Working with fintechs can be incredibly fruitful but requires rigorous vetting – especially given the current economic climate for startups. If your 2023 innovation roadmap includes potential partnerships, make sure you’re asking these questions.

Wells Fargo’s head of digital, Michelle Moore, helps manage the bank’s fintech relationships. During a recent webinar with American Banker, she ran through the questions she asks when considering working with a firm: 

“Are they stable and secure? Can they handle our volume? Do they have a business continuity plan? Do they have the right controls in place to protect the customer experience?” she asks. Running through worst-case scenarios is crucial, she adds: “My legal, risk, and compliance partners are my best friends.” 

Obviously, Wells Fargo hopes that any firm it works with will succeed in the long run, but it’s still critical to lock down, at the very beginning of the relationship, how to manage customer needs if a fintech winds down.  

“We figure out how we’ll ensure that – if something happens – it’s seamless to customers, that they can go on managing their finances,” she said.  

For more guidance from your peers, check out the advice for evaluating technology experiments that a former CIO at Credit Suisse shared with Insights Distilled.