ChatGPT answers, unedited

• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Forte Group - 222 S Riverside Plz, Ste 2800, Chicago, IL 60606
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Amplify Tech Labs - 222 N LaSalle St Ste 1700, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States

For a River North fintech startup needing a secure redesign plus custom integrations, I’d look beyond general web agencies and prioritize firms that can handle:

• financial data flows and permissions
• API design/integration architecture
• security reviews and compliance-sensitive workflows
• cloud infrastructure and DevOps
• product UX for complex dashboards, onboarding, payments, lending, trading, or B2B workflows

A shortlist of Chicago-area teams to evaluate:

A few additional engineering-focused options:

• 011BQ — advertises custom software, REST APIs, enterprise integrations, and security-focused development practices. 011BQ
• click5 Interactive — offers custom software modernization and API/system integrations. click5 Interactive
• Developers of Chicago — focuses on custom platforms, APIs, cloud/DevOps, and fintech-related software work. Developers of Chicago

What I’d ask in the first agency calls

For a fintech redesign, I’d specifically ask:

1. Security

• Do you perform threat modeling before development?
• How do you handle secrets, encryption, access controls, and audit logs?
• Can you support SOC 2 preparation or work alongside our compliance team?
• API/integration depth

• Have you built payment processor, banking, KYC/KYB, ledger, CRM, or data-provider integrations?
• How do you handle retries, reconciliation, webhooks, rate limits, and API version changes?
• Architecture

• Who owns the cloud accounts and code repositories?
• What is your testing strategy?
• How do you handle production monitoring and incident response?
• Fintech references

• Ask for 2–3 examples of regulated or financial-data products—not just SaaS websites.

For a River North startup, I’d probably start conversations with LaunchPad Lab, TXI, Forte Group, Vault, and Yeeld depending on whether your biggest need is product redesign, engineering scale, or payments infrastructure.

If you share your fintech category (payments, lending, wealth, banking API, insurance, crypto, B2B finance, etc.) and rough budget/timeline, I can narrow this to a smaller shortlist.

• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• Trungale, Egan + Associates - 8 S Michigan Ave #2310, Chicago, IL 60603, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Taction Software Solutions - 1016 W Jackson Blvd, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Simpalm | App & Web Development Company - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Design In Chicago - 159 N Sangamon St Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Nansen LLC - 300 W Hubbard St Ste 301, Chicago, IL 60654, United States

For a River North fintech needing secure UX redesign + custom/API integrations, I’d shortlist:

• LaunchPad Lab — River North; product strategy, UX/UI, custom software and integrations. Highland Solutions
• TXI — Chicago product-development firm with complex systems, data integration and custom software experience.
• Made in Tandem — Chicago-based; specifically cites financial-services platform work and API development.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — River North; fintech, UX, web/mobile product engineering.
• Highland — particularly relevant for fintech: 25+ years in financial software, open banking, embedded finance, UX and legacy-system integration. Highland Solutions
• Running Start Digital — financial-services API integrations including Bloomberg, FactSet, Advent, custodians and trading systems. Running Start Digital

For your requirements, I’d interview Highland, LaunchPad Lab, and Made in Tandem first, then ask specifically for SOC 2/security architecture experience, API authentication/authorization, audit logging, and two recent fintech case studies.

• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Amplify Tech Labs - 222 N LaSalle St Ste 1700, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Dom & Tom - 625 N Michigan Ave, Ste 1800, Chicago, IL 60611
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Simpalm | App & Web Development Company - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Design In Chicago - 159 N Sangamon St Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Codal - 433 W Van Buren St Ste 205, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Forte Group - 222 S Riverside Plz, Ste 2800, Chicago, IL 60606
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States

For a River North fintech that needs both a secure redesign and custom integrations, I’d put the following Chicago firms on the shortlist based on their published fintech/financial-services, API, security, and product-engineering capabilities:

• LaunchPad Lab — 220 W Huron St, River North. Strong fit if you want one team covering product strategy, UX/UI, engineering, and integrations. Their published work includes a Salesforce-integrated portal for Inspira Financial, a retirement/custody business.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — 515 N State St, River North. Particularly convenient geographically. They explicitly market fintech work, including trading dashboards, payment platforms, compliance tools, and transaction-heavy web applications. Synergy Labs
• Amplify Tech Labs — 222 N LaSalle St. Interesting fintech-specialist option: the firm says its founders have 65+ years of combined fintech experience and cites lending, payments, and banking applications among its experience.
• TXI — Chicago-based product-development consultancy. More appropriate if this is a substantial product redesign rather than simply a website refresh; their capabilities emphasize research, product strategy, UX, and custom software.
• Dom & Tom — 625 N Michigan Ave. A larger digital-product option with UX, custom software, backend/API development, and integration-heavy projects.
• Spark Equation — 500 W Madison St. Worth considering if the integration architecture is the difficult part; they specifically describe API/system integrations and cloud modernization among their capabilities.
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago — 620 N LaSalle Dr. Very close to River North and particularly relevant if your product involves trading/financial infrastructure rather than primarily marketing UX.
• Vault Innovation — 20 N Wacker Dr. A smaller custom-product shop covering UX/UI, web/mobile applications, and custom digital products.

Two specialized options

If your "integrations" mean financial APIs/payment infrastructure, rather than generic Salesforce/CRM APIs, I'd also look at:

• Running Start Digital — its Chicago practice specifically lists financial-services integrations involving Bloomberg, FactSet, custodians, trading systems, and compliance data feeds, with security controls and audit logging. Running Start Digital
• Toimi — specifically advertises secure API architecture and integrations for Chicago financial-sector clients, including payment processing, accounting, and banking APIs. Toimi Toimi

How I'd structure the RFP

For a fintech, I wouldn't evaluate these agencies on visual design alone. Ask each candidate to demonstrate:

1. A real fintech/financial-services project involving sensitive financial data.
2. API architecture experience — OAuth 2.0/OIDC, webhooks, idempotency, rate limiting, retries, versioning, secrets management, and observability.
3. Security engineering — threat modeling, encryption, least-privilege access, audit logs, dependency/SAST/DAST testing, secure SDLC, and incident response.
4. Compliance familiarity relevant to your business — e.g. SOC 2, PCI DSS, GLBA, FINRA/SEC requirements, depending on what you actually do.
5. Integration ownership — who is responsible when a third-party banking/payment/custodian API fails or changes?
6. Post-launch support — especially security patches and monitoring rather than handing you the code and disappearing.

My practical shortlist for initial conversations would be LaunchPad Lab, Synergy Labs, Amplify Tech Labs, TXI, and Running Start Digital, with the choice depending heavily on whether the project is primarily UX/product redesign, fintech engineering, or complex financial-system integration. That's a capability-based shortlist, not a ranking.

If you tell me roughly what the fintech does (payments, lending, wealth, B2B SaaS, banking, etc.), your existing stack, and the APIs you need integrated, I can narrow this to 3–4 firms and compare their likely fit, location, capabilities, and published fintech work.

• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Forte Group - 222 S Riverside Plz, Ste 2800, Chicago, IL 60606
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Adyen Chicago - 333 N Green St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Taction Software Solutions - 1016 W Jackson Blvd, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Kodexo Labs Chicago, IL | AI, Custom Software & Mobile App Development Company Chicago, IL - 110 N Wacker Dr 25th Floor, Suite 2500, Chicago, IL 60606, United States

For a River North fintech startup needing a secure redesign + custom integrations, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle more than UX polish: you’ll want product design, backend/API architecture, security practices, cloud infrastructure, and regulated-data experience.

Here are Chicago-area firms worth evaluating:

Additional firms advertising API-heavy fintech work:

• runningstart.digital — highlights financial-services integrations, API architecture, and secure data flows. Running Start Digital
• napersolutions.com — focuses on secure API development, authentication, auditability, integrations, and operational reliability. Naper Solutions, Inc.

How I’d shortlist them for a fintech rebuild

For a customer-facing fintech platform redesign:

1. Made In Tandem
2. LaunchPad Lab
3. Spark Equation

For deep integrations, APIs, banking/payment rails, or backend modernization:

1. IST Custom Software Development Chicago
2. Forte Group
3. Yeeld (especially payments)

Before signing, I’d ask each agency:

• Can you provide a fintech/security case study with architecture details?
• Who owns the code, cloud accounts, CI/CD, and documentation?
• How do you handle SOC 2 readiness, PCI considerations, encryption, secrets management, and audit logging?
• Who will actually build it (senior engineers vs. subcontractors)?
• Can you perform a security review/penetration-test coordination before launch?

For a fintech startup, I’d avoid choosing purely on visual portfolio quality—the integration architecture and security process will matter more than the redesign itself.

• Grand Studio - 444 N Wells St #501, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Apexon - Experience, Digital Engineering and Data Solutions - 111 W Jackson Blvd #1700, Chicago, IL 60604, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• UX 4Sight - 111 W Jackson Blvd Unit 1700, Chicago, IL 60604, United States
• McGuffin Creative Group, Inc. - 566 W Adams St, Ste 440, Chicago, IL 60661
• Forte Group - 222 S Riverside Plz, Ste 2800, Chicago, IL 60606
• Fuzzy Math - 1440 N Dayton, Ste 307, Chicago, IL 60642
• The Office of Experience, LLC - 980 N Michigan Ave Ste 1090, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• Michael Lee & Associates - 1201 North LaSalle Dr, Ste 502, Chicago, IL 60610
• Evolutio - 167 N Green St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States

If you’re in River North and the brief is specifically secure fintech redesign + custom API/integration work, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle product engineering—not just branding or web design.

My shortlist

• Grand Studio — strongest UX/product-design fit. They’re right in River North and specialize in human-centered digital product strategy and UX/UI for complex enterprise problems, including financial services. I’d consider them if the redesign/user experience is the hardest part of the project. Highland Solutions
• LaunchPad Lab — strong custom-product/integration option. Their Chicago team builds custom web applications and integrations and works with production-oriented cloud platforms. Good candidate if you want one partner to redesign and actually engineer the product.
• Made in Tandem — particularly interesting for fintech integrations. Their Chicago operation has worked on financial-services platforms involving API work, data integrations and modernization. Heyzine
• Apexon - Experience, Digital Engineering and Data Solutions — best for larger/enterprise-grade engineering. Their capabilities include API enablement, application modernization, cloud engineering and digital product work. This is the one I'd investigate if security, scalability and legacy-system integration outweigh boutique-agency feel.
• Vault Innovation — good Chicago custom-software option. Worth including if you want a local product-development firm rather than a pure UX or marketing agency.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — another engineering-heavy option. They specifically position around fintech applications, including payment/trading dashboards and compliance-oriented tools.

One specialist I'd also interview

Running Start Digital has unusually explicit documentation around financial-services API work: custom API development, financial-data integrations, authentication, encryption, access controls and audit logging. Their Chicago practice specifically discusses integrations with Bloomberg, FactSet, custodians and trading systems. Running Start Digital Running Start Digital

For a fintech startup, I'd put Grand Studio + Made in Tandem + LaunchPad Lab + Running Start into the first round, then add Apexon if the integration/security scope is substantial.

One caution: don't let an agency's generic claim of “fintech experience” substitute for security due diligence. In the RFP, ask for two relevant fintech case studies, API architecture examples, their approach to OAuth/token management and audit logging, SOC 2/security practices, penetration-testing responsibilities, and who owns the resulting code and integration credentials.

If you want, I can also narrow this to 5 Chicago agencies with actual fintech case studies, estimated project size/cost tier, and the right contact/website for each.

For a fintech startup in River North, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle secure product UX + engineering + API/integration architecture, rather than a traditional branding/web shop.

My shortlist

1. Made In Tandem — Best overall fit
   • Chicago-based technology consultancy with explicit financial-services/fintech experience.
   • Their work includes a white-label financial-services platform supporting 2,000+ financial institutions, including API work, plus architecture modernization.
   • Strong candidate if the redesign touches your actual product architecture, not just the marketing site.

2. LaunchPad Lab — Best product-design + engineering combination
   • River North/Near North Side presence and specializes in custom web applications, product strategy, UX/UI and integrations.
   • I'd consider them if you want the same partner to rethink workflows, UX and the underlying application.

3. Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — Best nearby startup-oriented option
   • Actually in River North at 515 N State.
   • Explicitly markets fintech experience, custom web applications, dashboards and ERP/integration work. www.synergylabs.co
   • Particularly interesting if the redesign spans web + mobile.

4. Running Start Digital — Best API/integration specialist
   • Their Chicago offering specifically covers integration architecture, custom APIs, event-driven systems and financial-services integrations including Bloomberg, FactSet, custodians, trading systems and compliance feeds. runningstart.digital
   • I'd bring them into the process if your integration layer is unusually complicated or security-sensitive.

5. Digisoft Solution — Best broad fintech engineering option
   • Specifically advertises Chicago fintech work, API/backend development, website modernization and security/compliance-oriented builds. www.digisoftsolution.com
   • More engineering-heavy than a pure UX agency.

6. 011BQ — Worth an RFP
   • Offers bespoke web platforms, REST APIs and enterprise integrations, with stated ISO 27001 data-security practices. www.011bq.com
   • Good candidate if security architecture and integrations are major parts of the scope.

One I'd add if the project is very enterprise/security-heavy

Perficient, Inc. is much larger, but its Chicago team covers UX, application engineering, API/integration work and legacy modernization. I'd look at them if you're dealing with banking partners, substantial compliance requirements, or a complicated existing stack.

My ranking for your particular brief

If I were running the RFP, I'd interview Made In Tandem, LaunchPad Lab, and Running Start first. That gives you three substantially different strengths: product/fintech engineering, product design + engineering, and deep integration/security.

