Past the bank's third-party risk review
You sell payments infrastructure, compliance tooling, custody, tokenization or data and AI platforms to banks, asset managers, insurers and exchanges. Your buyers are a few hundred institutions spread across Europe and beyond, and most of your pipeline sits with a business sponsor who wants your product while the institution's control functions decide whether you can be onboarded at all.
Who this page is for
- Payment infrastructure and compliance tooling vendors selling to banks and insurers
- Custody and tokenization platforms working with banks and asset managers
- Data and AI platforms sold to financial institutions and exchanges
Usual starting point: Demand
How do you increase sales for a fintech company selling to banks?
Reach the whole institution in the same weeks as your sponsor. A bank buys only when compliance, risk, finance and leadership agree, so map those roles at each named bank, have your third-party risk file ready before DORA reviewers ask for it, and time outreach to dated events such as a MiCA licence, a custody launch or a new head of payments.
What do the numbers say about Fintech & Crypto?
Each figure links to the page it comes from, so you can check it before you repeat it.
| What the evidence says | Source |
|---|---|
| Molten Ventures advises fintech founders selling to banks to staff for a 9 to 18 month sales cycle, with compliance, risk, finance and leadership all lined up. | Molten Ventures (27 March 2019) |
| DORA has applied to EU financial entities and their ICT third-party providers since 17 January 2025. | EIOPA |
| Under DORA, financial entities must keep a register of all contractual arrangements with ICT third-party service providers. | European Banking Authority |
| Global fintech investment reached $103.1 billion across 2,100 deals in the first half of 2026. | KPMG, Pulse of Fintech H1 2026 (September 2026) |
Why does the usual approach stall in Fintech & Crypto?
A business sponsor can want your product after one meeting, but a bank cannot buy it until compliance, risk, finance and leadership have agreed, which is why Molten Ventures tells fintech founders to staff for a 9 to 18 month sales cycle. For an EU financial entity the bar rose when DORA began to apply on 17 January 2025, because every contractual arrangement with an ICT third-party service provider now has to be entered in a register of information. Your onboarding becomes a piece of work for a third-party risk team that has its own queue and has never met you, and the deal waits while your sponsor tries to answer questions written for someone else.
Volume marketing has little to work with here. A list of a few hundred institutions is too small for an ad platform to learn who the buyers are, and the channels themselves are cautious, since LinkedIn lists ads promoting cryptocurrency and related products as restricted. Category content draws analysts and other fintech companies, while the head of third-party risk and the compliance officer, who decide whether the deal moves, never see material written for their question.
If you sell a consumer app, a token or a trading product to retail investors, this page describes the wrong problem, because those markets grow through volume, community and app stores rather than through a list of named institutions.
Where does pipeline break in Fintech & Crypto?
We look at five stages in the Diagnostic, because each fails for a different reason. The rows show the failure we look for first at each stage and what changes once Torke fixes it, in the order a deal meets them.
-
Discovery
Where it breaks
Third-party risk and compliance reviewers look for how you document your controls and find only material written for the business sponsor
What changes once it is fixed
The Visibility practice puts your control documentation, in approved words, on the pages reviewers and AI assistants read before a meeting
-
Timing
Where it breaks
A MiCA authorisation or a bank's custody launch is public for weeks before you hear of it, and its systems are chosen in that time
What changes once it is fixed
Account signals lists licences, custody launches and new heads of payments each morning, and Demand covers the account in that week
-
Evaluation
Where it breaks
The sponsor cannot answer what third-party risk and compliance ask, so a positive demo turns into two quarters of silence
What changes once it is fixed
Demand covers the control functions at the sponsor's institution, and Campaigns on approved claims keeps each line within facts compliance approved
-
Qualification
Where it breaks
Interest from analysts and other fintech companies is counted as pipeline while the institutions on your list stay silent
What changes once it is fixed
A lead counts only with five recorded facts, including a named person at an agreed account and a lawful basis for contact in their country
-
Handover
Where it breaks
Marketing reports leads that sales refuses to work, so the board hears two pipeline numbers and trusts neither
What changes once it is fixed
Revenue operations sets one set of lifecycle stages and routing in your CRM, and your team has five business days to reject a lead with a reason
Who is in the buying group?
One person rarely decides alone, so a lead from the wrong role moves nothing. These are the roles we map at every account on your list.
Who signs
The business sponsor, often the head of a business line, of operations or of digital assets, with the CFO or a management committee approving the budget.
Who evaluates
Product owners, IT architecture and the operations team that will run your system day to day, with procurement running the commercial process.
Who can block
Compliance, legal, third-party risk management and information security, who decide whether you can be onboarded as a provider and under which conditions.
Which signals open an account in Fintech & Crypto?
Each signal is a dated, public event a sceptical buyer could check in thirty seconds. Market-wide news can change an account's conditions, and we never write it up as something that company did.
| Signal | What it changes inside the account |
|---|---|
| A firm announces its authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA | A regulated business line now has a start date, and the systems behind it have to be chosen and onboarded |
| A bank announces a custody, tokenization or digital assets offering for its clients | Infrastructure partners are being selected now, and the sponsor needs a provider the control functions will accept |
| A new head of payments, operations or digital assets is appointed | A new owner reviews the existing providers in the first months and has a mandate to change them |
| Your own security audit or certification is completed | An objection that stopped earlier third-party risk reviews is gone, so stalled onboardings can restart |
| The account speaks or exhibits at Sibos or a regional fintech event | Attention on the topic rises for a few weeks, and a meeting can be set before and after the event |
What does a qualified lead look like here?
