Fintech Sales Strategist & Leader → I merge 25 years of Fintech sales + banking to guide founders from chaos to closed revenue | Advice for selling to financial institutions

If you’re building a great product but struggling to get traction with banks, I help you fix that.

From first intro to final contract, I walk alongside founders to shorten sales cycles, navigate complex buying committees, and build deals that don’t rely on deep discounts.

This isn’t just something I coach on.  It’s something I’ve lived for the past 28 years from a career that spans both worlds:

→  Started as a teller at 19 in a town of 7,500 → earned my way into community banking
→  Spent 23 years at a big-three core, mastering complex sales and buyer journeys
→  Fell in love with sales demos, boardrooms, and turning "nos" into long-term "yeses"
→  Grew into quota-carrying sales leadership, built channels, launched fintech verticals
→  Went deep into BaaS and embedded banking → and learned the value of these partnerships

That journey shaped what I now call the Bank-FinTech Partnership Methodology - a practical, hard-won approach I’ve used (and refined) alongside founders to navigate real-life banking sales cycles, complex buying committees, and long timelines.  It’s not theory.  It’s what actually works when you're in the weeds trying to turn conversations into contracts.

Here’s how we build those bridges together:

↳ Diagnose why your fintech isn’t gaining traction with FIs
↳ Develop a GTM strategy tailored to financial institutions
↳ Translate your innovation into boardroom-ready language
↳ Create a sales process that doesn’t rely on deep discounts
↳ Build trust that converts complex conversations into signed partnerships

👩‍👧‍👦 At home, I’m raising three future fintech execs with my husband - a community bank exec and BaaS strategist. Dinner conversations at our house sound like fintech-banking peace negotiations.

🛠️ At work, I serve as a fractional sales strategist, speaker, and ecosystem builder, helping teams go from chaos to closed without burning bridges in the process.

Ready to stop guessing and start growing?

📅 Book a Free 30-Minute Strategy Call (you’ll walk away with one actionable takeaway):
https://calendly.com/stacybishop20/20_intro

 Not quite ready?  

🗞️ Subscribe to Selling Fintech:  https://sellingfintech.kit.com/e1ec3c973c
➕ Follow me here for real stories, frameworks, and founder-first sales advice.

Stacy Bishop

I have closed $100M+ in contracts with banks and credit unions.
I have built sales teams, banking verticals, and strategic partnerships from scratch.
Here are my 5 Core Principles for closing bank deals: 

1. I get to know who I’m selling to as a person: 
Before I talk about product, I learn who they are, their role, pressures, goals, and how they actually work day-to-day. People buy from people they trust, not from feature lists.

2. I make sure I understand their problem:
Real selling starts with listening. I dig into where the pain lives, how it shows up in their workflow, and what it costs them in time, money, and stress. 

3. I don’t overcomplicate communication:
Once I understand their pain, I connect the dots in simple, clear language. No jargon. No buzzwords. I show how my solution fixes the problem, saves time, or reduces friction. If they can’t repeat the value back to me, I haven’t explained it well enough.

4. I sell to the group not the champion:
Big deals never come down to one person. IT, compliance, risk, operations, and leadership all have a vote. So I build trust with the entire committee and speak to what each person cares about.

5. I put risk reduction at the center
Banks don’t buy features. They buy safety, clarity, and control. Always show how the solution lowers risk — operational, compliance, and reputational.

You don’t win enterprise deals with buzzwords and hype.
You win them by knowing the people, naming the problem, and removing every point of hesitation.

#Fintech BaaS #Banking

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Talks about #hr, #banking, #payroll, #partnerships, and #earnedwageaccess

Bank <> FinTech Partnership Broker || Former Revenue Leader at Jack Henry || 🎤Keynote Speaker

I have closed $100M+ in contracts with banks and credit unions because of one thing…  
And it has nothing to do with AI or product. 
I build a relationship with the human first. 

Senior executives in banking don’t make enterprise deal decisions because of feature lists. They make decisions based on trust, clarity, and confidence in the person and team they’re going to partner with.

The holiday season is one of the most effective windows of the year to strengthen that trust if you approach it correctly. 

Here are three ways to do that: 

1. Send a year-end acknowledgment with zero agenda.
Not a pitch. Not a CTA. A simple, intentional note recognizing something meaningful in their year; a leadership move, a strategic shift, an initiative you know took serious effort. Executives remember who pays attention.

2. Ask one strategic question about their upcoming year.
This time of year, leaders are thinking in terms of Q1 priorities and resource allocation. A single question can open a real conversation: “What outcome is non-negotiable for your team in Q1?” It signals that you’re thinking about their world, not your quota.

