Darragh Buckley, an early employee at payment-processor Stripe, is taking his financial-product start-up Increase into the banking world.

Buckley, who acquired voting shares in Twin City Bank last year, since took over the lender fully, renamed it Increase Bank, and is now using the platform to expand his start-up’s work with financial-technology clients.

His purchase of the lender – sandwiched between Seattle in Washington and Portland, Oregon – is vaulting Increase into a competitive space dominated by firms such as Lead Bank and Column that provide fintechs with a much sought banking platform.

Buckley plans to keep the bank’s physical location in Longview, Washington, as well as its community banking business.

Buckley’s Increase, which was founded in 2020, initially had success working as the technology layer interfacing between banks and fintechs, such as Stripe and Ramp, working on services such as ensuring employees are paid at an exact time.

But he was ready to take it a step further and not have to rely on its own banking partners to handle the regulated portion of the work.

“It’s time for us to tie those things more tightly together,” he said.

Buckley has said he’s been keenly aware of the challenges that fintechs face when it comes to banking given the complicated set-up that’s needed to create products.

Increase Bank, which counts Jon Jones as its chief executive, will provide a more digitally native banking infrastructure for clients.

“I built it to be the banking technology that I wanted while building Stripe,” Buckley said in an interview. – Buckley