As the number of challenger banks increases, so do the number of options and access to financial services for their customers.

Princeton, N.J.–based Edison Partners supports high-growth companies with $8 million to $30 million in revenue and its portfolio includes alternative investment platform YieldStreet and prominent challenger bank MoneyLion.  

In this new episode of “Fintech Unfiltered,” Bank Innovation sat down with Kelly Ford, who was recently named general partner at Edison Partners, to discuss the challenger banks and platforms in which the firm has invested, and why. 

Ford, who has spent most of her career in financial services and technology, believes that fintech today is becoming about “both platform and ingredients.”  

“It’s becoming a seamless part of virtually every consumer experience,” she said. “It’s anything that removes friction associated with invoicing, payments, lending, even insurance — putting that right into the flow of business processes and the applications that support that.”  

Ford added that the expansion of challenger banks and fintech services is improving financial access to different sectors of the market.  

“They’re all democratizing financial services in their own ways,” Ford said, adding that Edison Partners “continues to get excited about anything that is differentiated in a way that makes financial services cheaper, convenient and safer for consumers.” 

Banking Automation Summit, which takes place from June 1-2 in Miami, is a unique opportunity to share insights, trends, strategies and best practices on back-office automation in financial services with the industry’s leading practitioners. Register here.