BaaS Company Spotlight 3/8: Cambr — The BaaS Built to Scale

This spotlight of a leading banking as a service provider is part of Tearsheet’s coverage of BaaS. Please see our BaaS Buyers Guide for more information.

• Establishment date: 2018
• Who we spoke with: Ahon Sarkar (VP product and strategy)
• Bank license: Yes, via integrated partners. Deposits are stored on StoneCastle’s network of chartered banks
• API Documentation: https://cambr.com/developers.html

History

Cambr is a partnership between Q2, a provider of cloud-based digital banking solutions, and StoneCastle, a firm that runs a deposit network of 800 banks. Originally an enterprise solution, StoneCastle wanted to bring its product to the retail market. It partnered with Q2, which has a similar mission of serving community financial institutions. Via Cambr, StoneCastle provides its 800+ bank  deposit network and Q2 brings its CORE processing, creating an offering that includes everything from KYC to debit cards, with the goal of being the fullstack banking toolkit.

Service provided

With the partnership between Q2, StoneCastle, and a select group of financial institutions, Cambr offers the underlying infrastructure that’s needed to launch basic and advanced banking services. Cambr leverages the use cases and technology experience gained by working with clients into new products and services. Cambr currently offers deposit accounts, compliance, payments, banking, and debit cards. 

Unlike companies like Synapse and BBVA, Cambr is not a turnkey solution and requires more than a few days or weeks to get up and running. The company works with more nuanced use cases, partnering with fintechs to devise creative ways of leveraging their infrastructure. Cambr also does not offer a full white label solution like other BaaS companies do.

Differentiator

The biggest differentiator between Cambr and other BaaS offerings is the combination of StoneCastle’s Distributed Deposit Network and Q2’s CorePro. 

Using StoneCastle’s Deposit Network allows BaaS clients to solve for inherent scale challenges while maximizing deposit yield, eliminating capital requirements, and reducing risk through redundancy and extended FDIC insurance. 

Q2 powers Cambr’s underlying technology infrastructure. Unlike middleware solutions which BaaS providers typically rely on, Q2 has rebuilt CORE banking technology, providing benefits like speed, flexibility, and cost cutting.

Chief competitor

Cambr’s competition depends on the required use case. For example, for a company that needs a debit card, Marqeta could be a competitor, while a company that requires savings accounts could look to Synapse.

Target Customer

Cambr’s target customers are non-banks trying to build banking services into their product. Clients come from a variety of sectors, but Cambr targets customers that have the following characteristics: a captive user base, good engagement with clients, and they get value by bringing in a new banking product. For example, if a fintech firm offers one type of loan, Cambr could help that company offer a complementary banking product.

Definition of BaaS

“Delivering the infrastructure required to build flexible and scalable banking products by API.”

Future Plans

Cambr’s business model is predicated on its clients’ success, so its future plans are focused on supporting client growth.

Current Clients / Case Studies

Qapital: Qapital is a personal finance app that uses gamification to encourage users to save money. With a focus on savings goals, like vacations, Qapital automatically transfers money from a user’s checking account based upon pre-established rules, like rounding off purchase prices to the nearest dollar and depositing the extra change into the savings account. 

MoneyLion: Through its app, MoneyLion offers lending, financial advice, and investment services to millions of consumers. Targeting  people with less than $2,000 in savings, MoneyLion’s mission is to optimize customers’ money management and savings. Cambr provides MoneyLion with deposit accounts, debit cards, and instant funding for its lending product.