Enterprise Engineering Forms Unit To Link Banks To FinTech Firms

Financial services advisory firm Enterprise Engineering is spinning off a new company to link banks and financial institutions with data management tools.

In a press release issued on Monday (Sept. 24), Enterprise Engineering announced the launch of Ninth Wave, a bank software company designed to bridge financial institutions to FinTechs by facilitating the aggregation and integration of data between two entities. The company is also supporting financial services providers’ compliance and security requirements, and working with these firms’ developers to facilitate the development of new tools reliant on data.

“We will be our clients’ go-to partner for universal financial data integration, delivering a secure, standardized data supply chain seamlessly and at massive scale,” said Ninth Wave Founder George Anderson in a statement. “We have already deployed the Ninth Wave Platform with a number of trusted clients. The Ninth Wave Platform is the bridge between FinTech applications and financial institutions, making it one of the most high-performing and secure platforms in the industry.”

The company provides financial institutions with enhanced control over the third-party FinTech applications and customer account data they use to enhance their service offering, providing clients with their Open Finance API solution.

API technology has emerged as a key component of bank-FinTech collaboration, particularly as regulations like open banking and PSD2 in Europe promote data security and data sharing between platforms and services.

While the collaborative trend has lessened the competitive pressure between banks and FinTechs, a separate initiative by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has reignited that pressure. The OCC wants to offer a FinTech charter that would allow FinTechs to obtain a banking license and streamline their ability to operate across all 50 states.

That effort has launched a debate about the OCC’s regulatory authority and issues surrounding FinTechs’ ability to charge higher interest rates should they obtain a banking license.