How Galileo and Mbanq Are Expanding Financial Access with BaaS

Banking as a Service (BaaS) is among the fastest-growing areas of the financial services sector, and BaaS platform enabler Mbanq is on the front lines of the boom. The company specializes in enabling non-bank brands to offer their end-users banking and financial services within their own platforms–earning new customers and revenue streams, deepening relationships and increasing lifetime customer value. 

Since 2021, Galileo has played a key role in supporting Mbanq’s offering by simplifying and streamlining the card issuing process through a single application programming interface (API), thereby enabling Mbanq’s customers to easily issue, activate and manage the entire card lifecycle using the same API they use for all other banking services. 

Galileo recently spoke with Mbanq CEO and founder Vlad Lunegov about how the companies together are helping non-banks leverage the power of BaaS to enhance their offerings and bring financial services to new audiences, inducing historically underserved segments. 

Mission: “Our company’s mission for some time has been to liberalize banking,” Lunegov said. Mbanq leverages its cutting edge BaaS technology platform to enable clients to easily and efficiently offer financial services to expanded audiences via new and differentiated digital channels. 

Founding: Founded in 2016 by Lunegov, Igor Kostyuchenok and Lars Rottweiler, Mbanq today is one of the fastest-growing fintechs in the world, serving banks, credit unions and financial institutions of all sizes across the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Location: Headquartered in Healdsburg, Calif. 

What Galileo does for them: “Galileo is an essential part of our value proposition to our clients,” Lunegov noted. “First and foremost, we deliver FDIC-insured checking accounts which always come with a debit card; without us being able to offer cards, our banking is incomplete. Another essential part of our partnership with Galileo is that we actually go to market together, which helps us immensely to close deals… and to deliver our value proposition together.”

Use-Case: “Mbanq provides services to three groups of customers,” said Lunegov. “Group number one is traditional financial institutions, which includes smaller regional banks, and also credit unions. Category number two is non-bank financial institutions. Third is the fintechs–and fintechs come in different shapes and sizes. Some of them are just a

brand; others are foreign banks or financial institutions entering the United States markets; and then the community and affinity groups that would like to provide banking services to their members.”

Impact: There’s a very substantial portion of the United States population that can’t always easily access basic banking services,” noted Lunegov. “So we are delivering more banking to segments that have been under-appreciated by the banking community.”

Click here for our complete guide to how Banking as a Service can benefit brands.