Fifth Third Bank is partnering with venture capital (VC) firm QED Investors to bring new products and services to their banking customers.

The VC firm will advise the Ohio-based bank and support its NorthStar strategy to “enhance offerings through technology”.

Tim Spence, executive vice-president and chief strategy officer for Fifth Third Bank says the partnership “should enable us to identify new, high-potential technologies to complement our internal R&D and innovation efforts”.

Recently, Fifth Third said its customers can now use five major mobile wallet providers, with debit and credit card purchases via the recently added Android Pay and Microsoft Wallet, along with previous partners Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Masterpass.

Big deals

Last year, the bank was involved in three major deals.

In November, the bank joined hands with Pivot Investment Partners to invest $18 million in AvidXchange, a provider of accounts payable and payment automation solutions. The company has over 6,000 clients in the US, across several industries such as real estate, financial services, energy and construction.

In September, First Third partnered with GreenSky, an Atlanta-based payment solutions partner. Part of the deal is to license and integrate GreenSky’s technology platform into its digital banking channels.

In April, First Third was part of a consortium comprised of the five largest US commercial banks that invested $30 million in Transactis, a provider of electronic billing and payment solutions.