The head of digital assets at a private bank on your agreed list replies that the bank plans to offer custody to its clients next year and asks how your platform documents its controls for their third-party risk review. The basis for contacting them in their country is recorded, and the account is not an open opportunity in your CRM. That reply, with the custody announcement it answered, is a qualified lead.
A lead counts only when all five facts are recorded, and you have five business days to reject it with a reason. The Torke Service page explains each fact.
- Fact one
- A named person in the buying group
- Fact two
- At an account you agreed to in writing
- Fact three
- A need or timing in their own words
- Fact four
- A lawful basis for contact
- Fact five
- Not already open in your CRM
Where should you start?
Every client starts with the Diagnostic, and in fintech it most often points to Demand, because the constraint is reaching the sponsor and the control functions at the same institution while its need is current.
Every engagement opens with the Diagnostic, two to three weeks that end on one of four decisions: stop, fix one barrier, run one practice, or expand later.
Usual first step for Fintech & Crypto
The practice the Diagnostic most often points to here, run month by month once it does.
Get in touchHow do Torke Service and Torke Engine help?
The same engines run in both, so you can begin with one and move to the other without starting over.
Torke Service, we run it
For example, a custody platform selling to private banks in three countries finds that most of its stalled deals never reached third-party risk before the sponsor went quiet. Torke runs Demand against the agreed list of banks, watching for custody and digital asset announcements, and covers the sponsor and the control functions at each account in the same week.
How Torke Service worksTorke Engine, your team runs it
Campaigns on approved claims matters most in fintech, because every line that reaches a financial buyer has to match facts your compliance team approved, and Account signals matters next, because licences and bank product launches are public and dated. First-touch outreach keeps anything inferred as a question, which suits buyers who distrust confident claims about their own operations.
For example, a marketer asks the assistant to draft Google search and LinkedIn ads for asset managers working through their DORA third-party registers. The assistant returns the ads in each platform's import format with the campaigns paused, every line checked against the approved claims, and a note on the one line it dropped because no approved fact supported it.
How Torke Engine worksWhat can you expect?
You can stop after any stage and keep what it produced.
A Diagnostic that can say stop
In two to three weeks the Diagnostic names the one constraint in your pipeline and ends on one of four decisions: stop, fix one barrier, run one practice, or expand later.
Leads you can check and reject
Each qualified lead arrives with its evidence and its five recorded facts, and your team has five business days to reject it with a reason from a fixed list.
A monthly read with honest gaps
Every month you receive the leads and a written read of coverage, spend against plan and each channel's contribution, and long cycles mean some results are reported as too small to judge.
What do teams in Fintech & Crypto ask about Torke?
Each answer stands on its own, so you can forward one to a colleague, and an assistant asked the same question can quote it as it is.
Why do fintech deals stall after a positive demo with a bank?
In a bank, a business sponsor can want a fintech product after one meeting, but compliance, risk, finance and leadership all have to agree before it can be bought. Since DORA began to apply on 17 January 2025, every contractual arrangement an EU financial entity has with an ICT third-party service provider has to be entered in a register of information, which turns vendor onboarding into work for a third-party risk team. Torke's Demand practice covers those control functions at the same institution as the sponsor.
Can Torke run ads for a fintech or crypto company?
Torke Engine's Campaigns on approved claims module drafts Google search, LinkedIn and Meta ads for fintech and crypto companies where every line is checked against facts their compliance team approved, and exports them in each platform's import format with paid campaigns paused. It never launches spend, so a signed-in person releases every campaign. LinkedIn lists ads promoting cryptocurrency and related products as restricted, which a crypto company has to account for before planning paid coverage there.
Where should a fintech company start with Torke?
A fintech company starts with Torke's Diagnostic, two to three weeks spent on its account list, recent wins and losses, CRM definitions and current campaigns to find the one constraint. In fintech the Diagnostic most often points to the Demand practice, because the constraint is reaching the business sponsor and the control functions at the same institution while its need is current, and it can also end on stop, which is a real outcome.
How long is the sales cycle for fintech companies selling to banks?
Molten Ventures tells fintech founders to staff for a 9 to 18 month sales cycle, because compliance, risk, finance and leadership all need to be ready to buy. For EU banks DORA, in application since 17 January 2025, adds a step, since every ICT third-party contract has to be entered in a register of information.
Who is in the buying group when a bank buys fintech software?
A business sponsor such as the head of payments or operations signs, with the CFO or a management committee approving the budget. Product owners, IT architecture and operations evaluate, and compliance, legal, third-party risk and information security can block onboarding.
Bring us the problem, and we bring the solution to it
Tell us what your team sells, who buys it and where deals stop moving. You'll get a written reply saying which way of working fits you, or whether a Diagnostic makes sense, and if neither does, the reason.