3. Offer a short, informal year-end industry debrief. 
Not a sales meeting, a conversation between operators. Fifteen minutes to compare observations on risk, regulation, technology shifts, or operational pressure points as they look ahead to 2026. Executives value peers who think at their level.

This is how major B2B deals begin.
Stop leading with product.
Start leading with human connection.

#Fintech #BaaS #Banking

Last week, our kids came home wearing these to celebrate the 67th day of school. If you have young elementary-age kids, or have spent more than five minutes around them, you already know why that number matters. Somewhere along the way, “six, seven” turned into a full-blown phenomenon. And they don’t just say it. There’s flair. There’s tone. There are hand motions. Six. Seven.
It spread through our house earlier this year like wildfire. 
Which led me to a question I can’t get out of my head.
Has anyone successfully worked “six seven” into a business conversation?
I’m talking banker-to-customer. 
Vendor negotiations.
Fintech-to-bank. 

For example:
• “We can offer you 4.67%.”
• “What if we structure this as a six- to seven-year term?”
Ridiculous? Absolutely.
But also… kind of funny.

If you’ve found a way to sneak “six seven” into a serious business discussion, I need to hear about it.

Someone reached out and asked me, “Can you build rapport remotely?”
He’s a founder that doesn’t have the time to go chase every deal in person.
My answer is a resounding ABSOLUTELY and here’s why… 
(listen to the video to hear what I have to say)

Stop discounting your Fintech.

If you're constantly slashing prices, it's a symptom, not a tech problem.

It means you haven't proven your value.

Here's how to differentiate your Fintech product effectively:

𝗡𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿: 
→ Understand how your product is truly different.
→ What unique problems do you solve?
→ How do you package it to make it a 'low lift' for the bank?

𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: 
→ Start with the banker's challenge.
→ Avoid feature-dumping.
→ Use a challenger sales methodology to point them uniquely towards your solution.

𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: 
→ Don't ask, '𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴?'
That's not a next step. It's an invitation to pause.

→ Instead, proactively book the next meeting.
'𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘴 𝘟, 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦, 𝘭𝘦𝘵'𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘸𝘰.'

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗘𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽: 
→ Provide something impactful at each step to help with the evaluation.
→ Build micro-agreements throughout the process.
→ Showcase your professionalism and authority.

When you get to negotiation, the value should already be undeniable.

Bankers have endless tasks in front of them.

Give them compelling reasons to say YES, not just reasons to discount you (𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵).

Banks exploring embedded finance often reach the same point. 

At some stage, there's a need to understand how to monitor partner activity in a way that supports growth and satisfies exam requirements.

This session takes a practical look at transaction monitoring inside a BaaS environment and the changes that occur when fintech partners and their end-users begin moving money through your charter.  

You will learn how sponsor banks build visibility, stay ahead of suspicious activity, and manage alerts without slowing down innovation.

If you are evaluating BaaS or already onboarding partners, this conversation will help you understand the expectations and the tools that make it manageable.

Katelyn O'Brian, CBAP, Hanna Kness and 322 other attendees

BaaS Layers & Players:  Transaction Monitoring

Wishing great success to each of you as you chase December closings!

For those of you already looking ahead to 2026, here's your guide to selling your Fintech solution to bankers in a new year and ever-changing landscape.

By Stacy Bishop Selling technology to financial institutions is a different kind of sales motion. Over the past 25 years in banking, fintech, and fina

Open article: How to Sell to Banks as a Fintech in 2026: Lessons From $100M+ in Closed Bank Deals by Stacy Bishop • 6 min read

How to Sell to Banks as a Fintech in 2026: Lessons From $100M+ in Closed Bank Deals

Selling to banks and credit unions isn’t about a great product. It’s about proving you can operate in one of the most heavily regulated environments in the world. 
And yet…

I still see founders take a cavalier approach:“We’ll figure it out later.”
“We’ll fix compliance once it becomes a problem.”

That mindset will cost you partnerships and slow down your ability to scale. If you’re a fintech founder trying to scale beyond your first few banking partners, here’s one great piece of advice: 
Let banks do what they do best in a partnership. 
Know what you know and know what you don’t know.

Over the past two years, especially with embedded finance, we’ve watched the same mistakes repeat:
• Fintechs stepping into the bank’s lane
• Banks stepping into the fintech’s lane
• Both sides losing clarity on who owns compliance obligations

The result?
Confusion, risk exposure, delays and in some cases, regulatory scrutiny.

The founders who win share one trait: They stay laser-focused on their core competency and bring in real compliance expertise early. Because in this industry, not taking compliance seriously could very easily cost you everything. 

#Fintech #BaaS #Banking

This time of year is often confused for the "let's wait until January to reach out" season.

Avoid that knee-jerk reaction and begin to form a relationship today with bankers you hope to partner with next year.  

