Fintech

Clients rarely face a challenge that fits neatly into a single box, so we built a team that reflects the reality of today’s market. Whether the issue involves digital assets, embedded finance, consumer lending or payments, our lawyers work as one group across the regulatory, transactional and enforcement landscape.

This integrated approach allows us to:

• Advise on products that blend traditional financial services with blockchain and tokenization
• Design compliant structures for consumer and commercial finance offered through digital platforms
• Navigate overlapping federal and state regulatory frameworks that touch lending, custody, payments and digital assets
• Support hybrid business models like tokenized credit, embedded banking, regulated stablecoin use and marketplace lending
• Represent clients before agencies focused on these intersections, including the CFPB, OCC, Federal Reserve, FDIC, FinCEN, SEC, CFTC and state regulators

We advise banks and fintechs on structuring and managing bank–fintech partnerships across lending, payments and embedded finance models at all stages of growth. Our work includes program architecture and launch strategy, allocation of regulatory responsibilities, compliance governance, vendor and third-party risk management, and ongoing oversight aligned with interagency bank-fintech guidance. We help clients ensure that partnership structures meet supervisory expectations and withstand regulatory review, while preserving commercial flexibility and speed to market. Our lawyers draw on deep experience across federal and state financial regulators and current supervisory expectations.

We regularly advise on legal and commercial issues across public and private blockchains, including blockchain-based financial infrastructure, distributed ledger platforms, smart contracts and related applications. Our team combines legal knowledge and technical fluency to assess risk, structure deals and address intellectual property, open-source and industry-specific considerations, including where relevant digital asset, NFT or decentralized governance components are part of a broader commercial or financial services strategy.

Sheppard’s Fintech practice is closely integrated with our Consumer Financial Services team. We counsel clients on UDAAP, fair lending, servicing, marketing and disclosures, complaints management and dispute resolution. Clients rely on us to translate consumer compliance into practical operational steps that support product launches and scaling. We also help fintechs anticipate enforcement trends and respond to supervisory questions, while coordinating seamlessly with regulatory, litigation and transactional teams.

We counsel clients evaluating state and federal chartering strategies, including full-service bank charters, special-purpose charters and alternative regulatory pathways. Our team advises on the strategic implications of chartering, engagement with prudential bank regulators, and alignment of governance, policies and operational capabilities with supervisory expectations. We support clients through application planning, regulatory communications, timing considerations and interactions with agencies such as the OCC, FDIC, Federal Reserve and state banking authorities. We also advise on post-charter compliance, ongoing supervision and examinations. Our focus is practical—aligning the regulatory model with the client’s business strategy, risk profile and growth objectives.

Sheppard represents fintechs, lenders and payments companies on multistate licensing and registration requirements nationwide. Our experience includes money transmission, lending and servicing regimes, exemptions analysis and ongoing compliance obligations that become more complex as businesses scale. We help clients develop licensing roadmaps, coordinate applications efficiently and prepare for regulatory exams. Where issues arise, we support remediation and communications with regulators so clients can maintain momentum without avoidable compliance disruption.

Our team works with fintechs, banks and technology providers on banking-as-a-service and software-as-a-service models that support financial products across regulated financial ecosystems. Our work spans regulatory strategy, program governance, platform contracting, product and feature reviews, and oversight of third-party service providers. We help clients design scalable models that meet supervisory expectations, including policies around onboarding, KYC, monitoring, data use and incident response aligned with regulatory and operational risk-management standards. The goal is enabling rapid deployment while keeping compliance operations exam-ready.

Sheppard represents payments companies, banks and fintechs across the payments lifecycle, from product design to ongoing operations. Our experience includes card programs, ACH, RTP, wallet and account-to-account models, and stablecoin-based payment and settlement rails. Our team counsels on licensing, card network rules, program management and emerging payment rails. We also advise on licensing and scheme rules, program management, BSA/AML compliance, privacy and data protection issues, consumer disclosures and enforcement risk. Clients rely on us to modernize payment offerings while managing regulatory complexity and partner expectations in fast-moving commercial environments.

We work with private equity sponsors and investors on fintech and financial services investments, including growth equity and platform acquisitions. Our work includes regulatory diligence, licensing and compliance risk assessment, structuring considerations for bank partnerships and post-acquisition integration planning. We help investors understand how regulatory posture affects value, timeline and scalability. Where needed, we coordinate across corporate, tax and sector teams, so that regulatory strategy supports the investment thesis from signing through exit.

We support fintech clients on the transactions that power growth, including strategic partnerships, commercial arrangements, platform acquisitions, investments and joint ventures. We align regulatory, operational and transactional issues so agreements support real-world execution. Our team often leads fintech-specific transactions end to end, coordinating specialist support as needed. We focus on execution—aligning contracts with licensing, compliance, data and supervision requirements to support scale and reduce friction later.

We represent fintechs, banks and financial institutions in regulatory examinations, investigations and enforcement actions before the CFPB, FTC, DOJ and state regulators. Our experience includes responding to CIDs, supervisory exams, licensing inquiries and consumer-protection investigations. We help clients manage risk, shape the narrative and resolve matters efficiently, while strengthening compliance programs to reduce the chance of reoccurrence. Because we advise on product design and partnerships as well, we bring helpful context to regulators on how models operate in practice.