KC company's tool helps community banks, credit unions compete against fintechs

After watching community banks and credit unions slowly bleed away customers to fintechs offering better payment solutions, Kansas City-based IncumbentFI came up with a solution it hopes will help turn the tide.

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Founded in 2022, IncumbentFI is led by CEO Mike Miroslaw, who founded Overland Park-based Store Financial in 2003 and sold it for $35 million in 2016 to Emerchants Ltd. IncumbentFI created a system that allows banks to transform existing debit and credit cards into next-generation mobile optimized card programs. The goal is to allow clients to use one versatile card instead of several to accomplish the same things.

 

This would include being able to tie a bank card to a home equity line of credit. Users also could connect it to a health savings account or buy-now-pay-later or rewards programs, including rewards a bank could set up with local businesses.

 

The system connects to the financial technology infrastructure that banks already use, such as Fiserv.

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“Our goal is to help community banks and credit unions compete and win against the fintechs and the neobanks that are targeting their clients," said Patrick O’Boyle, executive vice president of IncumbentFI.

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Those players — Chime, SoFi and other neobanks — are using innovation to slowly lure bank customers and credit union members because they can tie their cards to other funding sources and programs, he said.

 

“These are things that community banks and credit unions would like to do, but it has been difficult because they use big monolithic technology systems,"

 

O’Boyle said. “But we’re dropping our technology into that platform, and it just sits right in the middle of their tech stack, easily working with their existing debit cards.”

 

Miroslaw said a survey of banks at the end of 2025 showed they saw fintechs and neobanks as the biggest threat to community banking. The banks realized that money and relationships were going out the door, heading for new technology that banks don’t have.

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“They’re recognizing that once the money is out the door and the relationship leaves, they’ve also lost prospects for loans, mortgages and other services,” Miroslaw said. “They see a need to address the Generation Z and down customer who is very digitally focused because once you lose them, you’re never going to get them back.”

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If community banks start using IncumbentFI to offer better payment solutions, O'Boyle said they’ll have an advantage over the fintechs and neobanks because local banks understand the community those clients live in.

 

“If [clients] have to choose between Chime and the bank next door that offers the same services, they’re going to pick the people they can see in their community who know them and have a relationship with them,” O’Boyle said. “We can also put community banks and credit unions in the middle of commerce between their cardholders and local businesses, helping to drive local commerce and keep those dollars local. Think of the old Plaza gift card. Banks can reach out to local businesses and say they’d love them to be a part of their rewards program.”