Cross River Bank
“Can a chartered community bank become the full-stack infrastructure layer (core, issuing, processing, lending, FX, stablecoins) for every embedded finance program in the US?”
Founded2008
HQFort Lee, New Jersey, United States
FoundersGilles Gade
Total raised$900M+
Latest roundSeries D, 2022 ($620M)
Valuation$3B+ (2022)
IndustryInfrastructure / BaaS
The story
Founded 2008 as a small New Jersey community bank, Cross River pivoted in the mid-2010s to become a banking-as-a-service infrastructure provider for fintechs, powering early customers including Affirm, Coinbase, and Stripe. The bank built a proprietary API banking core (COS) and now operates as a sponsor-bank rail for neobanks, digital lenders, card programs, and crypto/stablecoin payments. Recent moves include launching in-house card processing (2025) and international payments (2025), pushing toward full-stack ownership of the embedded finance technology layer.
Product timeline
2008
Founded as a community bank in Fort Lee, NJ· banking
2015
Pivoted to embedded finance / BaaS, partnering with early fintechs like Affirm· pivot
2022
Raised $620M Series D at $3B+ valuation led by Eldridge and a16z· banking
2025
Launched enhanced International Payments solution with smart-routing across SWIFT and local rails· lending
2025
Launched in-house card processing engine, joining select group with full ownership of card stack· card
Regulated entities
2
regulatory licences held by Cross River Bank
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
9 layers disclosed in Cross River Bank’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Cross River Payments (self-operated)ACH (self-operated)Same-Day ACH (self-operated)Wire transfers (self-operated)RTP (self-operated)FedNow (self-operated)CRNow (self-operated)Push-to-card / OCT (self-operated)Pull-from-card (self-operated)Merchant acquiring (self-operated)
Money movement
in the full report
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Card issuing
in the full report
Ledger
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Sponsor bank
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Crypto
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
27 more providers across 8 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.