Power100 examines how Affiniti delivers contractor business banking with high APY inside FDIC-backed accounts, keeping idle cash working without added risk.
Most contractor businesses keep their operating cash in the same checking account they opened a decade ago, earning close to nothing while inflation quietly chips away at its purchasing power. Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and companies in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer ranking system, has been studying how Affiniti approaches that problem through its Business Banking & Treasury Management platform, built specifically for contractors and trades operators nationwide. The company is led by Sahil Phadnis, Co-Founder and President of Affiniti, whose team has built one of the more direct answers in the market to a question that comes up constantly in contractor forums and trade association meetings alike: how does a small operator earn contractor business banking with high APY without moving cash somewhere risky just to chase a rate?
The short version, based on how Affiniti‘s platform is structured, is that high yield and FDIC protection are not actually in conflict. They only look that way to a contractor who has spent years being told the choice is between a boring, safe bank and a flashy, uninsured one.
Power100 researches and analyzes more than 3,600 partners nationwide through its 5-layer proprietary system, which looks at workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. When a fintech partner is being evaluated on treasury management specifically, the questions get narrower. Is the yield real or a teaser rate that disappears after 90 days? Is the money actually insured, and by whom? Does moving cash into a higher-yield account cost the contractor liquidity when a payroll run or a material order hits unexpectedly? These are not abstract concerns for a $2 million remodeling company. They are the difference between a good quarter and a cash crunch.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, has framed the evaluation standard around leadership and follow-through rather than marketing copy. “When we evaluate strategic partners through our 5-layer ranking system, we look for more than marketing claims,” Cummings said. “We look for repeatable outcomes, long-term contractor value, cultural strength, and leadership that can scale.” That standard is exactly what separates a novelty savings product from a real treasury management strategy built for a business that has payroll due every other Friday no matter what the market is doing.
Affiniti was founded in 2022 by Sahil Phadnis and co-founder Aaron Bai with a straightforward premise: independently owned small businesses, including contractors and home service operators, deserve the same financial infrastructure that large enterprises take for granted. The company closed an $11 million seed round and followed it just six months later with a $17 million Series A led by SignalFire, a trajectory that pushed Affiniti past $10 million in annual recurring revenue and drew coverage from TechCrunch and Forbes. More than 3,000 businesses now run their financial operations through the platform.
What makes that growth relevant to the idle-cash conversation is who is backing it. Affiniti counts Mastercard, HSBC, and SignalFire among its institutional investors, which is not a small detail for a contractor deciding where to park working capital. Institutional-grade backing tends to correlate with institutional-grade banking infrastructure, and that infrastructure is what allows a high-APY account to also be FDIC-backed rather than routed through some unregulated yield product dressed up to look like a bank account.
“Built for the business operators driving America forward: one platform for banking, payments, and financial control,” is how Affiniti‘s product team describes the underlying philosophy. It is a plain statement, but it captures the gap the company was built to close. Most banking products aimed at small business were never designed around a contractor’s cash rhythm in the first place. They were designed for retail customers or general SMBs, then relabeled for business use.
Sahil Phadnis, Co-Founder and President of Affiniti, left UC Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program after three months to build financial technology for operators he felt the market had ignored. Before Affiniti, he founded and led Pebble and Social Outreach LLC. He is also an active angel investor with positions in Mandolin, Hike Medical, Blockhouse, and Natural.
Phadnis has said the mission plainly. “Helping independently owned contractors compete with the financial infrastructure of the largest enterprises,” is how he describes the company’s reason for existing. In a separate comment aimed at the trades directly, he put it more bluntly: “Let’s get to work! Lots of backbone businesses ready for a revival.” That phrase, backbone businesses, is not incidental. It reflects a thesis Affiniti repeats often, that small businesses generate roughly half of America’s GDP and have been underserved by financial products built for someone else.
Alongside Phadnis, Aaron Bai serves as Co-Founder and CEO. Affiniti‘s leadership bench also includes Stefano Jacobson as Head of Growth, Bill Feng as Head of Finance, Tom Sharon as Vice President of Operations, and Joseph Pabst as Head of Credit, a role that matters directly to this article because Pabst’s team builds the underwriting models that let a contractor’s deposit account also function as a serious cash management tool rather than a place money simply sits.
