Crossriverbank

Cross River (Cross River Bank) is an American financial services organization and New Jersey state-chartered, FDIC-insured bank that combines traditional community banking with technology infrastructure for fintech and technology companies. Its platform spans FDIC-insured consumer and business accounts with unlimited subledgers, money movement across ACH, wire and real-time payment rails, card issuing and processing with BIN sponsorship, card acceptance and push-to-card via Visa, Mastercard and regional networks, marketplace lending from origination and servicing through securitization and sale, principal/asset-based financing, and crypto and stablecoin products that combine fiat rails with onchain settlement. CRB Securities, a Cross River company, provides capital raising and advisory services to the fintech ecosystem, including private placements, M&A, ABS issuance and loan sale advisory.

Alongside its technology business, the bank conducts traditional community banking activities such as deposit-taking and lending, including commercial real estate lending across the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut metro areas, where it originates multi-family, retail, mixed-use, office and industrial loans as well as bridge, renovation and construction products and warehouse lines of credit for bridge lenders. During the COVID-19 pandemic it was among the largest originators under the CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program, originating $6.5 billion in loans to more than 198,000 small businesses.

The company positions its offerings around vertical use cases including social platforms, merchant platforms, retailers, gaming, neobanks, merchant acquirers, digital lenders and institutional credit investors, and provides a developer sandbox and public API documentation.

Founding story

Cross River Bank was founded in 2008 by French-born entrepreneur Gilles Gade as a community bank; Gade serves as founder, CEO and Chairman.

Business model

Cross River operates as a chartered bank that distributes banking capabilities to third-party businesses through APIs, acting as the bank partner behind fintech-branded accounts, payments, cards and loans. It provides balance sheet capacity, compliance, risk management and implementation support to partners, originates loans for marketplace lenders and processes payments, and also runs a broker-dealer/advisory arm (CRB Securities) and a venture capital arm, Cross River Digital Ventures.

Revenue derives from banking and technology services to partner companies — loan origination for marketplace lenders, payment processing, card issuing and BIN sponsorship, deposits and accounts, principal and asset-based financing for cashflow-producing assets, commercial real estate lending, and advisory/capital-markets fees through CRB Securities.

Traction

The company reports facilitating more than $32 billion in consumer loans since 2019, over 300% growth in real-time payment transactions, and an average credit score increase of 81 points within six months of Build card use. It originated $6.5 billion in PPP loans to more than 198,000 small businesses, announced a $100 million securitization with Marlette Funding in 2015, and had approximately 500 employees by 2021 and roughly $9.9 billion in assets as of November 2020.

Latest developments

Recent company posts describe embedding automated sweeps with expanded FDIC insurance coverage directly into its banking core, scaling the COS core for social platform volumes, and positioning regulated stablecoins for agentic commerce. The company also markets virtual card issuance for AI agents alongside debit and credit programs with BIN sponsorship.