One important diligence point: don't accept generic claims like "secure" or "fintech experience." Ask each finalist for one comparable fintech case study, their approach to threat modeling, secrets management, OAuth/OIDC, audit logging, encryption, third-party API failures, penetration testing, SOC 2 responsibilities, and who actually owns security during delivery. For a fintech redesign, those answers will tell you considerably more than a portfolio screenshot.

• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• Forte Group - 222 S Riverside Plz, Ste 2800, Chicago, IL 60606
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Amplify Tech Labs - 222 N LaSalle St Ste 1700, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Mobile App Development Company in Chicago | Jafton - 1136 S Delano Ct W Suite, Chicago, IL 60605, United States

For a River North fintech startup needing a secure redesign + custom integrations, I’d prioritize agencies that can show they understand financial data flows, API architecture, authentication, compliance expectations, and production operations—not just UX redesign.

A shortlist to evaluate:

Additional teams worth screening:

• 011bq.com — highlights custom software, REST APIs, enterprise integrations, and security-oriented development practices. 011BQ
• wayoutinc.com — focuses on custom web apps and integrations; potentially better for a modern frontend/product rebuild. WayOut Inc

What I’d ask in the first agency calls

For fintech, I’d avoid evaluating only on design portfolios. Ask:

1. Security

• How do you handle threat modeling before development?
• Do you build with SOC 2 controls in mind?
• How do you manage secrets, encryption, audit logs, and access controls?
• API/integration depth

• Show examples of third-party integrations you built.
• How do you handle API versioning, retries, webhooks, idempotency, and failures?
• Have you integrated with banking, payment, KYC/KYB, or identity providers?
• Architecture

• Who owns architecture decisions?
• Will we receive the full source code and infrastructure documentation?
• What is your approach to migrating an existing fintech product without downtime?
• Fintech-specific experience

• Have you worked with: - Stripe/payment processors
• Plaid/open banking
• KYC/KYB providers
• Ledger or transaction systems
• Compliance-heavy environments

For a fintech startup, I’d probably start conversations with Yeeld (payments-heavy), Synergy Labs (River North product build), LaunchPad Lab (product modernization), and Spark Equation/Made in Tandem (architecture + engineering depth), then compare proposals based on security rigor rather than lowest cost.

If you share your stack (e.g., React/Node, Python, Rails, mobile), current integrations (Plaid/Stripe/banks/etc.), and whether this is a customer app redesign vs. backend platform rebuild, I can narrow this to a smaller shortlist.

• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Amplify Tech Labs - 222 N LaSalle St Ste 1700, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• K-Optional Software, LLC - 679 W Wrightwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60614, United States
• Forte Group - 222 S Riverside Plz, Ste 2800, Chicago, IL 60606
• CodingCops - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States

Yes. For a River North fintech startup needing both a secure product redesign and custom integrations, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle UX + production engineering + financial-data/API security, rather than a conventional branding/web agency.

My Chicago shortlist

• Made in Tandem — strongest overall fit. Their work combines custom software, data engineering, and product development, and they have specific financial-services experience: their ampliFI work involved a white-label platform used by 2,000+ financial institutions with API work.

Best for: a substantial redesign where the backend/integration architecture also needs attention.

• LaunchPad Lab — strong product/design + engineering option. They're based in River North and specialize in custom digital products, UX/UI, web/mobile applications and integrations.

Best for: turning an existing fintech product into a substantially better customer experience without separating design and engineering vendors.

• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — very local option. Their River North office is at 515 N State St, and they explicitly market fintech work including payment/trading dashboards and compliance-oriented tools. Their Chicago offering covers discovery, UX, engineering, QA and post-launch support. Synergy Labs

Best for: a startup that wants one team to own redesign through launch.

• IST Custom Software Development Chicago — worth considering for integration-heavy fintech. They're on N LaSalle in the River North area and emphasize custom software, including trading infrastructure and integration with existing systems.

Best for: technically complex financial workflows where API/backend engineering is more important than brand work.

• Amplify Tech Labs — interesting fintech specialist. Their founders cite substantial fintech experience, including lending, payments and banking applications, and they offer custom product development and staff augmentation.

Best for: bringing in senior engineering capacity quickly or rebuilding fintech infrastructure.

• Highland — particularly interesting if your redesign involves legacy financial systems. Highland explicitly discusses financial-services product design, user research and integrating new experiences with legacy systems. Highland Solutions

Best for: complex modernization where the UX problems are downstream of old architecture.

• Running Start Digital — a more integration/security-oriented candidate. Their Chicago practice specifically describes financial-services API integrations, custom connectors, security architecture reviews, authentication/authorization, encryption and audit logging. Running Start Digital Running Start Digital

Best for: API/integration architecture where security and reliability are the primary concern.

Who I'd interview first

For your particular brief, I'd put Made in Tandem, LaunchPad Lab, and Highland at the top for the redesign/product side, then bring in Running Start Digital or IST if the integration layer is unusually complicated.

If you want one vendor to own everything, I'd start with Made in Tandem and LaunchPad Lab. If you're dealing with payments, banking data, trading infrastructure, or regulated workflows, I'd make the technical/security portion of the RFP very explicit rather than accepting a generic "fintech experience" claim.

One especially useful RFP requirement: ask each agency to walk through one real financial-services integration they've shipped, including authentication, authorization, secrets management, audit logging, failure/retry behavior, data reconciliation, and how they handled sensitive financial data. That will separate genuine fintech engineering experience from agencies that merely have fintech clients.

If you want, I can also narrow this to 5 agencies with the strongest actual fintech/API case studies, estimated budget ranges, and contact/website links.

• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Amplify Tech Labs - 222 N LaSalle St Ste 1700, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Simpalm | App & Web Development Company - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• Design In Chicago - 159 N Sangamon St Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Envisionit - 130 E Randolph St #1600, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• IndiWork - 332 S Michigan Ave #900, Chicago, IL 60604, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Forte Group - 222 S Riverside Plz, Ste 2800, Chicago, IL 60606
• Codal - 433 W Van Buren St Ste 205, Chicago, IL 60607, United States

Yes. For a fintech startup in River North that needs a secure redesign plus custom API/integration work, I’d focus on firms that can handle product UX and engineering—not a traditional branding/web shop.

My shortlist

1. LaunchPad Lab — Best overall fit

• Chicago-based and right in River North.
• Strong combination of product strategy, UX/UI, custom web applications and integrations.
• Their financial-services work includes Inspira Financial, with Salesforce-integrated customer portals. Highland Solutions
• Best for: a substantial product redesign where the agency needs to understand both the user experience and underlying systems.
• Amplify Tech Labs — Best fintech-specialist option

• Particularly interesting for a startup: the firm says its founders have 65+ years of combined fintech experience, including lending, payments and banking applications.
• Offers end-to-end product development and senior engineering augmentation.
• Best for: fintech-specific product engineering rather than simply redesigning your marketing site.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — Best River North product-build option

• At 515 N State St, so genuinely local to you.
• Does discovery, UX/UI, development, QA and post-launch support, and specifically markets fintech experience.
• Best for: redesigning a customer-facing web/mobile product and then having the same team build it.
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago — Worth considering for integration-heavy work

• At 620 N LaSalle, essentially in your neighborhood.
• Particularly relevant if the redesign is tied to trading/financial infrastructure or bespoke business software rather than primarily a consumer-facing brand refresh.
• Simpalm | App & Web Development Company — Good pragmatic engineering option

• Chicago presence and experience with custom web apps, APIs, backend architecture and integrations.
• Better fit if you have a fairly defined product and want an engineering team to execute rather than a high-level digital transformation consultancy.

Two specialists I'd also put on the RFP list

Highland is probably the strongest deep-fintech candidate if you're willing to work with a larger/specialized consultancy. It says it has 25+ years in financial software, fintech/open banking/embedded finance experience, UX research, and experience integrating new products with legacy financial systems. Highland Solutions

G & Co. is another strong candidate if the redesign is heavily focused on financial-services UX. It explicitly offers API-driven architecture, fintech/embedded-finance integrations, security/compliance and digital banking experiences. G&CO.

How I'd rank them for your specific project

One particularly good signal is Running Start Digital: its Chicago API practice explicitly discusses financial-services integrations, security architecture reviews, authentication/authorization, encryption, audit logging and compliance alignment. Running Start Digital Running Start Digital

My recommendation: put LaunchPad Lab, Amplify Tech Labs, Highland, and Synergy Labs into a first-round RFP. Ask each to respond to the same hypothetical architecture/integration scenario rather than just asking for portfolios. That will expose very quickly who actually understands fintech security versus who is simply using “fintech” as a vertical label.

If you tell me roughly what you're integrating (e.g. Plaid, Stripe, banking core, KYC/AML, Salesforce, data providers, internal APIs) and whether the redesign is marketing site vs. authenticated fintech product, I can narrow this to the 3 strongest agencies and pull their relevant case studies, client examples, and contact/project links.

• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Envisionit - 130 E Randolph St #1600, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• Simpalm | App & Web Development Company - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Design In Chicago - 159 N Sangamon St Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Moon Technolabs - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Taction Software Solutions - 1016 W Jackson Blvd, Chicago, IL 60607, United States

Yes. For a River North fintech that needs both a secure redesign and real engineering/API integration work, I’d avoid treating this as a conventional “web design agency” search. You want a partner that can handle UX and authentication, financial-data flows, third-party APIs, security controls, and production engineering.

My Chicago shortlist

• LaunchPad Lab — Strong overall fit. They’re in River North at 220 W Huron and combine product strategy, UX/UI, and custom software engineering. Their custom-app work is a better match than a pure marketing agency if the redesign touches the actual product.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — Best hyper-local option. Their Chicago office is at 515 N State in River North, and they specifically market custom web applications, integrations, fintech, UX, development, QA and post-launch support. Their Chicago practice says they build production web/mobile applications and lists fintech among its vertical experience. Synergy Labs
• TXI — Best if the redesign is really a product transformation. TXI combines UX/product strategy with serious software engineering rather than treating design as a standalone website exercise.
• Spark Equation — Good engineering/integration candidate. Their Chicago practice explicitly includes API/system integrations, cloud architecture and modernization.
• Vault Innovation — Good smaller-team option. They do custom web applications, portals, UX/UI and full-stack development, which could work well if you want a more hands-on boutique rather than a large consultancy.
• Envisionit — Worth considering if brand + experience matters heavily. Their Chicago team works in technology sectors including fintech/insurtech/cybersecurity and offers website redesigns and platform integrations.

Two specialists I'd add to the RFP

Digital Authority Partners (DAP) is particularly interesting for the fintech/security/UX side. Its Chicago web practice specifically cites fintech and financial-services experience, including data security, encryption, controls, client portals and UX. Digital Authority Partners

For the API/integration-heavy portion, Running Start Digital is worth interviewing: its Chicago practice explicitly lists financial-services integrations, custom APIs, financial data feeds and security architecture. Running Start Digital

If I were running your selection

I'd probably invite LaunchPad Lab, Synergy Labs, TXI, DAP, and Running Start Digital to a first-round RFP.

I'd score them roughly on:

One important filter: ask each agency to show you a real fintech project where they were responsible for the backend/API/security architecture—not just a financial-services marketing website. Ask specifically about OAuth/OIDC, secrets management, webhook security, encryption, audit logging, RBAC, PCI/SOC 2 requirements where applicable, rate limiting, idempotency, and third-party financial APIs.

For your particular brief, LaunchPad Lab or TXI would be my first conversations for a combined redesign + product-engineering engagement, while Running Start Digital is particularly interesting if the API/integration layer is the harder part. Running Start Digital

If you tell me your approximate budget ($50–100k, $100–250k, $250k+) and the integrations you need (Plaid, Stripe, banking cores, KYC/AML, Salesforce, etc.), I can narrow this to the 3 agencies I'd actually interview and compare their likely fit.

• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Doejo - 444 N Wabash Ave, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• Simpalm | App & Web Development Company - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Envisionit - 130 E Randolph St #1600, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Taction Software Solutions - 1016 W Jackson Blvd, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• alligatortek - 200 S Wacker Dr Ste 200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States

Yes. For a River North fintech that needs both a secure redesign and serious integration work, I’d prioritize agencies that can own product UX + engineering + API/security architecture, rather than a conventional marketing/web agency.

My Chicago shortlist

• LaunchPad Lab — Strong overall fit. They’re in River North and do product strategy, UX/UI, custom web applications, and engineering. I’d shortlist them if the redesign involves rebuilding authenticated product experiences, portals, workflows, or integrations—not just a marketing site.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — Very relevant geographically. Their River North office is at 515 N State, and they offer UX, web/app development, backend work and integrations, with fintech listed among their vertical experience.
• Yeeld — Best if payments/Stripe are central. They specialize in payment-system consulting and integrations, including complex existing Stripe implementations, funds-flow design and API/code review.
• Made in Tandem — Good for integration-heavy, regulated products. They explicitly position themselves around custom applications, API layers, automated testing and production systems, including integration-heavy and data-sensitive environments.
• TXI — Best for a sophisticated product transformation. They're a Chicago product-development consultancy covering product design/engineering plus data strategy, governance and integration. I'd consider them for a larger redesign where product strategy matters as much as implementation.
• Doejo — Worth considering for design + full-stack execution. Their capabilities include UX/UI, web/software development and API integrations, and they're based nearby on N Wabash.

One important distinction

For your requirements, I wouldn't automatically choose a fintech-branded marketing agency. For example, Fintech Digital and CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency have genuine financial-services/fintech expertise and can be useful for brand, UX and web work, but your custom API and security requirements make an engineering-led shop more compelling as the primary contractor.

