recognized Open Banking Tracker vendor.
FINDING 03
220 non-bank fintechs
have crossed from vendor relationship to owned banking, clearing, or card-issuing infrastructure — Square Financial Services, Coinbase, LendingClub Bank and others.
FINDING 04
Zero overlap
between US, UK, and EU BaaS leaders. US: Cross River / Bancorp / Helix by Q2. UK: ClearBank (3× the runner-up) / Modulr / Griffin. EU: Mangopay / Treezor / Solaris.
FINDING 05
US discloses 3-5×
more than other regions. 35% of US fintechs name their sponsor bank vs. 7-21% elsewhere — the widest gap is US vs EU (35% vs 7%). Driven by US regulatory disclosure norms (FDIC member badges, BSA/AML attestations) that don't exist in UK/EU.
FINDING 06
Stripe #1
PSP by disclosed-buyer count (326 of 3902, 8.4%). BaaS leader: Evolve Bank & Trust (64, 1.6%). Most-cited accounting connector: QuickBooks (10.9%).
Section 02 · disclosure rates
Which layers are auditable. Which go dark.
For each layer of the embedded-finance stack: what share of 3,902 analyzed fintechs publicly named a vendor? The gap between the green and red rows is the dark half of the stack — the layers regulators, integrity researchers, and journalists can’t audit from outside.
Layer
% masked ?
% disclosed
31.2%masked
45.9%
27.4%masked
32.7%
2.9%masked
20.9%
6.4%masked
16.2%
29.1%masked
16.0%
22.4%masked
15.9%
31.2%masked
12.9%
0.0%masked
3.7%
8.0%masked
3.5%
31.7%masked
3.2%
—
1.9%
Regulatorily disclosed (named on trust/regulatory surface) Commercially disclosed (named via case studies, partnerships) Trade-secret layer (rarely disclosed publicly)
What this meansThe payments side of the stack is auditable from outside. The risk side isn’t. Public datasets of vendor relationships — including this one — will always over-represent payments and under-represent KYC, fraud, and sanctions screening. Treat the red rows as a floor, not a ceiling. The “% masked” column is the second-order finding: even when a layer IS disclosed, a meaningful fraction of companies talk about their own-brand product (“Acme Pay”, “Acme Checkout”) without identifying the underlying provider. ~34% of fintechs that mention a PSP, and ~37% of fintechs that mention BaaS, hide the actual infrastructure behind a brand wrapper — a structural masking effect that makes the auditable-looking layers thinner than they appear.
“Open banking opened the access door to financial data, but access and usability are not the same thing. A full internal transaction record carries around nine usable data points. What comes through an open banking API is typically two, sometimes four.”
— Ivan Dovica · CEO & Co-founder, Tapix by Dateio
Section 03 · dataset composition
What kind of fintech are these?
The 3,902 fintechs in this dataset split into 9 working categories. Infrastructure providers (BaaS, card issuing, PSP) sit alongside the platforms that consume them (vertical SaaS, marketplaces, B2B fintech) — the report is a snapshot of an ecosystem where buyer and seller often appear in the same chart. 790 entries were excluded as non-fintech (investor/advisory firms, non-financial orgs, press fragments) before this breakdown.
1,369·35.1%
524·13.4%
400·10.3%
304·7.8%
247·6.3%
236·6.0%
233·6.0%
203·5.2%
158·4.0%
151·3.9%
56·1.4%
21·0.5%
Segments resolved via an enrichment cache + a local-profile fallback classifier sniffing each company’s public industry, tagline, and thesis. “Other” entries are kept in the dataset; we surface them as a visible gap rather than dropping them or guessing.
You’ve reached the teaser
The full report continues with sponsor banks, regional breakdowns, the self-banked club, the BaaS failure cycle, and methodology.
Subscribe for the launch and it lands the day the full index opens. Journalists and analysts who need it sooner: use the press route below.
- Six more sectionsSponsor banks, regional breakdowns, the self-banked club, the BaaS failure cycle, methodology.
- The 300-provider landscapeEvery provider we track, by category and disclosed reach.
- The datasetThe underlying disclosures, so you can check any number yourself.