Kotapay, a division of First International Bank & Trust (FIBT), recently announced that Giftly, a digital gifting platform that allows people to send personalized, monetary gifts, is live on Kavinu, FIBT’s bank-direct Banking as a Service (BaaS) platform. The partnership supports Giftly’s payout experience with modern, cloud-based infrastructure, with Kotapay delivering ACH processing.
Giftly program launched on Kavinu following a transition of an active program from its prior banking partner to FIBT. More than $21.8 million in cash balances were transferred at go-live, reflecting the operational readiness required to assume and run an active program while maintaining uninterrupted daily activity.
“Kavinu was built for fintechs like Giftly that need to scale without outgrowing their banking foundation,” said Trent Sorbe, chief payments officer at First International Bank & Trust. “With its bank-first design, Kavinu supports a range of embedded finance use cases and significant settlement volume as partners grow, while keeping the bank close to the controls.”
Giftly’s launch comes as expectations across embedded finance continue to rise, with fintechs, banks and regulators placing greater emphasis on accountable operating models, consistent onboarding and durable oversight. For FIBT and Kotapay, the partnership supports growth through expanded deposits, non-interest income and scalable ACH volume, while continuing to strengthen risk, compliance and onboarding frameworks designed to support partners over the long term.
“Securing a bank partner with Kotapay’s scale and experience, plus the added capabilities of the new Kavinu platform, is a rare find,” said Timothy Bentley, CEO at Giftly. “Giftly has an aggressive growth strategy and plans to expand payout options, and it helps to have a single provider that brings both the bank charter and the technology to support what’s next.”
Kavinu builds on Kotapay’s longstanding payments capabilities, bringing cloud-based, API-driven services into a bank-direct platform designed for embedded finance use cases. Kotapay provides electronic payments processing to more than 107,000 employers and 1.5 million consumers nationwide and leverages the operational discipline and compliance infrastructure of FIBT, a regulated, family-owned community bank.
Kavinu is designed to help fintech and embedded finance providers simplify the BaaS model through a direct relationship with the bank, reducing reliance on layered middleware and nonbank intermediaries. The platform supports a bank-controlled approach to risk management and compliance while enabling partners to scale as their programs grow.
For Giftly, the partnership provides a stable, compliant and scalable banking relationship, with infrastructure that can support future expansion across payout methods and disbursement capabilities over time.