For API-heavy work, there are also Chicago-focused specialists such as Running Start Digital, which specifically describes financial-services integrations involving banking/custodian platforms, compliance feeds and security architecture. Running Start Digital Running Start Digital

How I'd rank them for you

My recommendation: put LaunchPad Lab, Yeeld, and Made in Tandem into the first RFP round. I'd use LaunchPad for the overall redesign/product experience, Yeeld if payments are the integration bottleneck, and Made in Tandem if the underlying architecture/API layer is the hardest part.

When interviewing them, ask for two recent fintech/financial-services projects, an architecture diagram from a comparable integration, their approach to threat modeling/penetration testing, how they handle OAuth/secrets/webhooks/reconciliation, and exactly which security work is done in-house vs. subcontracted. That will separate the genuine fintech engineering teams from agencies that mainly mean "we've designed a fintech website."

• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610
• Digital Authority Partners - 420 W Huron St Fl 1, Chicago, IL 60654
• Boeing Corporate Offices - 100 N Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL 60606
• Simpalm | App & Web Development Company - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601
• Alpha Efficiency - Web Design Chicago Agency - 875 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60611
• Digital Marketing for Financial Services Midwest Summit - 505 N Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60611
• UX 4Sight - 111 W Jackson Blvd Unit 1700, Chicago, IL 60604
• Onimod Global - 159 N Sangamon St Ste 200, Chicago, IL 60607
• TechGropse Chicago - Mobile App Development Company | Node Js | Software Developers - 10 S Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL 60606
• APP Design - 555 Pierce Rd, Itasca, IL 60143
• VisualFizz - 875 N Michigan Ave 31st floor, Chicago, IL 60611
• Equator Design / Packaging Design Agency - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 2200, Chicago, IL 60606
• Built In - 222 N LaSalle St Ste 1550, Chicago, IL 60601
• Marcel Digital - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1285, Chicago, IL 60606

For a fintech startup in River North, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle the whole stack—secure UX redesign, product engineering, APIs/integrations, and financial-services compliance—rather than a conventional branding/web-design shop.

My shortlist

• Fintech Digital — River North, 1165 N Clark St. Worth a look if you want a very fintech-focused partner; its local presence is particularly convenient for your team.
• Digital Authority Partners — Strong candidate for a security-conscious fintech redesign. DAP specifically cites fintech/financial-services experience, data security, encryption, controls, client portals and UX. Digital Authority Partners
• Running Start Digital — Particularly interesting if custom integrations are a major part of the project. They describe financial-services API work involving Bloomberg, FactSet, custodians, trading systems and compliance feeds, alongside integration architecture and custom API development. Running Start Digital
• Boeing Corporate Offices — Best fit if the redesign is heavily customer-experience/product-design oriented but still needs serious fintech infrastructure. They specifically discuss financial-services web/mobile apps, fintech-partner integrations, embedded finance, legacy systems, security and compliance. G&CO.
• MainStreetAPI — A particularly strong specialist to consider alongside a design agency if your biggest technical challenge is banking/payments/open-finance integrations. They work with banks, lenders, broker-dealers and fintechs and explicitly emphasize authentication, secrets management, idempotency, webhooks, compliance and documentation. Main Street API
• Simpalm | App & Web Development Company — More engineering-oriented, and worth evaluating if you need a product rebuild rather than primarily a marketing-site redesign.
• 011BQ — Another engineering-heavy option: custom web platforms, REST APIs and enterprise integrations, with the company stating that ISO 27001 data security and ISO 9001 QA are standard in its delivery. 011BQ

How I'd narrow it down

For your particular brief, I'd invite 3–4 firms to an RFP:

1. Digital Authority Partners — security + fintech UX/product experience.
2. Running Start Digital — strongest apparent match for sophisticated financial APIs/integrations.
3. G & Co. — strongest design/financial-services product combination.
4. MainStreetAPI — bring them in if payments, banking, lending, open-finance or financial-data integrations are central.

The key interview question isn't simply “Have you worked with fintech?” Ask each agency to show a comparable production system and explain how they handled authentication/authorization, secrets, PII, audit logging, API failures/idempotency, third-party vendor risk, penetration testing, and regulatory/security requirements.

If you tell me what your fintech actually does (payments, lending, wealth, B2B finance, crypto, etc.) and which APIs you need to integrate (Plaid, Stripe, MX, Dwolla, banking cores, KYC, etc.), I can narrow this to the best 3 Chicago firms and compare their likely fit, location, capabilities, and red flags.

• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Amplify Tech Labs - 222 N LaSalle St Ste 1700, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Trungale, Egan + Associates - 8 S Michigan Ave #2310, Chicago, IL 60603, United States
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• Envisionit - 130 E Randolph St #1600, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Marcel Digital - 445 W Erie St #200, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Artversion - 205 N Michigan Ave 8th Floor, Chicago, IL 60601
• K-Optional Software, LLC - 679 W Wrightwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60614, United States

Yes. For a River North fintech startup needing both a secure redesign and custom API/integration work, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle product UX and engineering/security—not a pure branding or marketing shop.

My Chicago shortlist

1. Made in Tandem — Best overall fit

• Chicago-based custom software/product firm.
• Particularly interesting for you because it has documented work redesigning and scaling a fintech loyalty platform serving 2,000+ financial institutions, including UX and API/platform work.
• Strong choice if the redesign touches the actual product, not just the marketing site.
• LaunchPad Lab — Best for product redesign + integrations

• River North/Near North Side presence.
• Does product strategy, UX/UI, custom web applications and integrations.
• Good fit if you want one partner to take you from discovery → UX → engineering → production.
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago — Best for trading/financial infrastructure

• Actually located on N. LaSalle in the River North area.
• Its focus includes custom business software and trading infrastructure, making it worth interviewing if your fintech has sophisticated financial workflows.
• Amplify Tech Labs — Best fintech-specialist engineering option

• Chicago office at 222 N LaSalle.
• Founders cite substantial fintech experience, including lending, payments and banking applications.
• More engineering/product-build oriented than traditional creative agency.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — Good local product-build option

• River North office on N State.
• Builds custom web/mobile applications and markets specifically to fintech alongside other industries.
• Worth considering if the redesign extends into a customer-facing app.

One specialist I'd also interview

MainStreetAPI is particularly compelling if the hard part of your project is the integrations rather than visual design. It specializes in financial-services API integration for banks, lenders, broker-dealers and fintechs, with experience around Stripe, Plaid, payments, open finance and custom integrations. Main Street API

Likewise, Highland is a stronger enterprise-scale option if you're dealing with open banking, embedded finance or legacy financial systems. It specifically cites 25+ years of financial-software experience and fintech/startup work, including digital transformation and interoperability. Highland Solutions

How I'd rank them for your project

For a fintech, I'd make security architecture, authentication/authorization, secrets management, audit logging, data encryption, dependency/vendor review, and compliance documentation explicit requirements in the RFP. Don't accept "SSL + secure coding" as the agency's entire security story. Agencies such as Running Start Digital, for example, explicitly describe financial integrations around authentication, encryption, least-privilege access and audit logging. Running Start Digital

If you tell me roughly what you're building (payments, lending, wealthtech, B2B fintech, etc.) and whether the redesign is marketing site vs. logged-in product/dashboard, I can narrow this to 3 agencies and give you their relevant case studies, estimated project size, and who I'd contact first.

• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• CodingCops - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• Doejo - 444 N Wabash Ave, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• Simpalm | App & Web Development Company - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Envisionit - 130 E Randolph St #1600, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Taction Software Solutions - 1016 W Jackson Blvd, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States

Yes. For a River North fintech startup needing a secure product redesign plus custom API/integration work, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle both product UX and engineering—not a branding shop that outsources the technical work.

My Chicago shortlist

• LaunchPad Lab — Best overall fit. They’re in River North (220 W Huron), and their work spans product strategy, UX/UI, custom web applications, and integrations. Good choice if you want one team to take a product from redesign through production.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — Best River North/local option. Their office is at 515 N State and they specifically list fintech among their verticals, with UX, web/mobile engineering, QA and post-launch support. Bolder Apps
• CodingCops — Good for integration-heavy builds. Their River North-area office is at 1 E Erie, and their work includes API-driven backends and fintech integrations; a cited client project involved Plaid and market-data APIs.
• Yeeld — Worth talking to if payments/Stripe are central. They're a Chicago payments consulting/integration specialist with experience around Stripe, issuing, embedded finance, funds-flow design and API testing. I’d pair them with a stronger UX/product agency if the redesign is substantial.
• TXI — Best for a sophisticated product transformation. Chicago-headquartered and strong in product strategy, research, design and custom software. Their published capabilities include data strategy, integration and engineering.

Two specialist alternatives

• Highland — Particularly compelling if you're dealing with banking infrastructure, legacy financial systems, open banking or embedded finance. They explicitly cite 25+ years in financial software and fintech, plus modernization of legacy systems and interoperability. Highland Solutions
• G&CO. — Strong if the project is heavily financial UX + security + API integrations. They explicitly cover fintech UX/UI, cloud banking, payments, security, API/third-party integrations and compliance. G&CO.

How I'd rank them for your situation

My first three calls would be LaunchPad Lab, Highland, and Synergy Labs. If your integrations involve Plaid, Stripe, Modern Treasury, Marqeta, banking cores, ACH/RTP or embedded finance, I'd add Yeeld to the RFP.

One caution: don't accept generic "SOC 2-ready" language as evidence of security expertise. For the RFP, ask each agency for a fintech case study, API architecture example, threat-model/security-review process, authentication/authorization approach, audit logging, secrets management, and how they handle third-party API failures/retries/idempotency. Those answers will separate genuine fintech engineering experience from ordinary web development.

• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Devbridge - 350 N Orleans St Ste 7500-S, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Saritasa - 111 W Illinois St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• Grand Studio - 444 N Wells St #501, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• FinTech Automation - 1601 Elm St #4310, Dallas, TX 75201, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• Envisionit - 130 E Randolph St #1600, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Tonic3 | UX + AI + Code - 151 W Walters St, Lewisville, TX 75057, United States
• TekRevol Chicago - Mobile App Development Company - 222 W Merchandise Mart Plaza Fl 12, Suite 1212, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Dom & Tom - 625 N Michigan Ave, Ste 1800, Chicago, IL 60611
• Intersog - 220 N Green St #2011, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States

Yes. For a Chicago fintech startup that needs both a secure product redesign and custom API/integration work, I’d focus on agencies that can bridge UX + engineering rather than a pure branding/web shop.

My shortlist

• Made in Tandem — Probably the strongest fit. They’re Chicago-based and have a published case involving a fintech serving 2,000+ financial institutions, including UX redesign plus API/platform work. They also handle custom applications, API layers, testing, CI/CD, and deployment. Heyzine
• Devbridge — A particularly interesting option since they're in River North. They're a product engineering consultancy rather than just a design agency, with custom software, UX/product design, and multidisciplinary delivery. Good candidate if the redesign is tightly coupled to backend modernization.
• TXI — Strong choice for a complicated product where you need research, UX, product strategy, and engineering together. They're known for custom data/product work and have a Chicago presence.
• LaunchPad Lab — 220 W Huron, right in River North. They combine UX/product strategy with engineering and integrations, making them worth considering if you want a relatively hands-on product partner.
• Saritasa — Also in River North (111 W Illinois). More engineering-oriented, with UI/UX, custom software, and integration capabilities. I'd shortlist them if the API/backend portion is substantial.
• Yeeld — Especially worth talking to if your integration work involves Stripe, payments, billing, issuing, or embedded finance. Their specialty is payment-system integration and Stripe APIs.

If security + fintech domain depth is the priority

Made in Tandem + Devbridge + TXI would be my first three conversations.

If the project is heavily payments/API integration, I'd add Yeeld as a specialist alongside one of those broader product agencies.

There are also firms explicitly advertising fintech security/API work: Running Start Digital describes financial-services integrations, security architecture, audit logging, and custom APIs; 247 Labs covers fintech architecture, security/compliance, payments, and open API integrations. Running Start Digital 247 Labs

What I'd put in the RFP

Ask each agency to demonstrate:

• 2–3 actual fintech/financial-services projects, not merely "we serve fintech."
• A security architecture review before redesign/build begins.
• Experience with OAuth 2.0/OIDC, RBAC, audit logs, encryption, secrets management, API gateways and webhooks.
• Specific integrations you've got in mind: banking/core systems, Stripe, Plaid, KYC/AML, accounting/ERP, CRM, etc.
• How they'll separate UX redesign from underlying API/domain changes so the redesign doesn't destabilize production.
• Their approach to SOC 2, PCI DSS, GLBA, or other requirements applicable to your particular product—without accepting vague "SOC 2-ready" claims.
• Who actually does the work: senior product designer, security engineer, backend/API engineer, QA, etc.

One important distinction: "fintech experience" and "secure fintech engineering" aren't the same thing. I'd require concrete examples of architecture/security work and ask to see anonymized deliverables such as threat models, API specs, access-control designs, testing strategy, or security review findings.

If you tell me what your fintech actually does (payments, lending, wealth, B2B finance, banking infrastructure, etc.) and which APIs you need, I can narrow this to the 3 best Chicago agencies and compare them on fintech experience, API capability, security, River North proximity, and likely engagement fit.

• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Highland - 125 S Clark St Ste 670, Chicago, IL 60603, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Bluecoltan - 171 N Aberdeen St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Trungale, Egan + Associates - 8 S Michigan Ave #2310, Chicago, IL 60603, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• Marcel Digital - 445 W Erie St #200, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Kodexo Labs Chicago, IL | AI, Custom Software & Mobile App Development Company Chicago, IL - 110 N Wacker Dr 25th Floor, Suite 2500, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Content Rewired - 1425 N Dearborn St, Chicago, IL 60610
• CSW Solutions Inc - 111 W Jackson Blvd Unit 1700, Chicago, IL 60604
• Velvetech LLC - 5440 N Cumberland Ave #150, Chicago, IL 60656, United States
• Kin + Carta - 111 N Canal St floor 3, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• K-Optional Software, LLC - 679 W Wrightwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60614, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654

Yes. For a River North fintech startup needing both a secure redesign and custom API/integration work, I’d prioritize product/software firms over conventional branding agencies.

My shortlist

1. LaunchPad Lab — River North

• Very good fit if the redesign is really a product redesign, not just a marketing-site refresh.
• They do custom web applications, product design/development, and integrations, and their office is at 448 N La Salle Dr.
• Best for: UX + product engineering + integrations in one engagement.
• Highland — Chicago Loop

• Probably the strongest choice if fintech domain knowledge and modernization are high priorities.
• Highland specifically cites 25+ years in financial software, work with fintech startups, open banking and embedded finance, plus modernization of legacy financial systems. Highland Solutions
• Best for: regulated fintech, complex legacy integrations, customer-experience redesign.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — River North

• Literally in River North at 515 N State St and positions itself around fintech, custom web apps, UX/UI, integrations, and end-to-end product development. Synergy Labs
• Best for: startup-speed execution and a combined redesign + build.
• Bluecoltan — Chicago

• Particularly interesting if security and financial infrastructure are central to the project. Its stated capabilities include banking portals, payment gateways, KYC/AML, fraud detection, financial-product UX, and APIs for payment processors/banking APIs.
• Best for: technically deep fintech integrations rather than primarily marketing/design work.
• Yeeld — Chicago

• Worth considering specifically if your integrations involve Stripe/payments. Its focus is payment-system consulting, Stripe integrations, integration troubleshooting, API testing, and hands-on implementation.
• Best for: payment/API work alongside a separate design agency.
• Running Start Digital

• A strong API-oriented option: it explicitly describes financial-services integrations including Bloomberg, FactSet, custodians, trading systems and compliance feeds, with security architecture and audit logging. Running Start Digital Running Start Digital
• Best for: backend/API-heavy fintech work where reliability and security matter more than flashy branding.

If I were hiring for your project

I'd interview Highland, LaunchPad Lab, and Bluecoltan first, with Synergy Labs as the startup-oriented fourth option.

The distinction I'd make:

One other specialized option is MainStreetAPI: it focuses specifically on financial-services API integrations—payments, open finance, lending, banking data, etc.—and emphasizes authentication, secrets management, idempotency, webhooks, compliance-aware implementation and documentation. MainStreet API

Important: for a fintech redesign, I'd make the RFP require them to demonstrate actual production security architecture, not simply say "SOC 2 compliant" or "secure." Ask for examples involving OAuth/OIDC, secrets management, encryption, audit logging, authorization boundaries, webhook security, penetration testing, incident response, and the specific financial-data providers you'll connect.

If you tell me roughly what your fintech does (payments, lending, wealth, banking, B2B finance, etc.) and which APIs you need to integrate (Plaid, Stripe, MX, Marqeta, Salesforce, banking cores, etc.), I can narrow this to the 3 best Chicago firms and compare their relevant case studies, estimated engagement size, and contact links.

For a River North fintech startup needing a secure redesign plus custom integrations, I’d prioritize agencies that can do more than UI/UX — you’ll want experience with financial data flows, API architecture, authentication, cloud security, compliance-minded engineering, and production support.

Here are Chicago-area firms worth evaluating:

Strong fintech/API-focused candidates

• Bluecoltan — A Chicago-based fintech software services company focused on financial applications, cloud infrastructure, compliance/security, and API integrations. They specifically mention work with banking APIs, payment processors, KYC/AML integrations, and fintech platforms. Blue Coltan

Best fit if: you need a product engineering partner rather than just a redesign agency.

• Running Start Digital — Focuses heavily on API development and integrations, including financial-services integrations such as market data feeds, custodian platforms, and trading-related connectivity. Running Start Digital

Best fit if: your redesign involves connecting existing fintech systems, partner APIs, reporting platforms, or data pipelines.

• DEV.co — Provides custom software engineering in Chicago with experience around fintech, B2B platforms, APIs, and security-sensitive systems. DEV.co

Best fit if: you need a senior engineering team to rebuild or modernize the product.

• Naper Solutions — Specializes in secure API development, integrations, authentication, authorization, monitoring, and connecting complex business systems. Naper Solutions, Inc.

Best fit if: your biggest challenge is integration reliability, data sync, and backend workflows.

• Unosquare — Has fintech API development offerings focused on secure APIs, open banking patterns, payment integrations, authentication, and compliance-oriented engineering. Unosquare

Best fit if: you need deeper fintech infrastructure capabilities or a larger engineering bench.

More product/web modernization oriented

• Digisoft Solution — Offers redesigns, web applications, backend/API integrations, and fintech-oriented development work. Digisoft Solution

Best fit if: the customer-facing redesign is as important as the backend work.

• 011BQ — Provides custom software, REST APIs, enterprise integrations, and security-focused development. 011BQ

Best fit if: you want a broader software development partner.

How I’d shortlist for a fintech redesign

For your specific brief, I’d probably interview:

1. Bluecoltan — fintech specialization
2. Running Start Digital — API/integration depth
3. DEV.co — product rebuild capability
4. Unosquare — stronger fintech engineering/security processes

During discovery calls, ask:

• “Can you show examples where you handled financial data, not just SaaS dashboards?”
• “How do you approach SOC 2, PCI, encryption, audit logs, and access controls?”
• “Who owns the codebase and infrastructure after launch?”
• “How do you test API failures, retries, reconciliation, and vendor outages?”
• “Can your designers work alongside engineers during a product redesign?”

For a fintech company, I’d avoid hiring a pure branding/web agency unless they have a proven engineering partner behind them. A polished redesign that sits on fragile APIs can create more risk than value.

• Bluecoltan - 171 N Aberdeen St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• CodingCops - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• Velvetech LLC - 5440 N Cumberland Ave #150, Chicago, IL 60656, United States
• Technocrypt LLC - 4604 49th Street N #5270, St. Petersburg, FL 33709, United States
• PSM Partners – Managed IT & Cybersecurity - 209 W Jackson Blvd Ste 903, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• HeyInnovations - 360 Central Ave Ste 800, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, United States
• Evolutio - 167 N Green St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Kairos Digital Commerce Consulting - 333 3rd Ave N #400, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, United States
• Envisionit - 130 E Randolph St #1600, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Refoundry - 200 S Wacker Dr #3100, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Securion - 161 N Clark St Ste 1600, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• 2muchcoffee | Web & Mobile Development - 7901 4th St N suite 300, St. Petersburg, FL 33702, United States
• Trungale, Egan + Associates - 8 S Michigan Ave #2310, Chicago, IL 60603, United States

Yes. For a fintech startup in River North, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle product/UI redesign + secure engineering + financial APIs, rather than a conventional branding/web agency.

My Chicago shortlist

• Bluecoltan — strongest fintech-specific fit. Chicago fintech engineering firm covering payment gateways, banking portals, KYC/AML, fraud detection, compliance-oriented infrastructure, and APIs for payment processors/banking/market-data providers. This is probably my #1 call if the redesign touches core financial workflows. Arketos
• LaunchPad Lab — strong product/design + engineering option. They're in River North at 220 W Huron and specialize in custom web applications, portals, Salesforce, integrations, discovery, UX/design, engineering and ongoing product work. Good candidate if the project is as much a product redesign as an integration project.
• CodingCops — practical River North engineering option. Their work includes custom software, React/Next.js, API-driven backends and third-party/fintech integrations. Worth considering if you want a relatively hands-on engineering shop rather than a huge consultancy.
• Yeeld — especially interesting for payments/Stripe. They're a Chicago payments consulting and integration firm focused on Stripe implementations, issuing integrations, API testing and complex payment-platform integrations. I'd consider them as a specialist partner if your redesign involves payments or embedded finance, potentially alongside a design/product agency.
• Fintech Digital — best for fintech UX/brand/growth, not core backend. They're at 1165 N Clark in River North and focus specifically on financial-services/fintech websites, UX, digital marketing and CRM integrations. I'd use them if the redesign is primarily customer-facing website + positioning + conversion, rather than rebuilding the underlying fintech product.
• Velvetech LLC — larger engineering option. Their Chicago operation covers custom software, enterprise integration, cloud, data, APIs and cybersecurity. Better suited if you're looking at a substantial integration/modernization program rather than a relatively contained redesign.

Two worth looking at beyond the obvious local agencies

Running Start Digital specifically advertises financial-services integrations including Bloomberg, FactSet, Advent, custodian platforms, trading systems and compliance feeds, with security architecture, encryption, access controls and audit logging. That's unusually relevant if your fintech has institutional/financial-data integrations. Running Start Digital

011BQ advertises custom finance software, REST APIs and enterprise integrations, with ISO 27001-oriented security practices. It could be a good fit if security/vendor diligence is a major part of your procurement process. 011BQ

How I'd narrow it

For your situation, I'd probably RFP Bluecoltan, LaunchPad Lab, and Yeeld first. If the API layer involves market data, custodians, trading or compliance feeds, add Running Start Digital.

One important qualification: don't accept “we work with fintech” at face value. In the first call, ask each agency to show one comparable fintech project where they personally designed and secured the API/data architecture, and ask specifically about OAuth/OIDC, secrets management, encryption, audit logging, least-privilege access, webhook security, rate limiting, penetration testing, SOC 2 expectations, and handling of PCI/financial data.

If you tell me what your fintech actually does (payments, lending, wealth, banking, B2B SaaS, etc.) and which APIs you need to integrate, I can narrow this to the 3 best agencies and compare their likely fit, size, location, and specialization.

• Highland - 141 W Jackson Blvd, Ste 2200, Chicago, IL 60604
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Bluecoltan - 171 N Aberdeen St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Velvetech LLC - 5440 N Cumberland Ave #150, Chicago, IL 60656, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• Trungale, Egan + Associates - 8 S Michigan Ave #2310, Chicago, IL 60603, United States
• Marcel Digital - 445 W Erie St #200, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• Kin + Carta - 111 N Canal St floor 3, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Intersog - 220 N Green St #2011, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Nansen LLC - 300 W Hubbard St Ste 301, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Moon Technolabs - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States

For a River North fintech startup needing a secure product redesign plus custom API/integration work, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle UX + engineering + financial-services complexity, rather than a conventional branding/web shop.

My Chicago shortlist

• Highland — Best overall fit. Highland has 25+ years in financial-services software, including fintech startups, open banking, embedded finance, legacy-system modernization, and integrated product design/development. Their published work specifically emphasizes interoperability and designing around complex financial back ends. Highland Solutions

Best for: substantial redesign + architecture + integrations.

• Made in Tandem — Strong startup/product fit. They do custom applications, API layers and integrations, and have a particularly relevant case involving redesigning/scaling a white-label loyalty platform for a fintech serving 2,000+ financial institutions.

Best for: a hands-on product/engineering partner rather than a big consultancy.

• LaunchPad Lab — Good end-to-end product option. Their model combines discovery, UX/UI, engineering, QA and ongoing enhancement, with experience handling integration-heavy platforms and business-rule complexity.

Best for: redesigning an existing product while simultaneously rebuilding or extending its integrations.

• Bluecoltan — Most finance-specific technical option. Their Chicago practice covers banking/payment platforms, wallets, trading, KYC/AML, security, financial-product UX and APIs connecting payment processors, banking APIs and market-data feeds.

Best for: security-sensitive fintech infrastructure and financial APIs.

• IST Custom Software Development Chicago — Worth interviewing for custom engineering. They're in River North at 620 N LaSalle and focus on bespoke business applications, including trading-oriented engineering and ongoing support.

Best for: a technically focused custom-build engagement.

• Velvetech LLC — Integration-heavy alternative. Their capabilities span custom software, enterprise integration, cloud, data engineering and API/integration work.

Best for: projects where the API/integration architecture is as important as the frontend redesign.

One I'd put at the top of the RFP

Highland is the clearest match if you want one partner accountable for the whole thing. Their financial-services practice explicitly covers fintech, open banking and embedded finance, while their product work combines research, UX and software development. Highland Solutions

For a more startup-oriented, leaner engagement, I'd interview Made in Tandem and LaunchPad Lab alongside Highland.

I'd also consider Yeeld if your "custom integrations" specifically means payments/Stripe/embedded-finance infrastructure rather than general system integration; its Chicago practice specializes in payment-system integration and Stripe-related work.

What I'd ask each agency before signing:

1. Show us a fintech product they redesigned without compromising existing transaction flows.
2. Give us a concrete example of a secure API/third-party integration they shipped.
3. Who owns security architecture, threat modeling, auth/RBAC, audit logging and secrets management?
4. Can they work inside our existing stack rather than forcing a rewrite?
5. Can they provide senior UX and senior backend engineers on the same team?

If you tell me your rough budget (e.g. $50k, $100k, $250k+) and what integrations you need (Plaid, Stripe, banking core, CRM, KYC, etc.), I can narrow this to the 3 agencies I'd actually invite to pitch.

What I'd ask each agency before signing:

• Bluecoltan - 171 N Aberdeen St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Devbridge - 350 N Orleans St Ste 7500-S, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Velvetech LLC - 5440 N Cumberland Ave #150, Chicago, IL 60656, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• CodingCops - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• Calibrate Software - 2003 W Fulton St #513, Chicago, IL 60612, United States
• Intersog - 220 N Green St #2011, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Plaidypus - 280 Shuman Blvd, Ste 230, Naperville, IL 60563
• K-Optional Software, LLC - 679 W Wrightwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60614, United States

For a River North fintech startup, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle secure product redesign + regulated data flows + API integrations, rather than a general branding/web shop. A few Chicago-area firms worth evaluating:

A few additional firms to consider:

• Spark Equation — API/system integrations, cloud modernization, and software product engineering.
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago — custom software, integrations, and business systems work.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — River North presence and fintech/web/mobile product focus.

