Why FinTech Founders Are Skipping the License (For Now)

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-15

For founders building the next neobank, business account, payment product, or embedded-finance proposition, the first major obstacle is often not the idea. It's everything required to turn that idea into a regulated, functioning financial product. Accounts need infrastructure. Money needs payment rails. Customers need onboarding. Transactions need to be monitored. Someone needs to operate the ledger, integrate payment providers, and give customers an interface they'll actually want to use. And then there's licensing. For an early-stage FinTech, obtaining its own regulatory license can be an important long-term milestone. But does it need to be the first milestone? Increasingly, the answer is no. A growing infrastructure ecosystem allows FinTech founders to separate two challenges that were once tightly connected: launching a financial product and becoming a fully licensed financial institution themselves. With a technology layer such as Crassula combined with regulated business banking infrastructure from an Electronic Money Institution such as Narvi, a startup can build and launch a proposition under a licensed partner framework while validating its market, acquiring customers, and deciding what regulatory structure makes sense for the next stage of the business. Crassula provides the product and orchestration layer, while Narvi provides regulated BaaS capabilities, accounts, and payment infrastructure. For startups in particular, this model addresses another critical constraint: time and capital are limited, and the product is likely to evolve. ### The traditional FinTech launch problem Imagine you've identified a clear opportunity. Perhaps SMEs in a particular industry need better business accounts. Maybe your marketplace wants to embed accounts and payments directly into its platform. Or perhaps you see room for a specialised financial product for cross-border companies. Your customers don't particularly care how the infrastructure underneath it works. They care that they can open an account, see their balance, send and receive money, and manage their finances reliably. For the founder, however, delivering that experience can mean coordinating several different layers. There's the customer-facing application. The ledger and account architecture. KYC and compliance workflows. Payment connectivity. Reconciliation. Back-office operations. Security. APIs. And, depending on the business model, a regulated institution able to provide the underlying financial services. Building every layer independently can turn a product validation exercise into a large infrastructure project. That creates an uncomfortable situation for an early-stage company: a founder may have to commit significant time and resources before discovering whether enough customers actually want the product. ### Licence first, or product first? The question is not whether regulation matters. In financial services, it clearly does. The more useful question for founders is whether obtaining their own licence is necessary for the first version of the business. There are situations where owning a licence can become strategically important. It can provide greater control over the operating model, economics, and product roadmap. But businesses at the validation and growth stages have another route: working with a regulated provider whose infrastructure and permissions can support the intended proposition. Narvi, for example, is a Finnish-authorised Electronic Money Institution and provides Banking-as-a-Service capabilities through its API. Its infrastructure includes IBAN accounts and European payment capabilities, while its EMI framework supports operations across all EEA countries. That doesn't mean a startup can simply ignore regulation. The product, customers, geography, and use case still have to fall within the provider's regulatory framework, compliance requirements, and risk appetite. In practical terms, this approach lets you focus on what matters most: building a product people want. You can always pursue your own license later, once you've proven the model and have the resources to do it right. > "The best time to get a license is when you don't need it to survive." – Jan de Vries, E-commerce Consultant So, if you're a FinTech founder in the EEA, consider this: you don't need your own license on day one. You need a great product, happy customers, and a partner who can handle the regulatory heavy lifting while you grow.