From Coordination to Co-Building: How Fintechbank Partnerships are Reshaping Liquidity, Credit, and Consumer Strategy in 2025

Rebecca Bacon, VP & Head of Financial Institutions, Upgrade, Inc

Rebecca Bacon, VP & Head of Financial Institutions, Upgrade, Inc

Rebecca Bacon is Vice President and Head of Financial Institutions at Upgrade, Inc., where she leads bank and credit union partnerships for credit and deposits. A FT Partners Women in FinTech Rising Star she is a frequent contributor to peer-reviewed research and a speaker at industry events including Digital Banking, Banking Transformation Summit, and the American Banker Conference.

The financial services ecosystem in 2025 is defined not by disruption, but by integration. We’ve entered an era where the question is no longer whether fintechs and banks should work together—it’s how to do it well, sustainably, and at scale. The winners are no longer the fastest movers, but the best-aligned operators.

Beneath a turbulent macro backdrop—where markets oscillate between hopes of a soft landing and fears of renewed tightening—one steady force remains: the consumer. While headline volatility grabs attention, underlying household fundamentals remain broadly resilient. Wage growth has held up, cash buffers among higher-income households are still solid, and overall debt service ratios remain well below crisis levels. Rather than being under acute financial stress, many consumers are simply becoming more selective and valueconscious in their spending. That said, pressure is building at the lower end of the income spectrum, signaling a more bifurcated reality beneath the surface.

That demand is reshaping how financial institutions engage with fintechs. The partnerships that succeed in 2025 are deeply operational—built on shared data, synchronized credit strategies, and aligned liquidity models. At Upgrade, we’ve seen strong adoption of dual-track collaboration structures: fintechs lead origination and UX, while banks bring balance sheet efficiency, compliance depth, and portfolio scaling discipline. These aren’t lightweight API plug-ins—they’re institutionalgrade frameworks for capital deployment, powered by real relationships and trust.

"2025 is not a year for binary thinking. It’s not fintech versus banks—it’s fintech as an enabler of institutional-grade strategy"

On the funding side, brokered deposits have emerged from the shadows. What used to be a defensive tactic is now a strategic channel. In an environment where rate ceilings are sticky CFOs and treasurers are turning to fintech-originated deposit flows not out of desperation, but out of design. The brokered deposits aren’t just about yield—they’re about segmentation, predictability and control. They’re curated to match asset strategies, governed by transparent oversight and modeled for liquidity behavior in a way that legacy deposit channels rarely are.

Embedded finance is also evolving—from point solutions to integrated, lifecycle-aware financial moments. The second wave of embedded credit isn’t about novelty. It’s about contextual relevance—in travel, automotive, elective healthcare and home improvement. Fintech-bank partnerships are powering this shift, enabling credit delivery that’s fast, compliant, and highly targeted.

Underpinning all of this is a quiet but powerful trend: institutional maturity. Fintechs are adopting governance rigor and long-term capital strategies. Banks are becoming more agile, more tech driven, and more open to collaboration. Compliance is now built in, not bolted on. And CFOs are rethinking liquidity, cost of funds and product agility with these dynamics in mind.

2025 is not a year for binary thinking. It’s not fintech versus banks—it’s fintech as an enabler of institutional-grade strategy. The most effective financial leaders I work with today aren’t chasing the next trend—they’re building durable infrastructure, shaping capital markets strategy with optionality in mind, and aligning technology with balance sheet needs, not just user interface preferences. This is the future of financial infrastructure: thoughtful, fluid and deeply collaborative. Built not in isolation, but in partnership.