If you picked up the New York Times Business section this morning, you probably saw the photo of the fintech guru, Brett King,  looking out the window of a dimly-lit room. The caption read: “Brett King once hoped his company, Moven, would become ‘the Facebook of banking.’”

Those hopes are gone now, the article suggests, as King has shifted Moven’s business model from being a standalone challenger bank, to selling its software to the banks.

“We realized that if you want millions of users as a bank it is a very different proposition than building a social media network,” King told the Times.

King’s decision is not surprising.

In the six years of its existence, Moven has signed 60,000 active cardholders, and saw 250,000 downloads of its app in the U.S. – nowhere near where, you would imagine, a bank “disruptor” would be.

However, many bank projects, which were powered by Moven, did see a boost in customer adoption thanks to King’s software. TD Bank Canada, for example, adopted Moven’s real-time money-management tool in April 2016. In a months time, 277,000 TD customers sign up for the service.

Among Moven’s many features – e-gifting, special offers, financial planning, etc. – there is plenty for banks to choose from. On Moven’s side, it only makes sense to capitalize on the “huge” customer-base of traditional FIs, Brad Wallace, principal of financial services digital advisory at Ernst and Young, told Bank Innovation.

“Banks are making a transition on how can they engage the next round of customers,” he said. “Digital-only banks have features within that help customers better manage their money, better keep tabs on spending, develop better money habits, and many other features, which banks view as complimentary to their offerings.” It’s not just fintechs looking for partners, Wallace said: banks are actively looking to adopt fintech APIs to develop a unique strategy for their consumers.

But does this mean that fintechs can only survive if they blend into big-name banks?

Admittedly, very few have reached a “viral” following on their own so far. Credit Karma is one example. The company, which gives out free credit scores and generates revenue from selling lending leads, hit a 60 million user milestone last year, and is adding 1 million to 2 million users per month. SoFi and Stripe have also succeeded in creating a stable following in the recent years.

But the competition among the fintechs is at an all-time high, and the current political state in the country, as the Times notes, doesn’t help. Thus, fintechs are readily sharing their visions and ideas with banks, in exchange for security.

The ball is now, it seems like, in the banks’ field. From the article:

Much of this change, however, is now expected to come from the banks themselves as they absorb new ideas from the technology world and shrink their own operations, without necessarily losing significant numbers of customers to start-ups.

Post was updated on Feb 24, at 10:40 AM, to reflect a clarification on Moven user numbers. 

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