Pathway 02
How U.S. federal and state law treats payment products, lending features, bank partnerships, open banking, and digital assets.
There is no single U.S. fintech statute. A payment or lending product picks up obligations from a patchwork of federal regulators — the CFPB, FinCEN, the banking agencies, sometimes the SEC or CFTC — layered over fifty state licensing regimes. The result: two products that look identical to a user can carry completely different legal duties.
These guides are built around the questions examiners and bank partners actually ask: who touches the funds, who owns the customer relationship, what the fee really is, and which written agreement says so. Start with the guide that matches your product's mechanics, not its marketing label.
Foundational guide
Banking, Payments & Fintech
When a software company adds accounts, cards, or lending through a partner bank, the contract says who does the compliance work — but regulators decide who answers for it. The two are not the same.
Who owns compliance when a bank and a fintech share a product.
Banking, Payments & Fintech
When a software company adds accounts, cards, or lending through a partner bank, the contract says who does the compliance work — but regulators decide who answers for it. The two are not the same.
Banking, Payments & Fintech
Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act gives consumers a right to their financial data. The CFPB's 2024 rule turned that right into detailed obligations — then litigation and reconsideration put the details in motion.
Whether the product is money transmission, credit, or something else.
Banking, Payments & Fintech
Whether a payment product needs money-transmitter licenses is decided by where the money actually sits and who controls it in transit — not by what the product is called.
Banking, Payments & Fintech
Earned wage access lets workers draw pay before payday — and forces a classification question the law is still answering: is this payroll timing, or is it credit with fees that look like interest?
Banking, Payments & Fintech
Pay-in-four products sit at the edge of several federal credit statutes. Coverage turns on how the plan is structured — but fair-dealing rules and servicing duties apply no matter what the label says.
The federal stablecoin framework and what still varies.
Banking, Payments & Fintech
The 2025 GENIUS Act gave payment stablecoins a federal charter path, but it did not replace securities, commodities, AML, sanctions, or state licensing analysis. Here is the checklist that still has to be run.
Questions here often lead into these areas next.