Welcome to The Fintech Files, your weekly roundup from FN’s fintech correspondent Yolanda Bobeldijk, keeping you up-to-date with the latest developments in financial tech and innovation.

Closing the gap?
Remember when all the banks set up innovation labs, with the bean bags and hipster coffee machines? They were going to be agile and cool and startups were definitely going to work with them. We now know, of course, that banks and fintechs are no match made in heaven. Navigating legal, compliance and procurement takes so long that the average cycle to sell into a bank is still about 12 to 18 months; enough to drive a fintech founder crazy or, worse, see them run out of money.