TL;DR
Most Indian fintechs operate through someone else's licence. Lending happens in partnership with a bank or through a co-lending arrangement; cards are issued on a sponsor bank's BIN; payments settle through a sponsor's accounts; deposits sit with a partner. The VP of Banking Alliances, variously titled Head of Partnerships, Head of Strategic Alliances or Head of Banking Relationships, owns those relationships end to end.
It is a commercial role with a regulatory spine. The commercial half is negotiating terms, economics and service levels with institutions that move slower and hold more leverage. The regulatory half is that the partner bank is accountable to the RBI for what the fintech does on its licence, which means the fintech's compliance posture is a condition of the relationship rather than a separate matter.
Key points
- The RBI (Co-Lending Arrangements) Directions, 2025, notified 6 August 2025 and effective 1 January 2026, extended co-lending beyond priority sector to all loan types and set a 10% minimum retention for every participating entity.
- The job is relationship-dense and cycle-long. Partnerships take six to eighteen months to land and years to manage.
- The hardest thing to assess is whether a candidate has actually closed a partnership or has managed one someone else closed.
- Candidates from banks understand the counterparty; candidates from fintechs understand the urgency. Both can work, and they fail differently.
What the role owns
Sponsor bank relationships for payments. Nodal and escrow accounts, settlement, the operational service levels, and the commercial terms. For a payment business this relationship is close to existential: a sponsor bank exit is a business continuity event, not a procurement issue.
Co-lending and lending partnerships. Structuring the arrangement, negotiating the economics and the credit policy overlay, and managing it through the life of the book.
BIN sponsorship for cards. The issuing relationship with a bank whose BIN the programme runs on, plus the network relationship with Visa, Mastercard or RuPay, scheme compliance, and the programme economics across interchange, fees and rewards.
Distribution partnerships. Where the fintech distributes a partner's product rather than the reverse: insurance, mutual funds, deposits.
Renegotiation and diversification. Most of the real value sits here. A second sponsor bank is both a resilience measure and a negotiating position, and the leaders who create one are worth considerably more than those who maintain a single relationship.
Partner governance. Reporting, audits, the partner's own inspection obligations flowing down, and being the person who absorbs the first call when something goes wrong.
What the 2025 co-lending rules changed
The RBI (Co-Lending Arrangements) Directions, 2025, notified on 6 August 2025 and effective from 1 January 2026, reset the framework that had governed co-lending since 2020.
| Change | Consequence for the role |
|---|---|
| Extended from priority sector lending only to all loan types, secured and unsecured | The addressable partnership market widened substantially. Deals that were not possible are now structurable |
| Each regulated entity must retain at least 10% of individual loans, replacing the 2020 model's 20% NBFC retention with no explicit bank minimum | Changes the capital arithmetic on both sides and therefore the negotiation |
| Applies to commercial banks, All-India Financial Institutions and NBFCs, excluding Small Finance Banks and Regional Rural Banks | Narrows the partner universe for some structures and should be checked before pursuing a counterparty |
| Default loss guarantee permitted up to 5% of loans outstanding, governed by the digital lending directions | Caps the risk transfer that used to make marginal deals work. Several pre-2026 structures no longer clear |
| Escrow account required, with the agreement specifying appropriation between partners | An operational and treasury design question, not just a contractual clause |
| Blended interest rate, weighted by proportionate funding share, disclosed through the Key Facts Statement | Pricing has to be jointly computed and jointly disclosed, which forces system integration earlier |
| 15-day transfer timelines and enhanced website and financial statement disclosure | Operational discipline becomes contractual, with visible consequences for missing it |
The practical effect is that co-lending became both a bigger opportunity and a tighter structure. A partnerships leader who negotiated deals under the 2020 framework and has not reworked their playbook will propose structures that no longer clear. This is a legitimate and specific interview question.
Which backgrounds transfer
| Background | Transfers | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Partnerships leadership at a scaled fintech | Strongly. The closest match | Verify they closed deals rather than managing inherited ones |
| Bank relationship or corporate banking, covering fintech clients | Strongly | Knows the counterparty's decision process intimately. FinTech pace is a genuine adjustment |
| Bank product leadership in cards or transaction banking | Well | Deep on structure and economics, sometimes light on the originating and closing motion |
| Payment aggregator partnerships or network relationships | Well | Strong on scheme and commercial detail, may be narrower on lending structures |
| Corporate development or investment banking in financial services | Partially | Excellent on structuring, usually untested on the long operational management phase |
| General business development or enterprise sales | Weakly | The regulatory dimension is not learnable on the job at this level |
The signal worth weighting: a candidate who has moved a partnership from a single-source dependency to a diversified set has done the hardest version of this job. A candidate who has only onboarded a partner the CEO brought in has done the easiest.
