The Role of Fintech in Modern Financial Infrastructure

Share Share Share Share Email Fintech companies now provide core infrastructure for an estimated 70% of new financial products launched globally, according to a 2025 report by Andreessen Horowitz’s fintech research team. From payment processing APIs to banking-as-a-service platforms, the technical backbone of modern finance is increasingly built and maintained by fintech firms rather than traditional banks or legacy technology vendors.

This shift has redefined what financial infrastructure means and who controls it. What Financial Infrastructure Looks Like Today Financial infrastructure was once synonymous with interbank settlement systems, card networks, and core banking platforms operated by a handful of large companies.

Visa, Mastercard, SWIFT, FIS, and Fiserv dominated the space for decades. While these players remain significant, a new layer of infrastructure has emerged on top of them, built by fintech companies that specialize in making financial services programmable and accessible through APIs.

Plaid connects more than 12,000 financial institutions to fintech applications, enabling everything from account verification to transaction data sharing. Marqeta provides card-issuing infrastructure used by Square, DoorDash, and Affirm. Galileo processes more than 150 million accounts for neobanks and fintech firms.

Fintech infrastructure platforms represent a $150 billion opportunity, and investment in this layer has grown faster than in consumer-facing fintech. According to a McKinsey analysis of banking infrastructure modernization, spending on fintech infrastructure grew at 28% annually between 2020 and 2025, compared with 6% growth in spending on legacy banking systems.

Banking-as-a-Service and the API Economy Banking-as-a-service (BaaS) is one of the most significant infrastructure innovations of the past decade. BaaS platforms allow non-bank companies to offer financial services, including deposit accounts, debit cards, and lending, without obtaining their own banking licenses.

The BaaS provider holds the license and manages compliance, while the non-bank company owns the customer relationship. Companies like Synapse, Unit, Treasury Prime, and Column have built BaaS platforms that power financial features in applications from Apple to Uber. According to Statista’s data on BaaS market size, the global BaaS market reached $40 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow to $74 billion by 2030.

Financial APIs are powering the next generation of fintech platforms. The API model has made it possible for a two-person startup to offer banking services that would have required a 200-person team and a banking license just 10 years ago. This reduction in barriers to entry has been one of the primary drivers of the fintech boom.

Real-Time Payment Rails and Settlement Systems Modern financial infrastructure also includes real-time payment systems that process transactions in seconds rather than days. India’s UPI, Brazil’s Pix, the UK’s Faster Payments, and the US Federal Reserve’s FedNow system all provide instant settlement capabilities.

According to a 2025 Accenture report on real-time payments, global real-time payment transactions reached 266 billion in 2025, up from 118 billion in 2022. Fintech companies are both users and builders of these systems. Wise has built its own multi-currency settlement network that reduces reliance on the traditional correspondent banking system.