Itai Damti on regulation
From Banking as a Service: Dying or Evolving? (Interview w/ Unit's CEO Itai Damti) · · RexSalisbury
“The regulatory framework forces any company that wants to deliver financial services in the U.S. to partner with a bank — every checking account a fintech brand offers is actually delivered by an underlying bank partner, so partner banks remain critical nodes in the system.”
On , Itai Damti, CEO & Co-Founder at Unit, spoke about regulation during Banking as a Service: Dying or Evolving? (Interview w/ Unit's CEO Itai Damti) on RexSalisbury.
About Itai Damti
In an April 2024 interview, Itai Damti, CEO and co-founder of Unit, stated that he dislikes the term "banking as a service," describing it as inaccurate because it focuses on the supply side rather than the demand side and now covers too many different business models. He said Unit prefers the term "embedded finance." Damti argued that the first wave of fintech, which focused on single products to increase consumer access, has ended, and that the future of financial services lies in "rebundling" multi-product offerings. He cited Nav and Variable as examples of companies using distribution to bundle financial products. Damti noted that the U.S. regulatory framework requires any company offering financial services to partner with a bank, and that inserting a technology company between the bank and the customer creates new risk surfaces. He said Unit built an operating system with bank-facing features to provide banks with real-time visibility and enforcement, allowing clients to maintain direct relationships with the bank. Damti stated that he envisions a future that is "less bank-specific and more software-heavy," where thousands of software companies offer financial services through their existing distribution.
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