Cross River and FinClusive Partner to Strengthen the Fintech Ecosystem and Increase Responsible Access to Financial Services

Cross River and FinClusive Partner to Strengthen the Fintech Ecosystem and Increase Responsible Access to Financial Services

Companies share fundamental mission to provide safe, reliable and compliant access to financial services to underserved communities and organizations

FORT LEE, N.J. - Cross River Bank (“Cross River”), a technology infrastructure provider that offers embedded financial solutions, today announced a partnership with FinClusive, a global Compliance-as-a-Service (CaaS) infrastructure provider for financial services, to provide account and payment services to advance secure and compliant access to the financially underserved.

“Regulatory compliance, responsibility and transparency are central to Cross River, and we continue to expand our partnerships with technology leaders focused on increasing financial access,” said Gilles Gade, Founder, President and CEO of Cross River. “Both Cross River and FinClusive share fundamental values and a compliance-driven approach.”

Cross River is a strong advocate for regulatory modernization in order to create clear guidelines and standards in the fintech industry without compromising accessibility to safe, sound, compliant and affordable financial services. FinClusive’s comprehensive Compliance-as-a-Service (CaaS) technology enables fintechs to grow in a responsible manner. Cross River remains focused on partners who share a forward-looking and streamlined compliance approach, ultimately strengthening the broader fintech ecosystem. Finclusive and Cross River partnered to bring expanded payment optionality to FinClusive’s platform earlier this year.

"In an uncertain industry environment—with ongoing challenges impacting both traditional and alternative financial services providers—this partnership is another example of our unwavering commitment to accountability and responsible governance within the financial system. Our partnership provides local communities with much-needed, reliable access to comprehensive compliance capabilities and demonstrates our shared commitment to innovation and compliance in tandem," said Amit Sharma, CEO of FinClusive.

FinClusive’s unique CaaS application and digital gateway embeds compliance-backed identity credentials into network transactions and enable both the secure onboarding of new clients, as well as continuous validation and verification downstream. This creates both cost and process efficiencies while ensuring application of global financial crimes compliance standards across any payment rail, traditional or alternative. Together, Cross River will provide enhanced payment capabilities, connectivity to the U.S. banking system and community access, while FinClusive will ensure the necessary consumer and business protections inherent to preserving financial system integrity.  

The FinClusive leadership team consists of senior executives from global financial institutions, technology companies, federal government and financial regulatory agencies, and international law firms. CEO of FinClusive, Amit Sharma, previously served as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary and Senior Advisor, Terrorism and Financial Intelligence of the US Dept of Treasury. The company’s compliance enabled credentialing environment platform was designed and built by Dennis Paige, CTO and a cofounder of FinClusive. Previously he served as senior examiner for technology and risk at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and prior to the NY Fed, was the security architect and program manager for the Security & Fraud, Payments & Cash Management Unit at HSBC, and also ran security architecture at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Co-founder, board member and legal counsel, John A. Squires, established FinClusive’s financial partner engagement platform. Mr. Squires was previously chief intellectual property counsel for Goldman, Sachs & Co. and co-founder of Regulatory DataCorp – now part of Moodys, He is also a principal drafter of the global compliance and inclusive finance working group’s The Rulebook, an open-source set of technology standards and self-regulatory best practices to increase safe, secure and compliant access to the global financial system.  

About FinClusive:

FinClusive is a global Compliance-as-a-Service (CaaS) infrastructure provider that enables  increased financial engagement by facilitating traditional banking’s connectivity with emerging technology networks,  existing and alternative payment rails and financial services providers. FinClusive’s, full-stack, financial crimes compliance/anti-money laundering Compliance-Enabled Credentialing Environment (CECE ™) platform and its Gateway seamlessly embed digitally verifiable compliance credentials into both the customer onboarding and transacting processes. This allows its banking and payment partners to confidently demonstrate compliance with global banking standards, while expanding their services and engagement to businesses, communities and alternative technologies that have been traditionally underserved or unwelcomed within in the global financial system. Learn more at www.FinClusive.com.