Financial Technology Partners, the only investment bank focused exclusively on FinTech, is pleased to announce the further deepening of its senior team with the addition of 18+ year FinTech investment banking veteran, Stephen Stout, as Managing Director in our growing New York City office.

Mr. Stout was most recently the Global Head of Strategy at First Data where he was responsible for managing global strategy, business development projects and M&A. While at First Data, he also spearheaded the Company's IPO, which was the largest equity offering in the U.S. in 2015.

Prior to First Data, Mr. Stout spent eight years as a senior investment banker at J.P. Morgan building its FinTech and Payments practice. He was a lead advisor on many high profile FinTech deals, including the IPOs of Visa, Cielo, Vantiv, Green Dot, FleetCor, Qiwi and Evertec. He also advised on numerous FinTech M&A deals, including Visa's acquisition of Cybersource, Vantiv's acquisition of Litle & Co, the spin-off of TSYS from Synovus and the sales of Mercury Payments, Merchant e-Solutions, Comdata, MoneyGram, Travelex, NETS, Obopay and Point International, among many others. Prior to his investment banking career, Mr. Stout covered the Payments industry as an equity research analyst for eight years at J.P. Morgan and UBS, where he helped build the #1-ranked research team in the Institutional Investor and Greenwich Polls.

Steve McLaughlin, Founder, CEO and Managing Partner of FT Partners, remarked: "Stephen represents everything we've tried to do in building FT Partners – attracting the deepest domain and execution experts in the FinTech sector, bar none. Stephen was recruited extremely heavily by other FinTech companies and investment banks, but we were the natural fit given our mutual love of FinTech and transactional excellence. I'm extremely excited to welcome Stephen to FT Partners where his 18 years of deep domain expertise and dedicated focus on FinTech will complement our Firm's strategy perfectly."

"I've spent almost all of my career focused on FinTech advisory and the decision to join Steve McLaughlin and his team at FT Partners was one of the easiest decisions of my career," said Stephen Stout. "No other firm even comes close to matching the depth and breadth of FinTech transaction experience and FT Partners' reputation for delivering top-notch results is a testament to the Firm's commitment to its clients and their shareholders alike."

Entering its 15th year, FT Partners is yet again proud to have been recognized by the M&A Advisor both as "Investment Bank of the Year" and for executing the "Cross Border M&A Deal of the Year." This is the fourth time the Firm has been awarded "Investment Banking (or Boutique) Firm of the Year," which builds onnumerous other accolades including Dealmaker of the Year and Deal of the Decade – in addition to being recognized by industry CEOs as the 2nd Most Popular Banker (and the #1 FinTech Banker) in Silicon Valley viaThe Information, as the Architect of Financial Technology by The Deal and as a top 5 FinTech global influencerby Institutional Investor.

About FT Partners

Financial Technology Partners ("FT Partners") is the only investment banking firm focused exclusively on providing top-tier strategic and financial advisory services to FinTech CEOs, founders and investors. The Firm offers CEOs and investors a wide array of strategic advisory services in mission-critical transactions including M&A, IPOs, LBOs, recapitalizations and private capital raises.