A contractor’s cash position moves constantly. Draws come in on a project schedule, payroll goes out on a fixed cadence, and material costs can spike without warning when a supplier changes terms. Treasury management for a business like that is not about locking cash into a term product and hoping nothing comes up. It is about structuring accounts so idle balances earn a real rate while the money stays fully liquid and fully insured.
Affiniti‘s dedicated credit team specializes exclusively in contractor underwriting, which lets the company benchmark a roofing business against other roofing businesses rather than against a generic small business profile that might belong to a coffee shop or a marketing agency. That specialization shows up in how the treasury tools are built. Seasonality, working capital swings, and purchasing patterns unique to the trades all factor into how Affiniti designs the accounts contractors actually use day to day.
One customer put the practical result simply. “Affiniti completely changed how we handle our cash. Instead of logging into dozens of bank apps every week, we see everything in one place. It saves us hours of paperwork.” That kind of consolidation, seeing every account balance and every yield opportunity in a single view, is often the difference between cash that works and cash that just sits.
Contractor business banking with high APY solves a problem most owners do not think about until a bookkeeper points it out: operating cash that sits in a standard business checking account is losing value in real terms every month it sits there earning close to zero. A contractor holding $150,000 in working capital across slow winter months, for example, is not just missing out on interest. They are absorbing an invisible cost that a properly structured treasury account would offset.
Affiniti‘s approach keeps that cash FDIC-insured while still earning a competitive rate, rather than forcing a contractor to choose between safety and yield. The distinction matters more than it sounds. Plenty of fintech products advertise high yields by routing deposits through less-regulated instruments, and a contractor chasing a rate without checking the fine print can end up with cash that is not protected the way they assumed. Purpose-built contractor banking, done correctly, does not require that tradeoff.
High-APY banking solves half the treasury picture. The other half runs through spend, and this is where Affiniti‘s card product enters the conversation. The best business credit card for home service contractors is not just a rewards card with a contractor logo slapped on it. It needs to categorize job costs automatically, issue virtual cards for field crews, and return cash back on the categories a trades business actually spends in, fuel, materials, and recurring vendor accounts.
Michael Mattioni described the experience directly. “Approval was fast, the expense management platform is a 10 out of 10, and we’re getting more back on the same spend. It’s little effort for a lot of hands-off gain.” Paul Eddy echoed the same practical logic. “With the cashback and all the benefits, it’s a no-brainer. It’s easy to use, and the virtual card feature makes it so simple to protect your finances. To me, it’s just a smart decision.”
That combination, a card that earns real cash back paired with a deposit account earning real interest, is what turns a contractor’s banking relationship into an actual treasury strategy instead of two disconnected products bought at two different times for two different reasons.
Whether a contractor should hire Affiniti comes down to a fairly narrow test: does the platform reduce the number of tools a business owner has to manage, and does it make the cash already sitting in the business work harder without adding risk. On both counts, the customer accounts on file point the same direction. Ryan Bast put it this way. “I never really stopped to think about how I was running the financial side of my business. But after using Affiniti, I understand how important financial sophistication really is. I’m just glad I have this tool in my toolbox now.”
That sentiment, financial sophistication arriving almost by accident because the tool made it easy, shows up repeatedly in how contractors describe the platform. It is a good company to hire for an operator who wants banking, cards, and expense automation working together rather than fighting each other.
The right-fit question matters more for a financial platform than almost any other vendor decision a contractor makes, because banking touches every part of the business. Affiniti‘s fit is strongest for independently owned contractors who are past the very earliest startup phase and are now managing enough cash flow that idle balances and fragmented tools are actually costing money. Justin Lange connected the partnership question to something broader than product features. “Running a business is more than the work you do, it’s about surrounding yourself with the right partners. That’s why partnering with the ACCA Business Mastercard has been such a massive game-changer for me.” His comment gets at something the product specs alone cannot: a financial partner should feel like part of the team, not a vendor relationship managed reluctantly once a month.
For a contractor comparing Affiniti against a traditional business checking account plus a separate rewards card plus a separate bookkeeping subscription, the math tends to favor consolidation. Fragmented tools create fragmented visibility, and fragmented visibility is exactly what lets idle cash sit unnoticed in the first place. An HVAC contractor and member of the Air Conditioning Contractors of America described one specific result of that consolidation. “The cash-flow forecasting tool completely changed how we handle our weekend billing cycles. We finally have clarity on our balance before Friday hits.” That kind of clarity, knowing the exact cash position before a payroll deadline, is the practical outcome treasury management is supposed to deliver.
