About

Not a Fintech Company is an open-source knowledge base for founders building card, deposit, and lending products. We’re an independent project — not affiliated with any single company, vendor, or sponsor bank — and every guide, model, and document published here is licensed CC0 1.0 Universal. Take it, fork it, ship it. No attribution required.

Why this exists

Fintech is full of expensive, fragmented, and often gated institutional knowledge. The information needed to launch a card or a bank account is scattered across vendor sales pitches, regulatory filings, off-the-record industry conversations, and a handful of dense books. Our goal is to consolidate the tactical playbook in one place — what to build, what to buy, who to partner with, what to ask, and how to model the economics — so founders can spend their time building rather than re-deriving how the industry works.

How we work

Each guide is contributed by one or more practitioners who have actually done the work. Bylines name the author; the contributor list below covers everyone who has helped in some form, as primary author, reviewer, or content advisor. The financial models are real spreadsheets that have been used at real businesses. The compliance documents are templates and reference materials, not legal advice — see the disclaimer in the footer for the boilerplate version.

Contribute

The site source is on GitHub under CC0. Pull requests are welcome. If you have a guide to contribute, a correction to propose, or a financial model you’d like to share, reach out at [email protected].

Contributors

A non-exhaustive list of people who have contributed in some form so far:

• Aaron Frank — @arfrank
• Lachy Groom — @lachygroom
• Cokie Hasiotis — @cokiehasiotis
• Matthew Goldman
• Charlie Deutsch — @cedpvd
• Walt Cox — @waltrcox
• Amanda Peyton — @amandapey
• Will White — @willwhite003
• Jeremy Black
• Seema Amble