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“Partner” and “program” are two terms you’ll see throughout Lead’s documentation. They’re related but not interchangeable, and the distinction matters once you have more than one product live.

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Partner

A Partner is your company — the fintech that has signed an agreement with Lead and is integrating against Lead’s platform. A partner has one set of legal contracts, one due diligence file, one production tenant, and one Implementation Manager and Technical Account Manager assigned by Lead.

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Program

A Program is a specific product or set of products you offer to your end customers under your Lead relationship. A single partner can run multiple programs — for example, a deposit account program and a separate consumer lending program — each with their own product type, target customers, and operational parameters. Each program has its own:
  • Product type (deposit, credit, lending, cards) and money-movement rails enabled
  • API credentials and SFTP folder, isolating data and authorization between programs
  • Risk parameters, transaction limits, and IP allowlist
  • Compliance configuration — KYC posture, OFAC screening cadence, RFI handling
  • Reporting and reconciliation files, delivered separately per program

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Why the Separation Matters

Credentials are scoped to a program. A token issued for your deposit program cannot call lending endpoints. Treat each program as its own integration. Reconciliation files are per-program. If you run multiple programs, expect a separate Daily Activity, Daily Balance, and ACH Cash Reconciliation report for each. Go-live is per-program. A partner with two programs goes through sandbox testing, production testing, and go-live separately for each. The contracting workstream is shared; the integration and risk-approval workstreams are not.

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Your Lead Team

Two Lead roles are your primary contacts throughout the relationship. Implementation Manager (IM): Your lead point of contact from kickoff through go-live. Owns timelines, milestones, due diligence coordination, and cross-functional alignment across Product, Compliance, Legal, and Finance. Technical Account Manager (TAM): Your technical point of contact. Handles sandbox configuration, credential provisioning, SFTP setup, IP allowlist changes, and integration support. Post-launch, your TAM becomes your primary ongoing contact.

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Where Partner-Level Resources Live

Technical documentation: APIs, file schemas, integration guides — lives here on this site. Operational and compliance resources: SLAs, the risk management framework, program policies, due diligence materials, and data requirements — live on the Partner Site at partners.lead.bank. Your Implementation Manager provisions access during kickoff.