How to assess
Ask them to name a deal they closed and walk the whole process. Who they approached, how they got in, what the bank's internal path was, what nearly killed it, what they conceded. Partnership leaders who have actually closed describe the bank's internal committee structure from memory. Those who have not stay at the level of the term sheet.
Ask about the 2025 co-lending reset. "What in your previous structures would not clear under the current directions?" This is the single best currency check available for this role right now.
Test the compliance fluency. "A sponsor bank's audit flags a gap in your onboarding. What do you do in the first 48 hours?" The right answer involves the Chief Compliance Officer immediately and does not involve managing the bank's perception first.
Probe the diversification question. "You have one sponsor bank. What is your plan?" Strong candidates treat concentration as a risk to be worked rather than a fact to be lived with.
Check the patience. Ask about the longest deal they have run and what they did during the quiet months. This role punishes people who need a quarterly win.
Ask what they walked away from. Partnerships leaders who have never declined a deal have usually accepted terms that cost the company later.
The search reality
The pool is relationship-defined, not credential-defined. What a candidate is worth here is partly who takes their call at six banks. That is assessable but not from a CV, and it is why these searches depend on references more than most.
Bank-side candidates are often the best value and need the most support. They bring the counterparty's perspective and a genuine network, and they frequently struggle with fintech pace and ambiguity in the first six months. Companies that plan for that get a strong hire; those that expect immediate throughput lose them.
Title inflation is severe in this space. "Head of Partnerships" covers everything from a two-person BD function to a leader managing eight bank relationships and a co-lending book. Calibrate on the relationships managed and the deals closed, not the title.
It is frequently confused with the CFO's remit. Debt raising, treasury relationships and bank funding sit with the CFO; product and distribution partnerships sit here. Where both are being hired, the boundary should be written down before either search starts.
Expect a long lead time. The strongest candidates are in post at four or five companies and are not looking, which makes this a mapped and approached search rather than an advertised one. Our method is in how we search.
Common questions
What does a VP of Banking Alliances do in a fintech?
Owns the relationships through which the fintech operates under someone else's regulatory licence: sponsor banks for payments settlement and nodal accounts, co-lending and lending partners, BIN sponsorship and network relationships for card programmes, and distribution partnerships for third-party products. The role covers origination and negotiation of those arrangements, their commercial terms, and their ongoing governance including audits and partner reporting.
What changed under the RBI Co-Lending Arrangements Directions, 2025?
The Directions, notified on 6 August 2025 and effective 1 January 2026, extended co-lending beyond priority sector lending to all loan types, secured and unsecured; set a minimum 10% retention of each individual loan for every participating regulated entity, replacing the earlier 20% NBFC retention with no bank minimum; capped default loss guarantee at 5% of loans outstanding; required an escrow account with specified appropriation; mandated a blended interest rate weighted by funding share and disclosed through the Key Facts Statement; and introduced 15-day transfer timelines with enhanced disclosure.
Should banking alliances report to the CEO, CFO or Chief Business Officer?
Most commonly the CEO or Chief Business Officer, because the relationships are strategic and often founder-initiated. Reporting to the CFO works where the dominant relationships are funding-related rather than product-related. What matters more is the boundary: debt raising and treasury banking belong with the CFO, while product, co-lending and sponsorship partnerships belong here, and leaving that undefined causes duplicated approaches to the same bank.
Can we hire a banker into this role?
Frequently the best option, with planning. Bankers bring an accurate model of how the counterparty decides, a real network, and credibility in the room. The adjustment is pace and ambiguity: a fintech partnerships role has fewer resources, shorter cycles and more improvisation than a bank seat. Companies that budget six months of adjustment get a strong hire. Those expecting immediate deal flow usually lose the person inside a year.
How long does a banking partnership take to close in India?
Six to eighteen months is normal for a substantive sponsor bank or co-lending arrangement, longer where the fintech is early or the structure is novel. The timeline is driven by the bank's internal credit, compliance and risk committees rather than by commercial appetite, which is why candidates who understand the counterparty's internal path move materially faster than those who do not.