Guest Sima Gandhi (Co-Founder, Coalition for Financial Ecosystem Standards; Founder, Alton Strategies; Senior Advisor, FS Vector) joins host Kareem Saleh (FairPlay AI) to discuss why shared, audit-ready standards for bank-fintech partnerships are the missing infrastructure layer for responsible AI adoption in financial services. Gandhi, who previously held senior roles at Plaid, the U.S. Treasury, and American Express, argues that regulators are telling institutions to innovate while examiners still lack a consistent framework for evaluating what “good” looks like, creating a game of telephone between sponsor banks that leaves fintechs guessing and compliance teams over-investing in duplicative work.
The conversation centers on what CFES is building to close that gap: operational standards that function like a SOC 2 or PCI compliance framework for bank-fintech partnerships, covering everything from BSA/AML and complaint handling to model risk management and fair lending. Developed alongside members including FairPlay, Upstart, and FIS, the standards are publicly published and designed for third-party auditors to assess companies against, giving examiners a recognizable, rigorous baseline when they walk in the door. Gandhi’s “magic wand” ask of regulators is simple and narrow: publicly affirm that banks can use independent third-party experts to assess components of their technology stack and partnerships, not as a safe harbor, but as smarter, more cost-efficient due diligence.
If you are a bank compliance officer or fintech founder wondering what to do right now, Gandhi’s advice is direct: adopt the standards while the regulatory window is open, because the pendulum will swing back. Building around shared standards makes your program interoperable across banking partners, defensible when scrutiny returns, and recognizable to examiners who are also trying to figure out what AI risk management should look like. The bottom line: do not wait for regulators to hand you the playbook. Be the change, define what responsible innovation looks like, and build the world you want to defend when the next enforcement cycle arrives.