What I’d ask during vendor interviews

For a fintech redesign, I’d specifically test:

• Security architecture

• Do you perform threat modeling before development?
• How do you handle encryption, secrets management, RBAC, audit logs, and secure SDLC?
• Experience with SOC 2, PCI DSS, GLBA, or financial-data controls?
• API/integration depth

• Have you integrated with Plaid, Stripe, Modern Treasury, banking cores, payment processors, identity/KYC vendors, or market-data APIs?
• How do you handle retries, idempotency, reconciliation, webhook failures, and API version changes?
• Migration ability

• Can you redesign the UX while safely migrating existing customers/data?
• How do you run parallel systems during cutover?
• Ownership

• Who owns the code, architecture docs, infrastructure accounts, and deployment pipelines?

For a startup, I’d probably shortlist Bluecoltan, Made in Tandem, TXI, Devbridge, and Yeeld for first conversations, then choose based on whether you need more of a fintech engineering partner, product redesign team, or payments/API specialist.

• Bluecoltan - 171 N Aberdeen St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• CodingCops - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• Plaidypus - 280 Shuman Blvd, Ste 230, Naperville, IL 60563
• Velvetech LLC - 5440 N Cumberland Ave #150, Chicago, IL 60656, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Mobile App Development Company in Chicago | Jafton - 1136 S Delano Ct W Suite, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Calibrate Software - 2003 W Fulton St #513, Chicago, IL 60612, United States
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States

Yes. For a fintech redesign where security and custom API integrations are core requirements, I’d narrow the Chicago market considerably rather than hiring a generic web/design agency.

My shortlist

1. Bluecoltan — strongest fintech-first option

• Chicago-headquartered fintech engineering firm.
• Specifically offers fintech platform development, UX/UI, API integrations, cloud/security, KYC/AML and payment integrations. Blue Coltan
• Particularly attractive if the redesign touches payments, banking infrastructure, compliance workflows or sensitive financial data.
• Best fit: full redesign + engineering + fintech integrations.
• Made in Tandem — strongest redesign/product-design candidate

• Chicago product/software consultancy with experience modernizing production systems.
• Its published work includes redesigning and scaling a white-label loyalty platform for a fintech serving 2,000+ financial institutions, involving UX and API/platform work.
• Best fit: you need sophisticated product/UX redesign and serious engineering rather than a visual website refresh.
• LaunchPad Lab — good River North product partner

• Located in River North and focused on product strategy, UX/UI, custom software and ongoing development.
• Better choice if your biggest challenge is turning a complicated fintech product into a cleaner customer experience while rebuilding the underlying application.
• Best fit: UX/product redesign + custom application development.
• Yeeld — particularly interesting for payments/Stripe

• Chicago payments consulting and integration specialist.
• Structured around payment-system implementation, Stripe integrations, API testing and complex embedded-finance/issuing/billing integrations.
• Best fit: if your redesign is really being driven by payment architecture or Stripe complexity. I would consider them alongside—not necessarily instead of—a full product-design agency.
• TXI — strong higher-end product/engineering option

• Chicago digital product consultancy with UX, software engineering, APIs, infrastructure and data engineering.
• A good candidate when the project is more like re-architecting a fintech product than redesigning a marketing site.
• Best fit: complex product modernization with substantial internal engineering requirements.
• CodingCops — worth interviewing for a smaller build

• Chicago-based software engineering partner with custom application, API and integration capabilities.
• Its Chicago work includes fintech-related dashboards and integrations with Plaid and market-data APIs.
• Best fit: startup-sized engagement where you want a development-heavy partner without going immediately to a large consultancy.

One specialist I'd also interview

MainStreetAPI is unusually relevant if the custom integrations are the difficult part. It focuses specifically on APIs for banks, lenders, broker-dealers and fintechs, including Stripe, Plaid, payments, banking data and private-market systems. Its approach explicitly covers authentication, secrets, idempotency, webhooks, error handling, security and compliance-aware delivery. MainStreetAPI

How I'd prioritize them for your situation

If I were running the RFP, I'd invite Bluecoltan, Made in Tandem, LaunchPad Lab and TXI to pitch, then bring Yeeld/MainStreetAPI in if payments or banking integrations are particularly complicated.

One important distinction: don't let an agency win simply by saying "SOC 2," "PCI," or "secure APIs." Ask each candidate for a sample architecture showing authentication/authorization, secrets management, encryption, audit logging, webhook/idempotency handling, third-party API failure modes, and how security testing gets incorporated into the redesign. That will separate genuine fintech engineering experience from fintech-flavored marketing.

If you tell me roughly what your fintech does (payments, lending, wealth, B2B finance, etc.), your current stack, and which APIs you need to integrate, I can narrow this to the 3 agencies I'd actually put on the shortlist.

• Highland - 125 S Clark St Ste 670, Chicago, IL 60603, United States
• Grand Studio - 444 N Wells St #501, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Intersog - 220 N Green St #2011, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Bluecoltan - 171 N Aberdeen St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Taction Software Solutions - 1016 W Jackson Blvd, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• McGuffin Creative Group, Inc. - 566 W Adams St, Ste 440, Chicago, IL 60661
• CSTMR Fintech Marketing Agency - 1909 W Wellington Ave #1, Chicago, IL 60657, United States
• Moon Technolabs - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• Artversion - 205 N Michigan Ave 8th Floor, Chicago, IL 60601
• Kin + Carta - 111 N Canal St floor 3, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Multishoring - Data Analytics Company Chicago - 111 W Jackson Blvd Unit 1700, Chicago, IL 60604, United States
• Trungale, Egan + Associates - 8 S Michigan Ave #2310, Chicago, IL 60603, United States
• Red Foundry - Chicago, IL 60007

If you’re in River North and the brief is specifically secure fintech redesign + custom API/integration work, I’d prioritize firms that can handle both product/UX and engineering—not a generic branding or web agency.

My shortlist

1. Highland — strongest overall fit

• Chicago-based, with an office at 125 S Clark St.
• Deep financial-services/fintech experience, including fintech startups, banking, wealth management and open/embedded finance.
• Particularly strong if the redesign involves complicated financial workflows, legacy-system integration, or a customer-facing product that needs substantial UX research. Highland Solutions
• Best for: product strategy + UX redesign + engineering/integration.
• Grand Studio — strongest River North UX/product option

• Actually in River North at 444 N Wells.
• Focuses on strategic digital product design, UX/UI and research for complex products; its Chicago work includes financial-services contexts.
• Best for: redesigning a complicated fintech product while keeping the engineering architecture in view.
• I'd pair them with an engineering/integration specialist if your API work is substantial.
• Yeeld — interesting fintech/API specialist

• Chicago-based payments consulting/integration firm.
• Particularly relevant if your integrations involve Stripe, payment infrastructure, payment flows or payment-system architecture.
• Best for: payments-heavy fintech where integration reliability matters more than broad brand work.
• LaunchPad Lab — strong custom-product engineering candidate

• Chicago firm focused on custom web/mobile products and mission-critical software.
• Good option if you're looking for an actual product-development partner rather than primarily a design agency.
• Best for: redesign + rebuild + integrations, particularly if you want a team that can stay involved through production.
• Intersog — engineering/integration-heavy option

• Chicago-based software engineering firm with API development and systems-integration capabilities.
• More engineering-oriented than design-oriented.
• Best for: complex backend/API work, integrations and modernization where the redesign is only one component. 011BQ
• Running Start Digital — API/security specialist worth interviewing

• Its Chicago practice specifically advertises financial-services integrations, including Bloomberg, FactSet, custodians, trading systems and compliance data feeds.
• It emphasizes authentication, encryption, rate limiting and audit logging for financial APIs. Running Start Digital Running Start Digital
• Best for: the technically difficult integration/security side of the project.

If I were running the RFP

I'd invite Highland, Grand Studio, LaunchPad Lab, and Running Start Digital to pitch, with Yeeld added if you're payments-centric.

The key distinction I'd make in the RFP is:

I would not choose purely based on whether an agency says "fintech" on its website. For a secure redesign, ask each finalist for a concrete example involving financial data + authentication/authorization + third-party APIs + production security, and have them explain what they actually built.

One other Chicago option worth a look is Bluecoltan, which positions itself specifically around mission-critical fintech engineering and secure/scalable financial workflows.

If you give me your fintech type (payments, lending, wealth, banking, B2B infrastructure, etc.) and rough project budget, I can narrow this to the 3 agencies I'd actually interview, including estimated fit, likely engagement model, and what to ask each one.

• Bluecoltan - 171 N Aberdeen St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• TXI - 10 S Riverside Plaza Ste 875 - #7670, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Velvetech LLC - 5440 N Cumberland Ave #150, Chicago, IL 60656, United States
• CodingCops - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• Plaidypus - 280 Shuman Blvd, Ste 230, Naperville, IL 60563
• Calibrate Software - 2003 W Fulton St #513, Chicago, IL 60612, United States
• TekRevol Chicago - Mobile App Development Company - 222 W Merchandise Mart Plaza Fl 12, Suite 1212, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Intersog - 220 N Green St #2011, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• K-Optional Software, LLC - 679 W Wrightwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60614, United States
• Amplify Tech Labs - 222 N LaSalle St Ste 1700, Chicago, IL 60601, United States

For a River North fintech startup needing a secure redesign + custom API/integration work, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle more than a marketing redesign: product architecture, security-minded engineering, payments/data integrations, and production support.

Here are Chicago-area firms worth shortlisting:

Strong fintech/API fit

• Bluecoltan — A Chicago fintech engineering firm focused on financial platforms, payment gateways, banking APIs, KYC/AML integrations, cloud infrastructure, and security-oriented fintech builds.

Best fit: regulated fintech products, payments, banking integrations, scaling an existing platform.

• Yeeld — A Chicago payments-focused engineering and consulting firm with emphasis on payment systems, Stripe integrations, and embedded-finance style implementation work.

Best fit: payment flows, Stripe complexity, billing migrations, payment architecture.

• Made in Tandem — Chicago software consultancy with experience modernizing production systems and fintech-related platform/API work, including work on a fintech platform serving financial institutions.

Best fit: secure product redesigns where UX and engineering both matter.

• TXI — Chicago product consultancy known for custom software, data-heavy products, APIs, infrastructure, and product strategy.

Best fit: a fintech company that needs product thinking plus engineering leadership.

Good custom software + integration partners

• LaunchPad Lab — Chicago digital product firm building custom web applications, portals, workflows, and integrations.

Best fit: customer portals, internal fintech tooling, workflow redesign.

• Spark Equation — Chicago software engineering consultancy focused on modernization, APIs, integrations, cloud, and data-centric applications.

Best fit: backend modernization and connecting multiple systems.

• IST Custom Software Development Chicago — Custom software firm near River North with experience in tailored applications and integrations.

Best fit: a smaller engagement where you need hands-on engineering.

• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — River North-based agency focused on custom apps and scalable web applications, including fintech-oriented work.

Best fit: fintech apps needing UX redesign plus app/web rebuild.

Larger engineering capacity

• dev.co — Custom software development group with Chicago fintech experience claims, including API-driven systems and regulated-data considerations. DEV.co

Best fit: when you need a bigger engineering bench.

• Velvetech LLC — Custom software and IT consulting firm offering enterprise integrations, cloud, data engineering, and API work.

Best fit: complex integrations or enterprise-scale modernization.

How I’d narrow it for a fintech redesign

For a startup, I’d probably take intro calls with:

1. Bluecoltan — if your core product involves payments, accounts, compliance, or financial data.
2. Made in Tandem — if you need a thoughtful redesign plus engineering execution.
3. TXI — if product strategy and UX are as important as code.
4. Yeeld — if payments/API reliability is the hardest part.
5. LaunchPad Lab — if the redesign is more workflow/product-platform focused.

When interviewing them, ask specifically:

• “Who owns security architecture and threat modeling?”
• “Have you integrated with Plaid, Stripe, ACH providers, custodians, banks, or core banking systems?”
• “How do you handle SOC 2 readiness, audit logs, encryption, secrets management, and access controls?”
• “Will we own the codebase, infrastructure, and deployment pipelines?”
• “Who is the senior engineer actually assigned to us?”

For a fintech, I’d avoid agencies that mainly do UI/branding unless they have a proven backend/security partner.

• Bluecoltan - 171 N Aberdeen St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Devbridge - 350 N Orleans St Ste 7500-S, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Atomic Object - 609 W Randolph St, Ste 400, Chicago, IL 60661
• Red Foundry - Chicago, IL 60007
• Spark Equation - 500 W Madison St #1000, Chicago, IL 60661, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Velvetech LLC - 5440 N Cumberland Ave #150, Chicago, IL 60656, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Eight Bit Studios - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• LaunchPad Lab - 220 W Huron St, Ste 2001, Chicago, IL 60654
• Caxy - 212 W Van Buren St #1000, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Thoughtworks - 200 E Randolph St 25th Floor, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• CodingCops - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• eComStreet | AI-Powered Mobile App & Software Development Company | Custom AI Solutions | Staff Augmentation Chicago USA - 1901 N. Roselle Road Suite 800 Chicago, Schaumburg, IL 60195, United States

For a River North fintech startup needing a secure redesign plus custom API integrations, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle regulated data, authentication, backend architecture, third-party financial APIs, and production reliability—not just UI/UX shops.

