Building a fintech no longer means developing an entire financial infrastructure in-house. In recent years, models such as Banking as a Service (BaaS) have enabled businesses to offer digital accounts, cards, payments, and other financial services without becoming a bank themselves.
This evolution has lowered the barriers to entry for startups, technology companies, and digital platforms looking to embed financial services into their products.
According to research from the Brazilian Fintech Association (ABFintechs), Brazil is already home to more than 1,400 fintechs, highlighting how established this business model has become.
In this article, you'll learn how the Banking as a Service model can help businesses launch a fintech faster by leveraging specialized financial infrastructure.
You Don't Need to Be a Bank to Offer Financial Services
While certain activities require regulatory authorization, many businesses can offer financial experiences through specialized providers without becoming a banking institution themselves.
Instead of developing the entire operation in-house, a company can integrate a platform that already provides the components needed to offer financial services to its customers.
This allows the company to focus its resources on the customer experience and product development while a specialized partner operates the underlying financial infrastructure.
The Challenges of Launching a Fintech
Even companies with extensive technology experience face challenges when entering the financial services market. Key challenges include:
Integrating with the financial system
Payment processing
Account opening and management
Financial settlement
Regulatory compliance
Anti-money laundering (AML)
Customer identification and verification (KYC)
Building secure and scalable infrastructure
Developing all these components in-house can increase the time required to launch a product, raise project costs, and add operational complexity.
What Is Banking as a Service (BaaS)?
Banking as a Service (BaaS) is a model that enables businesses to embed financial services into digital products through APIs, without having to build or operate their own banking infrastructure.
Instead of building this infrastructure from scratch, businesses integrate ready-to-use capabilities through APIs, including:
Digital account opening
Local currency account issuance and management
Payments and transfers
Pix
Balance management
Financial settlement
Integration with other financial services
This model reduces technical complexity, accelerates the launch of new products, and allows companies to focus their resources on growing the business.
The Architecture Behind the BaaS Model
In a Banking as a Service model, the fintech is responsible for the interface and customer experience, while the infrastructure provider delivers the financial services required to operate the product.
In practice, this architecture brings together different components, including:
Integration APIs
Financial infrastructure
Payment processing
Settlement mechanisms
Regulatory compliance
Transaction monitoring
Operational management
By consolidating these capabilities into a single platform, BaaS reduces the need to develop each layer independently, accelerating the launch of new financial products.
Financial Services a Fintech Can Offer
Depending on its business model and the infrastructure it uses, a fintech can offer a range of financial services.
Digital Accounts
Digital accounts allow users to receive, transfer, and manage funds entirely online.
Pix and Transfers
Integrating Pix and other payment methods expands the ways customers can make payments and move funds.
Domestic and International Payments
Beyond domestic transactions, fintechs can integrate international payment solutions, enabling them to expand into additional markets.
Digital Asset Services
Businesses looking to offer cryptocurrency and stablecoin buying and selling or blockchain-based solutions can complement their offerings through Crypto as a Service (CaaS) models.
Why Financial Infrastructure Matters
A fintech's success depends not only on the experience it provides to users, but also on the strength of the infrastructure supporting the operation.
A modern platform needs to integrate financial system infrastructure, payment methods, settlement, APIs, regulatory compliance, liquidity management, and, when necessary, blockchain and digital assets.
The more integrated this architecture is, the lower the operational complexity tends to be and the easier it becomes to scale and launch new services.
The Benefits of Specialized Financial Infrastructure
By using ready-to-integrate financial infrastructure, fintechs can reduce development time, simplify integrations, and gain greater flexibility to scale their operations.
Key benefits include:
Faster launch of new products
Less reliance on multiple providers
Greater operational efficiency
The ability to respond to market changes more quickly
This allows businesses to expand their service portfolios without taking on the responsibility of developing and maintaining every technical layer that supports the operation.
How Transfero Supports Fintechs
Once you understand the role of Banking as a Service, the next step is evaluating which financial infrastructure best fits your operation.
The evolution of Banking as a Service (BaaS) has made it possible to embed financial services through APIs, lowering barriers to entry, simplifying operations, and accelerating the development of new products.
Transfero provides financial infrastructure designed for businesses looking to launch or expand financial products in Brazil. Through a unified platform, businesses can integrate:
BRL digital accounts
Pix and payments
Banking as a Service (BaaS)
International payments
Fiat-to-digital asset on- and off-ramps
Crypto as a Service (CaaS)
Stablecoin and blockchain network integration
By bringing these capabilities together in a single infrastructure, Transfero helps fintechs reduce operational complexity, accelerate the launch of new products, and focus their resources on innovation and customer experience.
Discover how Transfero's financial infrastructure can accelerate the launch of new financial services and support the growth of your business. Talk to our sales team.