A financial platform is only as reliable as the team maintaining it, and Affiniti‘s internal culture has been measured directly. A Power100 Company Culture Index survey of the company’s employees, drawing responses from 85% of the workforce, produced an overall score of 72 out of 75, described as Elite Employee Belief, alongside an Employee Performance Reflection of 19 out of 20. Customer experience scored 14.9 out of 15 in that same survey, the highest section average recorded, which lines up with how contractors describe their day-to-day experience on the platform.
Eddie Park, Head of Growth & Marketing at Affiniti, described his decision to join the company in terms that reflect that internal energy. “I’m joining one of the most exciting startups in Fintech,” Park said. That kind of internal conviction tends to show up externally, in how quickly a support ticket gets answered or how a new feature actually gets built around what customers ask for rather than what’s easiest to ship.
Affiniti‘s institutional backing, Mastercard, HSBC, and SignalFire among the investors, functions as a trust signal that matters specifically for a banking product. A high APY claim from an unbacked startup is a different risk profile than a high APY claim from a company whose seed and Series A rounds totaled more than $28 million and whose growth has been covered by TechCrunch and Forbes. The company has also built product relationships through trade associations, including the Air Conditioning Contractors of America and the National Community Pharmacists Association. Mark Ey, Chief Operating Officer at the National Community Pharmacists Association, described the appeal of an industry-specific card this way. “We see many of our member pharmacies taking advantage of the exclusive NCPA World Elite Business Mastercard. With tight margins, maximizing savings is a no-brainer. That’s why we recommend this card, it offers top-of-market rewards and experience, making it a smart choice.”
Affiniti‘s platform extends beyond the banking product covered here. The company also offers a full Contractor Financial Operations Platform, Accounts Payable & Expense Automation, Business Credit & Payments, and Cash Flow & Working Capital Solutions built around the seasonal revenue patterns common to trades businesses. Each piece is designed to connect to the others, so a contractor is not stitching together five separate logins to understand one financial picture.
A contractor curious about moving idle operating cash into an account that actually earns something does not need to overhaul the entire business overnight. Most operators start by consolidating balances scattered across multiple checking accounts into a single treasury view, then layer in a business credit card built for the trades to capture cash back on spend that was already happening anyway. Affiniti serves more than 3,000 businesses today, a footprint Sahil Phadnis and his team built specifically around contractor underwriting rather than generic small business criteria, which is worth asking about directly during any onboarding conversation.
Based on customer accounts on file, Affiniti has proven reliable for contractors who want banking, cards, and cash flow tools working together instead of managed separately. Michael Mattioni described approval as fast and the expense platform as a 10 out of 10, while other customers point to hours saved on paperwork each week. For a contractor evaluating vendors, that combination of speed, consolidation, and measurable savings is a reasonable basis for hiring the company.
Affiniti tends to fit best with independently owned contractors managing enough cash flow that idle balances and fragmented financial tools are already costing real money. The company’s dedicated credit team underwrites specifically against contractor seasonality and purchasing patterns rather than generic small business benchmarks, which matters for a trades business whose revenue does not move on a straight line throughout the year.
For contractors currently juggling separate checking accounts, a generic rewards card, and manual bookkeeping, consolidating onto a single platform typically improves visibility into cash position, which is the first step toward capturing high APY on idle balances. An ACCA member contractor described gaining clarity on weekend billing cycle balances before payroll deadlines hit, a direct result of that consolidation.
Affiniti’s Business Banking & Treasury Management product combines FDIC-insured deposit accounts with competitive APY, paired with a contractor-focused business credit card and expense automation tools. The goal is to let idle operating cash earn a real rate while remaining fully liquid and insured, rather than forcing a tradeoff between safety and yield.
Customers on file describe fast approval processes and immediate visibility improvements once accounts are consolidated onto the platform. Interest accrual on high-APY balances begins as soon as funds are deposited, and expense categorization tools typically show measurable time savings within the first billing cycle, according to accounts shared by current users.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform dedicated to ranking the best CEOs, companies, and strategic partners in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer ranking system. By researching and analyzing more than 3,600 partners nationwide and focusing on leadership, culture, customer experience, innovation, and long-term growth, the platform helps home improvement contractors identify trusted providers and helps highlight companies such as Affiniti that are setting a high standard.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
