Modulr Accelerates US Expansion Through Strategic Cogent Bank Partnership

Modulr has partnered with Cogent Bank to expand its payments automation platform across the United States, offering businesses a unified interface for ACH, RTP, and FedNow transactions. For fintech professionals, this move signals a significant bridge for European firms entering the American market while addressing the fragmentation and high-friction onboarding that often plagues U.S. B2B payment infrastructure.

What was announced

The partnership integrates Modulr’s automation technology with Cogent Bank’s modern banking infrastructure, which is directly connected to the FIS Money Movement Hub. This setup allows both existing and new Modulr customers to open U.S. accounts and execute same-day or standard payouts through a single platform. The system is designed to automatically optimize routing based on cost and speed across multiple rails, including the Automated Clearing House (ACH), Real-Time Payments (RTP), and the FedNow network.

The expansion targets two primary groups: current Modulr clients in the UK and Europe who are scaling their operations into the U.S., and U.S.-native platforms that process high volumes of payments in sectors such as lending, earned wage access (EWA), and payroll. The move comes as the U.S. B2B payments market is valued at over $460 billion in 2025, with real-time networks seeing massive adoption. In 2025, FedNow processed $853 billion—a nearly 24-fold increase from the previous year—while The Clearing House’s RTP network handled over $1.3 trillion.

Modulr will initially pilot the platform with several key customers in merchant services, lending, and EWA. This follows the company's initial entry into the U.S. market earlier this year through a strategic selection by FIS to provide payments technology to American financial institutions. By utilizing Cogent’s status as a state-chartered bank, Modulr aims to resolve the operational complexities and slow integration processes that have historically characterized the U.S. payments ecosystem.

"There has been a growing appetite from existing and prospect customers for us to provide our payments automation services in the U.S., and this, alongside the large gap in the U.S. market for automated, simplified payments, means we are well positioned for this next stage of growth through our partnership with Cogent Bank. Working with Cogent gives us nationwide reach from day one, with infrastructure built by our payments experts and supported in the U.S. through our strategic partnership with FIS."

Myles Stephenson, Founder & Chief Executive at Modulr.

The companies involved

Modulr is a payments automation platform designed to help businesses scale by removing the operational complexity of moving money. The company has established a significant presence in the UK and European markets over the last decade, focusing on building real-time payments infrastructure with integrated compliance and operational foundations. It has become a prominent player in the fintech ecosystem, with its technology used to streamline high-volume payment workflows for a variety of industries.

Cogent Bank is a U.S. state-chartered, full-service community bank that has demonstrated rapid growth since its founding in 2018. In that time, the institution has increased its assets from $85 million to more than $2.5 billion, representing a 30-fold expansion. Cogent has positioned itself as a tech-forward partner by investing in modern banking infrastructure that supports embedded finance and strategic partnerships. The bank’s core systems are integrated with FIS, a global leader in financial technology, which facilitates the delivery of advanced money movement features to fintech platforms and their end users.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has closely followed Modulr’s trajectory as it evolved from a UK specialist into a global contender. We previously reported on how FIS Launches Embedded Banking Platform for U.S. Commercial Banks, a development that laid the groundwork for Modulr's current U.S. strategy. Modulr's technical prowess was further highlighted when it became the first non-bank PSP with direct access to all three major UK payment schemes. Additionally, the company's regulatory standing and growth potential were recognized when it joined the first cohort of the FCA Scale-up Unit, a story we covered alongside reports that the FCA Scale-up Unit Welcomes ClearScore, Modulr, and Zilch to boost financial innovation.

What this means

This partnership highlights the intensifying competition in the U.S. B2B payments space, where legacy fragmentation is finally meeting modern automation. By bridging the Atlantic with a single platform, Modulr is directly challenging domestic incumbents who have historically relied on the friction of disparate regional systems. The rapid growth of FedNow and RTP suggests that the "real-time" requirement is no longer a luxury but a baseline for U.S. commercial banking. For the industry, this move raises the stakes for community banks; those that fail to invest in modern, API-driven infrastructure—as Cogent has—risk being sidelined as international fintechs seek agile partners to capture the massive B2B market.