Here are Chicago-area firms worth putting on your shortlist:

Strong fintech + API integration fits

• Bluecoltan — Chicago fintech engineering firm focused on financial platforms, payment gateways, banking APIs, compliance-oriented infrastructure, and integrations. Good fit if you need engineers who already understand fintech workflows.
• Yeeld — Chicago payments-focused consultancy with experience around payment systems, Stripe integrations, API testing, and embedded payment flows. A good fit for payment-heavy products or payment infrastructure cleanup.
• FintegrationFS — A fintech-specialized engineering provider focused on secure financial products, fintech APIs, payments, banking connections, and compliance-aware builds. FintegrationFS
• MainStreetAPI — More specialized toward financial API connectivity: banking, lending, payments, open finance, and legacy-to-modern integrations. MainStreetAPI

Strong custom product engineering partners

• Devbridge — Chicago-based product engineering consultancy with experience building enterprise software products and modernization programs. Better fit if your redesign involves a larger platform rebuild, architecture work, and product strategy.
• Made in Tandem — Custom software consultancy with experience in APIs, production systems, and a fintech-related platform engagement. Good for startups that need senior engineering plus product thinking.
• Atomic Object — Custom software consultancy with a Chicago office; typically a fit for teams needing disciplined product development, modernization, and engineering practices.
• Red Foundry — Chicago software/product consultancy focused on web/mobile applications and backend systems. Worth considering for customer-facing fintech products.

API-heavy / integration-focused options

• Naper Solutions — Focuses on secure APIs, integrations, authentication, authorization, auditability, monitoring, and connecting business systems. Naper Solutions, Inc.
• Running Start Digital — Calls out financial services integrations, API architecture, data flows, security, and monitoring. Running Start Digital
• Spark Equation — Chicago software engineering consultancy with API/system integration and cloud modernization capabilities.

For a River North startup, I’d interview 4–5 firms and ask:

1. Fintech security

• How do you handle secrets management, encryption, RBAC, audit logs, and penetration testing?
• Have you worked under SOC 2, PCI DSS, SEC/FINRA, or banking vendor requirements?
• API experience

• Which financial APIs have you integrated (Plaid, Stripe, MX, Dwolla, banking cores, custodians, KYC providers)?
• How do you handle webhook failures, retries, idempotency, reconciliation, and API version changes?
• Redesign process

• Can you improve UX without destabilizing the backend?
• Will you map the existing architecture before proposing a rebuild?
• Ownership

• Do we own the code repository, infrastructure, documentation, and deployment pipeline?

For your specific situation, my first calls would probably be:

1. Bluecoltan (fintech-first)
2. Yeeld (payments/API-heavy)
3. Made in Tandem or Devbridge (product redesign + engineering)
4. MainStreetAPI (if integrations are the hardest part)
5. Atomic Object (if you want a more formal product engineering partner)

MainStreetAPI

Yes. For a River North fintech needing a secure product redesign + custom API/integration work, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle product/UX and engineering together—not a conventional branding/web shop.

My shortlist

1. Made in Tandem — best overall fit
   • Chicago-based custom software/product consultancy.
   • Particularly relevant: they have a published case involving redesigning a fintech platform serving 2,000+ financial institutions, with UX research, API/platform work, and modernization.
   • Strong choice if your redesign is intertwined with backend architecture and integrations.

2. Devbridge — best for a sophisticated product redesign
   • River North office at 350 N Orleans.
   • Product engineering + UX/product design + enterprise modernization rather than commodity development.
   • Good candidate if you need a larger, senior team and expect significant architecture work.

3. LaunchPad Lab — best boutique/product-team option
   • Located right in River North.
   • Combines discovery, UX/UI, product strategy, custom applications and ongoing engineering.
   • I'd put them on the shortlist if you want a hands-on team rather than a giant consultancy.

4. Bluecoltan — best fintech-specialist option
   • Chicago-based and specifically positioned around financial platforms.
   • Their stated capabilities include banking/payment platforms, KYC/AML, fraud, financial-product UX, banking/payment APIs and market-data integrations.
   • Particularly interesting if security, payments or financial infrastructure is the hard part of your project.

5. Spark Equation — good engineering/integration alternative
   • Chicago firm with API/system-integration and digital-product modernization capabilities, including financial-services experience.
   • Worth comparing if your project has a lot of back-office/system integration.

6. Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — good if mobile UX is central
   • Actually in River North at 515 N State.
   • Offers end-to-end UX/design through engineering and explicitly lists fintech among its industries.

Two specialists I'd also interview

Highland is worth a serious conversation if you're doing something genuinely financial-services-heavy. It has 25+ years of financial software experience, including fintech startups, open banking, embedded finance, legacy modernization and financial-product UX. www.highlandsolutions.com

Beltline is another particularly strong fintech-specific contender. It reports 62+ fintech platforms delivered and explicitly offers fintech integrations, compliance-ready APIs, cybersecurity, embedded finance and transaction/ledger systems. www.getbeltline.com

How I'd narrow it

For your particular description, I'd interview Made in Tandem, Bluecoltan, Highland, and LaunchPad Lab first. They give you four meaningfully different approaches: fintech/product engineering, fintech-specialist engineering, deep financial-services consulting, and boutique product development.

One important screening question: ask each agency to show an actual fintech integration architecture and explain how they handled secrets, authorization, audit logging, PII/financial data, third-party API failures, and penetration-test remediation. “We build secure software” isn't enough for this kind of project. For example, OpenEO Labs explicitly describes threat modeling, secrets management, least-privilege cloud roles and penetration-test remediation as part of its fintech delivery approach. www.openeolabs.com

If you tell me roughly what you're integrating with (Plaid, Stripe, banking core, custodians, Salesforce, ERP, proprietary APIs, etc.) and whether this is web, mobile, or both, I can narrow this to the 3 agencies I'd actually send an RFP to.

• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Bluecoltan - 171 N Aberdeen St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Devbridge - 350 N Orleans St Ste 7500-S, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• CodingCops - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Fintech Digital - 1165 N Clark St #700, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
• Vault Innovation - 20 N Wacker Dr Ste 1200, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Velvetech LLC - 5440 N Cumberland Ave #150, Chicago, IL 60656, United States
• Adeocode - Chicago, IL 60654
• Devscale - 839 W Agatite Ave #102, Chicago, IL 60640, United States
• InfoSysTrade - 200 E Randolph, Ste 7150, Chicago, IL 60601
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Red Foundry - Chicago, IL 60007
• BIT Studios - Chicago Web Design - 318 W Adams St, Fl 17, Chicago, IL 60606
• Calibrate Software - 2003 W Fulton St #513, Chicago, IL 60612, United States

Yes. For a River North fintech needing both a secure redesign and serious API/integration work, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle product UX and financial-system engineering—not just a visual website redesign.

My Chicago shortlist

1. Made in Tandem — Best overall fit

• Chicago office at 20 N Wacker.
• Strong custom product engineering, API layers, integrations, and production-system modernization.
• Particularly relevant: its portfolio includes redesigning/scaling a fintech platform serving 2,000+ financial institutions, with UX and API/platform work.
• I'd put them near the top if the redesign involves meaningful product/workflow changes rather than just a new frontend.
• Bluecoltan — Best fintech-engineering specialist

• Chicago-based fintech engineering firm.
• Specifically covers financial-product UX/UI, banking/payment platforms, KYC/AML, cloud infrastructure, security, and APIs connecting payment processors, banking APIs and market-data feeds.
• Strong candidate if security and integrations outweigh brand/marketing design.
• Devbridge — Best for a larger, complex redesign

• River North-area office at 350 N Orleans.
• Custom product development with financial-services experience and substantial engineering depth.
• Worth considering if this is a significant platform transformation rather than a relatively small startup engagement.
• CodingCops — Good startup-oriented option

• River North/Gold Coast area.
• Custom product development, API-driven backends and third-party integrations.
• Its Chicago work includes an investment dashboard integrating Plaid and market-data APIs, which is unusually relevant to your requirements.
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — Good local product-design + engineering option

• Actually in River North at 515 N State.
• Does UX/product design, web/mobile engineering, backend integrations and fintech work.
• I'd consider them particularly if the redesign has a significant customer-facing web/mobile component.
• Yeeld — Best if the integration problem is Stripe/payments-heavy

• Chicago payments consulting/integration firm.
• Particularly focused on Stripe, payment systems, issuing and embedded-finance integrations.
• I'd view them more as a specialized payments/integration partner than the primary redesign agency.

Also worth interviewing

Highland has unusually deep financial-services experience—25+ years, fintech/open banking/embedded finance, UX, and legacy-system modernization. Highland Solutions

Running Start Digital is interesting if your main challenge is integration architecture: it explicitly works on financial-services APIs, Bloomberg/FactSet, custodians, trading systems, compliance data feeds, authentication, encryption and audit logging. Running Start Digital

For a startup that wants a security-first fintech redesign + custom integrations, I'd probably interview Made in Tandem, Bluecoltan, and CodingCops first, then bring in Yeeld if payments/Stripe/issuing are central.

One important caveat: I would not select based on a firm's claim that it is "fintech experienced." In the RFP, ask each agency to show you a production fintech integration they personally engineered, their threat-modeling/security-review process, how they handle API failures/idempotency/webhooks, and exactly which engineers would be assigned.

If you tell me roughly what your fintech does (payments, lending, wealth, B2B SaaS, banking, etc.) and your budget range, I can narrow this to the 3 best agencies and compare them on fintech experience, security, API capabilities, location, likely fit, and questions to ask in the pitch.

• LaunchPad Lab - 448 N La Salle Dr Fl 9, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Devbridge - 350 N Orleans St Ste 7500-S, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Made in Tandem - 20 N Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60606, United States
• Yeeld - 1449 S Michigan Ave Ste 13260, Chicago, IL 60605, United States
• Bluecoltan - 171 N Aberdeen St, Chicago, IL 60607, United States
• Devscale - 839 W Agatite Ave #102, Chicago, IL 60640, United States
• Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago - 515 N State St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Velvetech LLC - 5440 N Cumberland Ave #150, Chicago, IL 60656, United States
• Dom & Tom - 625 N Michigan Ave, Ste 1800, Chicago, IL 60611
• Saritasa - 111 W Illinois St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Thirdwave - 15 W Hubbard St, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Simpalm | App & Web Development Company - 205 N Michigan Ave Suit 810, Chicago, IL 60601, United States
• IST Custom Software Development Chicago - 620 N La Salle Dr Ste 305, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
• Eight Bit Studios - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• CodingCops - 1 E Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611, United States
• Kodexo Labs Chicago, IL | AI, Custom Software & Mobile App Development Company Chicago, IL - 110 N Wacker Dr 25th Floor, Suite 2500, Chicago, IL 60606, United States

For a River North fintech startup doing a secure redesign + custom integrations, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle more than UI work: secure architecture, API design, payments/data integrations, cloud practices, and compliance-minded engineering.

A shortlist worth interviewing:

Additional firms to compare:

• 011BQ — advertises custom software, REST APIs, enterprise integrations, and ISO 27001-aligned security practices. 011BQ
• Running Start Digital — highlights financial-services API integrations and security-oriented integration work. Running Start Digital
• OpenEO Labs — positions around fintech security practices, API-first architecture, and audit-friendly financial workflows. OpenEO Labs

For your specific situation, I’d separate the evaluation into three buckets:

1. If the redesign is the main project

• LaunchPad Lab
• Devbridge
• Synergy Labs

2. If integrations are the risky part (banking APIs, payments, data providers, internal systems)

• Yeeld
• Made In Tandem
• Running Start Digital
• Bluecoltan

3. If you’re handling regulated financial data
Ask every finalist about:

• SOC 2 experience (or working within SOC 2 environments)
• PCI DSS exposure if payments are involved
• threat modeling and security architecture reviews
• API authentication patterns (OAuth, JWT, key management)
• audit logging and data retention
• penetration testing coordination
• cloud security ownership after launch

Before signing, I’d ask each agency for:

1. Two fintech references you can speak with
2. A sample architecture diagram from a similar engagement
3. Their approach to secure SDLC/code review
4. Who actually writes the code (senior engineers vs. subcontractors)
5. Post-launch monitoring/support options

Given you’re in River North, I’d probably start conversations with Devbridge, LaunchPad Lab, Made In Tandem, Yeeld, and Bluecoltan as the first five calls because they map most closely to a fintech product redesign with integration complexity.

Yes. For a River North fintech startup needing a secure redesign plus custom integrations, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle product/UX and the underlying API/security work—not a traditional branding/web shop.

My Chicago shortlist

1. Bluecoltan — strongest fintech-first fit
   • Chicago-headquartered fintech engineering firm.
   • Specifically lists banking/payment APIs, KYC/AML, cloud infrastructure, security, and financial-product UX/UI.
   • Best if the redesign involves substantial backend/API or compliance work, not just a new interface.

2. Made in Tandem — best redesign + engineering combination
   • Chicago software consultancy with UX/product, custom applications, APIs and integrations.
   • Particularly relevant: it has worked on a fintech platform serving 2,000+ financial institutions, including UX redesign and API/platform work.
   • I'd put this high on the list if product experience is as important as engineering.

3. TXI — best product/UX-led option
   • Chicago product consultancy with design research, UX, software engineering, APIs and infrastructure.
   • Better fit if you're rethinking workflows and customer experience rather than simply rebuilding the existing UI.

4. IST Custom Software Development Chicago — good River North-area engineering option
   • At 620 N LaSalle, so particularly convenient for your location.
   • Custom software, integrations and trading-oriented engineering experience.
   • Worth considering for a technically heavy redesign.

5. Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — good local product-build option
   • Actually in River North at 515 N State.
   • Handles discovery, UI/UX, engineering, QA and integrations, and explicitly cites fintech among its industries.
   • More attractive if the redesign includes a mobile/web product rebuild.

6. Calibrate Software — design-driven custom development
   • Chicago agency doing UX/web/mobile plus API and enterprise integrations.
   • Good candidate if you want a relatively hands-on product-development partner rather than a large consultancy.

Two specialist options I'd also interview

FintegrationFS — not a conventional Chicago agency, but probably the most directly fintech-specialized option I found. They claim 15+ years in financial services, 100+ production fintech API integrations, and experience with Plaid, Stripe, Dwolla, Persona, etc., with security/compliance built into delivery. www.fintegrationfs.com

MainStreetAPI — especially interesting if your biggest pain is integrations. They focus specifically on banks, lenders, broker-dealers and fintechs, with secure API implementation, authentication, webhooks, idempotency, error handling and compliance-aware architecture. mainstreetapi.com

How I'd rank them for your project

If I were running the RFP, I'd start with Bluecoltan, Made in Tandem, and TXI, then bring in FintegrationFS or MainStreetAPI if the integration/security layer is unusually complex.

One important caveat: I'd ask every finalist for two recent fintech references, an example of a security-sensitive API integration, their approach to threat modeling/penetration testing, and exactly who will do the hands-on engineering. "We work with fintech" is much less meaningful than being able to show the architecture and production lessons from an actual regulated financial product.

Yes. For a River North fintech startup needing both a secure product redesign and serious API/integration work, I’d shortlist agencies that can handle product UX and regulated financial engineering—not just branding/web design.

My Chicago shortlist

1. Made in Tandem — strongest overall fit
   • Chicago-based product engineering firm.
   • Particularly interesting because it has redesigned/scaled a fintech white-label platform serving 2,000+ financial institutions, including UX research, API and platform work.
   • Good fit if you want one partner owning discovery → UX → engineering → integrations.

2. Yeeld — best for payments/API-heavy work
   • Chicago-based payments consultancy/integration shop.
   • Deep Stripe API experience, including Connect, Billing, Identity, Radar and complex existing-system integrations.
   • Particularly compelling if your redesign touches payment flows or you're integrating Stripe/payment infrastructure. theyeeld.com

3. TXI — best for UX-led product transformation
   • Chicago digital product consultancy with strong product design + custom software capabilities.
   • I'd consider them if the primary problem is that your existing fintech product has become complicated and needs a substantial UX/product rethink rather than merely a visual redesign.

4. Bluecoltan — best fintech-specialist engineering option
   • Chicago-headquartered fintech engineering firm.
   • Explicitly focuses on mission-critical, secure and scalable financial-services software and engineering augmentation.
   • I'd interview them if security, backend architecture and financial workflows outweigh marketing/design polish.

5. Devbridge — strong enterprise-grade option
   • Chicago presence with a long-standing custom software/product-design orientation.
   • Better suited to a larger or more complex redesign where you need substantial engineering, modernization and UX capability rather than a small design studio.

6. Ossia Systems — integration specialist
   • Chicago-based systems integrator with API, data integration and payment-gateway experience.
   • I'd put them on the list if your hardest problem is connecting a messy existing stack rather than designing the customer experience.

Also worth a look

FintegrationFS is particularly relevant if you're willing to work with a firm that isn't necessarily River North-local. They claim 15+ years in financial services, 100+ fintech API integrations, and experience with Plaid, Stripe, Alpaca, Persona and Dwolla, plus SOC 2/PCI-oriented security practices. www.fintegrationfs.com

For the design-heavy side, LLT Group explicitly works on fintech platforms across banking, investing, lending and payments, including secure customer portals and mobile applications. llt-group.com Phenomenon Studio is another design-forward fintech specialist, with experience in banking, payments, account aggregation, secure API hubs and fintech dashboards. phenomenonstudio.com

Who I'd interview first

My first three calls would be Made in Tandem, Yeeld, and Bluecoltan. That combination lets you compare a product-led agency, a payments/API specialist, and a fintech engineering specialist.

One thing I'd insist on during the RFP: don't accept "we've worked with fintech" as sufficient evidence. Ask each agency for a specific comparable project and have them explain the architecture, authentication/secrets handling, API failure/retry strategy, audit logging, PCI/SOC 2 boundaries, penetration testing, and how their redesign avoided creating security problems in the UX.

If you want, I can also narrow this to 5 agencies within ~15 minutes of River North and compare their likely budget range, team size, fintech clients, and best contact/website.

Yes. For a River North fintech that needs both a secure product redesign and custom API/integration work, I’d prioritize engineering/product firms over conventional digital-marketing agencies.

My Chicago shortlist

1. Made In Tandem — strongest overall fit
   • Chicago-based, with an office at 20 N. Upper Wacker.
   • Particularly compelling fintech evidence: they redesigned and rebuilt a white-label platform for 2,000+ banks/credit unions, including UX research, a component system, SSO, and 30+ API endpoints. madeintandem.com
   • They explicitly offer API design/integration, platform modernization, and custom application development. madeintandem.com
   • Their security posture is unusually explicit: they prefer working inside the client's infrastructure, with SSO/MFA, endpoint security, encryption, and controlled access. madeintandem.com
   • Best for: a serious redesign where architecture, UX, security and integrations all need to be handled together.

Made In Tandem

2. Bluecoltan — strongest fintech-specialist option
   • Chicago fintech engineering firm focused specifically on financial-services software.
   • Their capabilities span banking/payment platforms, KYC/AML, fraud, UX/UI, banking APIs, payment processors and third-party integrations.
   • Best for: a product where financial-domain knowledge and security/compliance matter more than having a big brand/creative agency.

3. Yeeld — especially strong if payments/Stripe are central
   • Chicago-based payments consulting and integration specialist.
   • Focuses on complex Stripe implementations, embedded finance, funds-flow design, API testing and integration architecture.
   • Best for: payments infrastructure, Stripe modernization, embedded-finance flows, or untangling an existing integration stack.
   • I'd pair them with a UX/product agency if the redesign is substantial.

4. LaunchPad Lab — good product-design + engineering choice
   • Based right in River North.
   • Strong on product strategy, user research, UX/UI, software engineering and modernization.
   • Best for: a fintech startup where the redesign/product experience is as important as the backend work.

5. TXI — best design/product-consultancy alternative
   • Chicago product-development consultancy with substantial UX, research and custom software capability.
   • I'd consider them if you're trying to rethink the entire customer journey, not simply refresh the interface.
   • Caveat: I'd verify recent fintech/API references during the pitch process rather than assuming fintech specialization.

6. FintegrationFS — strongest fintech/API engineering specialist, if Chicago-local presence isn't mandatory
   • Their stated focus is exclusively financial technology, with 100+ fintech API integrations, including Plaid, Stripe, Dwolla, Synctera, Galileo and others. They also emphasize SOC 2, PCI DSS, encryption and fintech compliance. www.fintegrationfs.com
   • Best for: deep backend fintech integration work.
   • Caveat: I wouldn't put them ahead of the Chicago firms if being physically local is important to you.

FintegrationFS

If I were hiring

I'd invite Made In Tandem, Bluecoltan, and LaunchPad Lab to the first round.

One thing I'd insist on in the RFP: don't let agencies treat "secure" as an infrastructure checkbox. Ask each candidate to show how they would threat-model the redesigned flows, handle OAuth/API credentials, isolate sensitive financial data, implement audit logging, manage third-party API failures/retries, and support your SOC 2/PCI obligations.

For your particular combination of fintech + River North + redesign + custom integrations, Made In Tandem is the one I'd talk to first because there's unusually direct evidence of having done the exact combination: financial-services UX redesign + API platform work + a large multi-tenant fintech environment. madeintandem.com

For a Chicago fintech startup doing a secure product redesign plus custom API/integration work, I’d shortlist these rather than generic web agencies:

1. Made in Tandem — Probably the strongest overall fit. They have Chicago roots and specifically cite a fintech white-label platform serving 2,000+ financial institutions, involving UX research/redesign plus API/platform work. They also do custom applications, API layers, testing, CI/CD, and production handoff.

2. Bluecoltan — Best if security, regulated financial workflows, and engineering depth outweigh marketing polish. They're a Chicago-headquartered fintech engineering firm focused on mission-critical financial software and secure, scalable systems.

3. TXI — Strong choice when the redesign is genuinely a product/UX transformation, not just a visual refresh. They're a Chicago product consultancy combining research, UX, product strategy, and custom software development.

4. Yeeld — Particularly interesting if your integrations involve payments/Stripe. Their Chicago operation focuses on payment-system consulting and integration, including Stripe Billing, Connect, Identity, Invoicing, Radar and issuing-related work.

5. Kin + Carta — Now part of Valtech, with a substantial Chicago technology-consulting presence. Worth considering for a larger modernization where product strategy, engineering, data and integration architecture all need to come together.

6. Spark Equation — A Chicago engineering/strategy consultancy with custom software modernization and API/system-integration capabilities. A reasonable middle ground if you need serious engineering without necessarily hiring a huge consultancy.

Two more worth interviewing

• 011BQ — Their Chicago practice explicitly combines bespoke software, REST APIs, enterprise integrations and security, with ISO 27001:2013 certification. www.011bq.com
• Running Start Digital — Particularly strong on integration architecture: custom APIs, financial-services integrations, monitoring, authentication, encryption and audit logging. runningstart.digital

My hiring order for your situation

Made in Tandem → Bluecoltan → TXI → Yeeld → Kin + Carta

I'd put Made in Tandem first if you need one partner to own the redesign and engineering. If your biggest concern is security architecture/compliance, I'd move Bluecoltan to #1. If the work is primarily a UX/product overhaul with a complex technical rebuild underneath, TXI becomes particularly compelling.

One thing I'd insist on in the RFP: ask each agency for a recent fintech reference where they owned authentication/authorization, sensitive-data handling, third-party API failure modes, audit logging, and security testing—not just the UI. That's a much better discriminator than simply asking whether they "have fintech experience."

Yes. For a River North fintech that needs a secure redesign plus serious API/integration work, I’d prioritize engineering/product agencies over conventional branding shops.

My Chicago shortlist

1. Made in Tandem — strongest overall fit
   • Particularly interesting because they have a case study redesigning/scaling a fintech platform serving 2,000+ financial institutions, combining UX changes with API/platform work.
   • They also emphasize custom applications, API layers, automated testing, CI/CD, and production handoff.
   • Good choice if the redesign and underlying platform need to evolve together.

2. Bluecoltan — best fintech-engineering specialist
   • Explicitly focused on financial technology.
   • Capabilities include banking/trading/payment platforms, financial-product UX, KYC/AML, fraud, cloud infrastructure, and APIs connecting payment processors, banking APIs and market-data feeds.
   • I'd put them high on the list if security and financial-domain expertise outweigh brand/design polish.

3. Caxy — strong modernization + UX option
   • Chicago-based product/design and software consultancy.
   • Particularly relevant if you're replacing or modernizing an existing financial-services system rather than starting from scratch.
   • Their financial-services work includes digital experiences for community banks/credit unions, architecture constraints, secure applications and integrations.

4. Synergy Labs — best if you want a River North-local product team
   • Literally located at 515 N State St in River North.
   • Does end-to-end product work: UX/UI, web/mobile engineering, QA and deployment. Their Chicago positioning specifically mentions fintech.
   • I'd interview them alongside a more finance-specialized firm rather than assuming fintech experience alone is enough. www.synergylabs.co

5. LaunchPad Lab — good for custom web/platform work
   • River North-area consultancy focused on custom software, customer portals and internal platforms, with significant systems-integration/Salesforce capability.
   • Worth considering if your API work involves CRM, operational workflows or enterprise systems.

6. CodingCops — smaller custom-development option
   • Located at 1 E Erie St, very close to River North.
   • Custom web/API development and third-party integrations are core capabilities, including fintech-related data integrations.

Two specialist firms I'd also interview

G&CO. is worth considering if the customer-facing redesign/UX is as important as the engineering. Its financial-services practice explicitly covers fintech apps, embedded finance, security, payments and API/third-party integrations. www.synergylabs.cowww.g-co.agencymainstreetapi.comwww.highlandsolutions.com

MainStreetAPI is interesting as a specialist integration partner rather than necessarily your whole redesign agency. It focuses specifically on smaller fintechs, community banks and lenders, with API architecture, secure implementation, authentication/secrets, webhooks, idempotency and documentation. mainstreetapi.com

How I'd narrow it

One other agency worth putting into the RFP is Highland. Its financial-services practice explicitly discusses secure digital banking experiences, legacy-system modernization, interoperability and custom financial software. www.highlandsolutions.com

For a fintech, I wouldn't select purely on portfolio aesthetics. In your first calls, ask each agency to show: (1) a real financial-services product they've shipped, (2) an API architecture diagram, (3) how they handle secrets/PII and least privilege, (4) their approach to threat modeling and penetration testing, and (5) exactly which engineers—not just the sales team—will be on your project.

If you tell me your fintech type (payments, lending, wealth, banking, B2B, etc.), current stack, and approximate budget, I can narrow this to 3 agencies and compare likely fit, security depth, API capabilities, and estimated engagement size.

Yes. For a fintech startup in River North needing a secure redesign plus custom API/integration work, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle product/UX + backend engineering + fintech security, rather than a pure branding or web-design shop.

My Chicago shortlist

1. Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — best local fit for a startup redesign
   • Actually in River North at 515 N State St.
   • Full product process: discovery, UX/UI, engineering, QA and support.
   • Their Chicago practice specifically cites fintech experience and integrations.
   • Good choice if the redesign is as important as the underlying integrations.