But not with a cold outreach message you are sending to every other banker.  Be smart and strategic.

I get into this further in this week's newsletter.   👇

From Someone Who Has Closed $100M+ With Banks After 28 years working across community banks, a big-three core, and fintech sales leadership, I can tel

5 Ways FinTech Founders Can Build Relationships With Banking Executives During the Holidays

It’s not the banker’s job to tell you their process.
It’s not the banker’s job to follow up.
And it’s definitely not their job to guide your next steps.

That’s on you as a Fintech founder selling to banks.

If you want to win in this market, show up with a plan that proves you’ve done this before, many times.

Lay out the happy path:
👉 Here’s Step 1.
👉 Here’s exactly where we are today.
👉 Here’s what happens next.
👉 And here’s who needs to be in the room — CFO, CRO, and anyone who shapes the decision.

You’re not asking them to figure it out.
You’re leading them through a proven buying journey.

When you set the North Star and drive the process with clarity, nobody wonders what happens next, they follow your lead. 

This is how you shorten cycles, earn respect, and close deals with banks in 2026.

#BaaS #Fintech #Banking #Leadership

When Synapse collapsed, regulators didn’t call the middleware providers.
They didn’t call the fintechs.
They called Evolv, because the bank sponsor is accountable for oversight.

And that’s why your Third-Party Risk Management can’t be “good enough.”
It needs to be airtight.

Because in embedded finance:
• Every partner’s controls are your controls.
• Every oversight gap becomes your exposure.
• Every compliance weakness becomes a future supervisory event.
• Every program requires continuous — not quarterly — monitoring.

TPRM has officially graduated from a “compliance box-checking exercise” to a strategic risk discipline that defines which banks win in the next era of embedded finance.

If you want to understand what airtight TPRM actually looks like, click here to watch the replay from a recent session I hosted with several experts and community banking executives who are building high-performing, high-compliance programs in real time: 

https://lnkd.in/gsy7WBa5

Interested in how my middle school dating life relates to selling your Fintech solution to bankers?  

Including some of the "secrets" inside.  👇

In middle school I “dated” in the most PG-sense of the word. I might sit with someone at lunch, pass a folded note in class, or hold hands on the walk

7 reasons banks don’t “date” fintechs

Do you get a banker on the phone and begin showing your solution shortly after learning their name?

I beg of you... STOP.  

Instead, use the first meeting strategically.  Here's how... 👇

Hi! I’m Stacy. I still remember the first time I landed a meeting with a bank after weeks of chasing. The COO said, “We’d love to see how it works.” M

Don't demo during discovery (unless you want to be ghosted by bankers)

I have closed more than $100 million in contracts with banks and credit unions. 
Here are 5 core principles for closing bank deals: 

1. I get to know who I’m selling to as a person. 
2. I make sure I understand their problem. 
3. I don’t overcomplicate communication. 
4. I sell to the group not the champion
5. I put risk reduction at the center

REMEMBER: Banks buy safety, clarity, and control. 

#Fintech #BaaS #banking

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Fintech Founders:
AI is not your differentiator.
Stop leading with it.

Every banker you’re selling to already assumes your product uses AI. 
It’s the baseline now → and will be even more so in 2026.
It’s not the value prop.

If you want to stand out and close deals with banks:
→ Start with the bank’s real problems.
→ Speak to the pain in their current state.
→ Show the exact outcome your solution unlocks.
→ Then, only then, use AI as the supporting mechanism of your solution, not the headline.

Banks don’t buy “AI.”
They buy reduced risk, speed, compliance, and confidence.
Lead with what matters to them.

It's fun to win.

Showcasing compliance maturity in bank sales may not be your idea of fun.

But it certainly helps you win.

So maybe, just maybe... compliance can be fun after all.

It's normal for Fintech founders to assume that winning a bank partnership is about presenting a superior product, demonstrating their gorgeous UX, or

The Psychology of Selling to Banks: The One Factor That Will Increase Your Odds as a Fintech

There are people, and there are companies that the industry needs to know about.

Sometimes these companies get lumped into categories alongside others, where you have to squint to see the similarities.

Or the people have backgrounds so strong and storied that you marvel at how lucky you are to be on a Google Meet with them.  

These are the companies that I cheer for, and the people I want to work with.  

I can say with absolute certainty that ZorroFi and Sandra Wasicek-Woegenstein | Armin Wasicek, check all of these boxes for me.  

Plus they are genuine and kind people... just trying to make the front-end messy side of lending better.

I'm thrilled to advise the ZorroFi team, and invite you to check them out.  You won't be disappointed.

Founder & CEO, ZorroFi | Turning Risk Management Into Growth Infrastructure for Community Banks, Credit Unions & CDFIs | Berkeley SkyDeck Pad-13

View Sandra Wasicek-Woegenstein’s profile

Gratitude highlight today: Stacy Bishop. 🍁💛

Stacy recently joined us as an advisor to ZorroFi, and we are truly grateful for her support.

