Three years into building Kompliant, Leo Patching had a simple bet on the table: that the banks and payment facilitators drowning in compliance work didn't need more lawyers or consultants - they needed software that made the whole machine run faster.
By October 2025, Portland-based LegitScript agreed. The acquisition folded Kompliant's compliance orchestration platform into LegitScript's existing merchant risk and certification business, creating what both sides called the most complete end-to-end merchant risk intelligence stack in the payments industry.
Kompliant was founded to turn compliance into a growth superpower for the financial services industry, enabling effortless application, faster conversion, and a reduction in operating costs.
Leo Patching, CEO - Kompliant at LegitScriptThe Regulatory Reframe
Walk into most compliance conversations in banking and the word that comes up first is "cost." Leo Patching has spent his career arguing the opposite. The pitch is not idealistic - it's operational. When merchant onboarding is automated, banks close accounts faster. When KYB and KYC checks run in the background, compliance teams stop blocking deals and start enabling them. Sub-second decision-making replaces weeks-long review queues.
That is Kompliant's core design principle, not a marketing position. The platform handles digital application intake, Know Your Business verification, automated underwriting decisions, continuous merchant monitoring, and audit-ready reporting - all integrated through APIs that connect to dozens of third-party data providers. An ISO or payment facilitator onboarding a new merchant doesn't wait for a compliance team to run down a checklist. The platform runs the checklist.
From Solar Panels to Payment Rails
Patching did not arrive at payments compliance in a straight line. A degree in International Relations and Economics from the University of Westminster preceded a career that zigzagged from tech company turnarounds to clean energy before finding its groove in fintech infrastructure.
His first CEO role came at DT3 Ltd., where he ran the company as interim CEO before it was acquired by Symantec. That early exit gave him a close-up view of what acquisition processes look like from the inside - useful preparation for what Kompliant would later become. From there, Patching moved into renewable energy, leading Freetricity PLC from 2012 to 2015, a solar energy company he also invested in and continued to serve as a board member afterward.
The pivot to fintech arrived at Digitzs. Patching co-founded the payments company in 2017, serving as CEO until 2021, building API-driven solutions specifically for the complexity that SaaS businesses and digital marketplaces face when they try to accept payments at scale. It was the thesis that would eventually become Kompliant - that fragmented, legacy compliance processes were the single biggest brake on payments infrastructure growth.
"In today's fast-evolving payments industry, staying compliant isn't just about meeting regulatory requirements - it's about enabling growth."
"Our platform brings together data from the most trusted sources, enabling ISOs to make fast, informed decisions."
Building Kompliant
Patching co-founded Kompliant in August 2021, initially serving as President before stepping into the CEO role in June 2023. The company positioned itself at a specific intersection: the place where acquiring banks, ISOs, payment facilitators, and marketplaces all feel the same friction - the moment a new merchant applies to accept payments and the compliance machine grinds into action.
Kompliant's answer was a compliance workflow automation layer that sits on top of existing systems, pulling data from trusted third-party sources and running automated decisions based on configurable risk criteria. For Independent Sales Organizations, this meant faster merchant onboarding. For banks, it meant auditable, defensible decisioning without the manual review backlog. For payment facilitators, it meant scaling merchant portfolios without proportionally scaling compliance headcount.
The company's credibility reached a notable mark in 2025 when the Electronic Transactions Association recognized Kompliant as one of the most innovative products in the payments ecosystem at TRANSACT 2025. The same year, Kompliant landed on FinTech Global's DataTech50 list, which tracks companies driving innovation in financial services data management.
Personalization is no longer just a marketing tool; it's becoming the backbone of the entire customer experience.
Leo PatchingThe LegitScript Acquisition
LegitScript had spent nearly two decades building the internet's most authoritative database of merchant risk - certification programs for online pharmacies, addiction treatment providers, and high-risk merchant categories that major payment networks and platforms rely on. What it lacked was the compliance workflow automation layer that Kompliant had spent four years building.
The October 2025 acquisition closed that gap. Kompliant's onboarding and decisioning automation, combined with LegitScript's risk intelligence data and certification programs, created a stack that covers the full merchant lifecycle from initial application through continuous content monitoring and re-underwriting. Patching remained as CEO of the Kompliant division, overseeing the integration and continued product development.
Silicon Florist, which covers Portland's tech scene, noted the deal as a significant expansion of LegitScript's reach into the broader fintech compliance market beyond its traditional healthcare and pharmacy certification roots.
Joining forces with LegitScript accelerates innovation and allows us to deliver global scale and unmatched data-driven insights to clients across the entire merchant lifecycle.
Leo Patching, on the LegitScript acquisition, October 2025Writing the Rules on Regulation
Patching doesn't just build compliance software - he writes about compliance policy. As a contributor to Corporate Compliance Insights, he has analyzed the CFPB's 2024 interpretive rule extending credit card-style protections to Buy Now, Pay Later lenders. His September 2024 piece dissected how the rule's dispute handling, transparency, and refund requirements would reshape operations for short-term lenders - and noted that the post-Chevron doctrine landscape might invite legal challenges.
The willingness to engage with regulatory detail at that level reflects the intellectual posture of someone who genuinely believes compliance infrastructure is worth thinking carefully about, not just automating away.
- Co-founded Kompliant; company acquired by LegitScript in October 2025
- Kompliant recognized by ETA at TRANSACT 2025 as most innovative payments product
- Kompliant named to FinTech Global DataTech50 2025 list
- Co-authored Kompliant-Equifax white paper on compliance technology ROI, reaching 500+ financial leaders
- Led Digitzs as CEO/co-founder from 2017-2021, building API payments infrastructure for SaaS businesses
- Successfully guided DT3 Ltd. through acquisition by Symantec as interim CEO
- Thought leader on CFPB, BNPL regulation at Corporate Compliance Insights
- Chairman of Falcon Fulfillment since 2016 and long-term board member of Freetricity
His degree is in International Relations and Economics - not computer science, not finance. The compliance insight came from reading how systems interact, not how code runs.
Before fintech, Patching ran a solar energy company for three years. The regulatory complexity of utilities informed his later thinking about payments compliance.
He's held CEO, interim-CEO, co-founder, partner, chairman, and board member roles across industries spanning tech exits, solar energy, fulfillment logistics, and fintech.
Kompliant's thesis - that compliance is a growth feature, not a friction layer - mirrors the argument made about security software a decade ago. That argument turned into a trillion-dollar category.