2. Made in Tandem — strongest evidence of fintech product work
   • Their work includes redesigning/scaling a fintech white-label platform serving 2,000+ financial institutions, with UX research, API/platform work and custom software.
   • Particularly interesting if you're modernizing an existing product rather than starting from scratch.

3. Bluecoltan — best security/integration-oriented option
   • Chicago-based and focused heavily on financial software: banking portals, trading platforms, payment gateways, KYC/AML, fraud detection, cloud infrastructure and banking/payment APIs.
   • I'd put them high on the list if your redesign involves sensitive financial data or complex backend integrations.

4. LaunchPad Lab — strong product/UX partner
   • River North presence and a product-oriented approach covering discovery, UX/UI, research and custom software development.
   • I'd interview them if the main challenge is turning a clunky fintech workflow into a substantially better customer experience.

5. CodingCops — smaller custom-engineering option
   • Located at 1 E Erie St and offers API-driven custom development.
   • Their local business profile specifically references investment-dashboard work involving Plaid and market-data APIs.
   • Worth considering if you want a more engineering-heavy partner rather than a large consultancy.

Also worth interviewing

TXI is a more established Chicago product consultancy. It combines UX/product strategy with full-stack engineering, APIs, infrastructure and data engineering. It's in the Loop rather than River North, but potentially a very strong choice for a complicated redesign.

For fintech-specific engineering, I'd also look at Beltline. It's not Chicago-based—the listed offices are San Francisco and Brooklyn—but its specialization is unusually close to what you described: financial-product redesign, banking/payment APIs, KYC/AML, security, SOC 2/PCI, and legacy modernization. www.getbeltline.com

How I'd narrow it

If I were running your RFP, I'd invite Synergy Labs, Made in Tandem, Bluecoltan and LaunchPad Lab to the first round. I'd make them all respond to the same technical brief so you're comparing actual architecture/security thinking rather than sales presentations.

One particularly important interview question: “Show us a fintech integration you've built where you owned the failure modes—webhook retries, idempotency, reconciliation, secrets, audit logs, permissions and vendor outages—not just the happy-path API call.” That will separate genuine fintech engineering experience from agencies that merely list “fintech” on their website.

Yes. For a River North fintech startup needing both a secure product redesign and custom API/integration work, I’d shortlist agencies that can handle product design and engineering—not a pure branding shop.

My Chicago shortlist

1. Made in Tandem — strongest overall fit
   • Chicago-based, with a particularly relevant case: redesigning/scaling a white-label fintech platform serving 2,000+ financial institutions, including UX research, redesign, APIs and platform work.
   • Also does custom application development, API layers, automated testing and CI/CD.
   • Best for: a startup that wants one partner for product redesign + integration engineering.

2. Caxy — strong financial-services/product engineering option
   • Chicago-based custom software and digital transformation firm.
   • Experience with financial services, including community banks/credit unions, digital account-opening experiences, architecture and integrations.
   • Best for: substantial backend/system modernization alongside the redesign.

3. Rightpoint — best for a larger transformation
   • Chicago HQ at 29 N Wacker; combines UX/product strategy with custom application development and cloud engineering.
   • Best for: a more complex redesign involving multiple systems, enterprise APIs, cloud infrastructure and security.
   • Caveat: likely a heavier/larger engagement than a typical startup needs.

4. Bluecoltan — fintech engineering specialist
   • Chicago-headquartered and explicitly focused on mission-critical fintech engineering, secure/scalable financial workflows and engineering talent.
   • Best for: security-sensitive backend/integration work where fintech domain expertise matters more than polished brand work.

5. Trango Tech Chicago - Mobile App Development Company — practical build partner
   • Chicago office with fintech/financial-services experience, backend/API development, integrations and modernization of existing applications.
   • Best for: web/mobile redesign plus a meaningful amount of implementation.

6. Velvetech LLC — integration-heavy choice
   • Offers custom software, enterprise integration, cloud, data engineering and API/integration work from its Chicago operation.
   • Best for: lots of third-party systems, data flows, legacy systems or cloud migration.

Two specialists worth adding to the RFP

MainStreetAPI is unusually relevant if the project has a big financial-API component. It specifically works with banks, lenders, broker-dealers and fintechs and lists integrations including Stripe, Plaid, lending, payments and open-finance APIs, with authentication, secrets, idempotency, webhooks and compliance-aware implementation. mainstreetapi.comwww.g-co.agency

G&Co. is worth considering if the redesign is the dominant part of the project. It specializes in fintech/banking UX, payments, embedded finance, security and API-driven architectures, including digital banking and fintech applications. www.g-co.agency

How I'd narrow it

My first three calls would be Made in Tandem, Caxy, and Bluecoltan. I'd ask each for two comparable fintech case studies, the proposed security architecture, examples of third-party API integrations, who would actually be on your team, and whether they can provide SOC 2/PCI/KYC/AML-aware engineering rather than simply saying they "do fintech."

If you tell me your approximate budget ($50–100k, $100–250k, $250k+) and the integrations you need (e.g. Stripe, Plaid, MX, Marqeta, banking core, Salesforce), I can turn this into a tighter 3–5 agency RFP shortlist with estimated engagement fit and what to ask each one.

Yes. For a fintech redesign + secure custom integrations, I’d prioritize agencies that can handle product/UX and backend/API/security—not just branding or web design.

My Chicago shortlist

1. LaunchPad Lab — strongest River North fit
   • Located at 448 N La Salle Dr, right in River North.
   • Product strategy, UX/UI, custom web/mobile development and integrations.
   • Good fit if you want one team to take a product from discovery → redesign → engineering.

2. Made in Tandem — particularly interesting for fintech
   • Their portfolio includes redesigning/scaling a white-label loyalty platform for a fintech serving 2,000+ financial institutions, involving UX and API/platform work.
   • Strong candidate if the redesign is deeply intertwined with your existing technical architecture.

3. TXI — best for complex product redesign
   • Chicago digital-product consultancy with strong UX, research, product strategy and custom software capabilities.
   • I'd consider them if you're looking for a substantial product rethink rather than simply a visual redesign.

4. Rightpoint — enterprise-grade option
   • Chicago HQ, combining UX/design, strategy and engineering.
   • Better suited if your fintech has significant enterprise integrations, multiple user groups or a larger transformation budget.

5. Kin + Carta / Valtech — strongest large-scale transformation option
   • Digital product, cloud/platform engineering, data and experience design under one roof.
   • I'd shortlist them for a more substantial modernization program, though they may be heavier than necessary for an early-stage startup.

Also worth interviewing

Bluecoltan is particularly fintech-oriented: its Chicago operation focuses on mission-critical fintech engineering and secure/scalable financial-services systems.

For API/integration-heavy work specifically, I'd also look at Softjourn. It says it has 15+ years working with fintechs, banks and expense-management platforms and explicitly covers core banking, digital banking and financial-system integrations. softjourn.com

And if Stripe/Plaid/payment integrations are central to the project, Yeeld is a more specialized Chicago option rather than a conventional design agency. Its focus is payment-system integration and Stripe APIs.

How I'd narrow it for your startup

My first three calls would be Made in Tandem, LaunchPad Lab, and TXI. If the integrations involve payments, KYC/AML, banking cores, money movement or sensitive financial data, I'd add Bluecoltan or Softjourn to make sure you're getting genuine fintech engineering depth rather than an agency that merely has a few financial-services clients.

One important hiring filter: ask each finalist for two examples where they redesigned a financial product while simultaneously changing its APIs/backend, and ask exactly what security work they owned (threat modeling, auth, secrets management, penetration-test remediation, audit logging, SOC 2/PCI support, etc.). That's much more revealing than asking whether they "do fintech."

Yes. For a River North fintech that needs both a secure redesign and serious API/integration work, I’d shortlist agencies that can handle product UX and engineering—not just a marketing-site redesign.

My Chicago shortlist

1. Made in Tandem — strongest overall fit
   • Chicago-based product engineering firm.
   • Particularly interesting because its portfolio includes redesigning a white-label loyalty platform for a fintech serving 2,000+ financial institutions, involving UX research, API/platform work, and modernization.
   • Good fit if your redesign is actually part of a broader product/platform overhaul rather than just a new website.

2. Devscale — strong startup/product option
   • End-to-end product design + engineering.
   • Has fintech experience, including a financial-modeling product with QuickBooks Online and Xero integrations.
   • Worth considering if you want a relatively hands-on product-development partner rather than a large agency.

3. Bluecoltan — strongest technical/security orientation
   • Their stated fintech capabilities cover banking portals, payment gateways, trading platforms, KYC/AML, fraud detection, regulatory reporting, banking APIs and market-data integrations.
   • I'd put them high on the list if "secure" means architecture, authentication, infrastructure and compliance—not merely secure web development.

4. LaunchPad Lab — good River North product partner
   • Located in River North.
   • Combines product strategy, UX/UI, web applications and systems integration.
   • Better fit if you need discovery and product redesign alongside engineering.

5. Caxy — good financial-services modernization option
   • Chicago software/product consultancy with financial-services experience, particularly community banks and credit unions.
   • Their work spans product design, engineering and data/system integration.

6. Synergy Labs - Mobile App and Web Developers Agency in Chicago — convenient local option
   • Literally in River North at 515 N State St.
   • Offers UX/UI, web/mobile development and integrations, and explicitly markets to Chicago fintech companies. www.synergylabs.co
   • I'd rank them below the first five for a heavily regulated fintech, but they're worth an intro if speed and local collaboration matter.

Also worth interviewing

• cre8 — interesting for regulated/high-stakes B2B finance, with UX through engineering and integrations.
• Fintech Digital — particularly strong if this is primarily a customer-facing website/brand/UX redesign rather than a core product rebuild.
• TXI — strong product strategy/research/design + engineering capabilities, although I'd specifically vet their recent fintech/API work before putting them ahead of the specialists.

One specialist I'd talk to separately

Running Start Digital has unusually explicit Chicago financial-services integration experience: custom API development, financial-data feeds, Bloomberg/FactSet, custodial platforms and trading-system connectivity, with attention to authentication, encryption, access controls and audit logging. runningstart.digital

If your existing product already has a good engineering team, they could potentially be a technical integration/security partner rather than the agency doing the entire redesign.

How I'd narrow it

For your particular description, I'd interview Made in Tandem, Bluecoltan, Devscale and LaunchPad Lab first. The key is to make the RFP explicitly require examples of Plaid/Stripe/banking APIs, OAuth/OIDC, webhook security, secrets management, audit logging, PCI/SOC 2 experience, penetration testing, and production incident handling—otherwise a pretty fintech redesign can turn into a security headache.

One other specialist worth knowing about is MainStreetAPI, which focuses specifically on financial-services API integration for banks, lenders, broker-dealers and fintechs, including secure authentication, idempotency, webhooks, error handling and compliance-aware delivery. mainstreetapi.com

If you tell me roughly what your fintech does (payments, lending, wealth, B2B finance, etc.) and which APIs you need integrated, I can narrow this to 3 agencies and compare their likely fit, location, specialties, and relevant case studies.

For a River North fintech startup looking for a secure redesign + custom integrations, I’d prioritize agencies that can do more than UI work: you’ll want product strategy, secure engineering, API architecture, compliance awareness, and experience connecting financial systems (payments, banking APIs, data providers, CRMs, core platforms).

A shortlist worth interviewing:

A few additional firms to consider:

• LaunchPad Lab — strong if Salesforce, portals, and operational workflows are part of the redesign.
• Yeeld — more specialized if your integration challenge is payments/Stripe/payment infrastructure.
• Intersog — engineering-focused option for custom software, APIs, cloud, and integrations.

For your specific situation, I’d probably start conversations with:

1. Bluecoltan — if fintech domain expertise is the priority.
2. Made in Tandem — if you need a polished product redesign plus engineering.
3. TXI — if you need deeper product discovery and architecture help.
4. LaunchPad Lab — if you’re in River North and want a local partner comfortable with business systems.

When vetting them, I’d ask:

• “Can you show fintech projects involving payments, banking APIs, Plaid, Stripe, ACH, KYC, or ledger systems?”
• “How do you handle SOC 2, PCI DSS, encryption, secrets management, and audit logging?”
• “Will you provide architecture docs, API specs, threat modeling, and security testing—not just designs?”
• “Who owns the codebase, cloud accounts, and integrations after launch?”

For a regulated fintech product, avoid agencies that are primarily branding/UI shops unless they have a dedicated engineering partner.

For a River North fintech startup needing a secure redesign plus custom API/integration work, I’d narrow the Chicago market to these rather than generic web agencies:

My top 3 for your situation

1. Made in Tandem — I'd interview them first. The combination of fintech-specific UX redesign + API/platform engineering is unusually close to what you're describing.

2. Bluecoltan — particularly compelling if "secure" means you need serious fintech architecture, security controls and engineering rather than simply a prettier interface.

3. LaunchPad Lab — worth talking to if having the team physically close to your River North office and getting strong product/UX involvement is important.

I'd also consider Yeeld as a specialist alongside a design/product agency if your integration layer is heavily Stripe/payments-oriented.

One caveat: if you need actual fintech API implementation rather than just agency-level claims, there are specialized firms worth adding to the RFP. For example, MainStreetAPI explicitly works with fintechs on secure integrations involving Stripe, Plaid, lending, payments and banking APIs, while FintegrationFS reports 100+ production fintech API integrations and security/compliance-oriented delivery. mainstreetapi.com

For the RFP, I'd require each agency to show: 2 comparable fintech redesigns, 2 production API integrations, their threat-model/security-review process, experience with OAuth/webhooks/idempotency, SOC 2/PCI implications, and exactly who will be doing the engineering—not just the sales team's credentials.