She’s one of those rare people who brings clarity, warmth, and decades of real industry experience into every conversation. Stacy has helped me stay focused, grounded, and aligned with what matters most when building for community financial institutions.

I’m thankful for her guidance - and even more thankful for her heart.

Thank you, Stacy. 🙏

As a fintech founder selling to banks, go slow before you go fast.
Here’s what I mean:

Master the fundamentals.
1. The offer: If your offer isn’t precise, bank-ready, and differentiated, you’re already losing. Banks don’t buy vague promises. They buy risk reduction, revenue expansion, or cost efficiency—spelled out in plain language.

2. The ICP: Most founders aim at the CEO. Wrong target. The CEO is influence, not ownership. The real decision-makers live in the buying committee: heads of product, compliance, risk, operations, and sometimes IT. If you can’t name the exact persona who feels the pain you solve, you can’t sell to a bank.

3. The sales cycle: Bank deals don’t “close when they’re impressed.” They close when you understand how the bank actually buys. Map the journey. Know who signs, who blocks, who delays, and who champions. Your messaging must reflect the steps, the risks, and the internal politics of the institution.

When you master the fundamentals, sales accelerate. 

#BaaS #Fintech #Banking

"Fit" may be an "F" word, but one that I highly encourage you to use all the time in your bank.

Welcome to BaaS for Bank Leaders, your weekly guide to making sense of Banking as a Service (BaaS). Here you will get practical insights into the real

BaaS Launchpad Step 5:  The secret to selecting the right fintech partners

It's never too late in the year to kick off your next sales cycle → or as I like to phrase it, "Buying Journey" with bankers.

I've included tips in this week's newsletter, along with a checklist to ensure your time with bank and credit union prospects is never wasted. 👇

Early in my career at Jack Henry, I made a mistake that most green fintech salespeople make. I walked into a meeting with a bank executive armed with 

Fintech Sales Strategy to Win Partnerships with Banks: What I Have Learned from 23+ Years in B2B Sales

Steve@sotadvisory.com
+1 646-630-7015
Book a meeting: calendly.com/histeve

Globally experienced Chief of Staff

I work across silos to accelerate banks into the 21st century (or partner with fintechs that are already there).

Capable executives bring me in to resolve thorny cross-functional problems: 
 - Drive regulatory remediation initiatives.
 - Lead multiple bank departments to build and deliver an elegant and well-controlled product suite,  
 - Launch commodity-linked digital assets in regulated markets.
 - Implement embedded finance / BaaS launches & lead "partner success" function.
 - Simplify legal org structure, close corporate entities, and enhance governance to support resolution & recovery.
 - Integrate SOX, RCSA, and Third Party Risk into business processes, procedure documentation, and governance via KRI's, KPI's and issue/action tracking. 

*Relocated  to DFW / McKinney May 2025*

Returned to USA for Finance/Banking/Tech in 2022 after 14 years in Hong Kong & Dubai.  Began career in NYC finance, accounting and consulting pre-2008.

Capable leader with a track record of solving cross-functional problems in  banks and startups in New York City, Hong Kong, and Dubai. 

Steve is a trusted “right hand” extending the reach of top executives and driving complex initiatives in regulated environments. 

Highlights include process transformation, managing large teams, internal controls, risk, and financial modeling. 

Public accounting, tax and SOX consulting prior to leadership roles.  Finance MBA from NYU Stern and accounting bachelor degree.

Exceptional communicator with strong leadership skills and a deep understanding of banking and fintech ecosystems.


RESUME SUMMARY 

Western New York State 2022-2025
- Founded SOT Advisory to transform small-to-mid sized finance firms 
- SVP Strategy Ops & Tech for Five Star Bank.  Oversaw Product, InfraTech, Operations & Business Analysts.

Hong Kong 2010-2022: 
 - COO/CEO for startups.
 - Morgan Stanley Risk Officer & Chief Admin Officer, AsiaPac Finance
 - Launched HK's first digital asset: Tokenized Cayman fund

Dubai 2008-2010
- Consulting: Outsourced CFO & Credit Services
 - SHUAA: Head of Operations & PMO

NYC 1998-2008
- European Bank: Head of Ops & Admin, North America
- Morgan Stanley: SOX & Risk Metrics, CFO Controllers
- Consulting: SOX & Turnaround Management
- Asset Management Associate
- Arthur Adersen Tax

NYU Stern MBA in Finance. BS in Accounting 
Passed NY CPA exam & HK SI licensing exams 1, 2 & 6

Published columnist, guest speaker, and coach (business & dragon boat).

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