Trent Sorbe

Trent Sorbe is the Chief Payments Officer at North Dakota-based First International Bank & Trust. Sorbe leads the $5.5 billion organization’s payments initiatives, including its Kotapay division, a top-40 ACH originator that settled over $103 billion in ACH originations in 2024.

Under Sorbe’s leadership, Kotapay is leveraging its scale and technologies to expand into additional payment verticals.  In 2024, the organization announced the launch of Kavinu, one of the few bank-direct embedded payments technology platforms.   

Trent previously served as founder and CEO of a payments and technology company, where he architected their open API fintech marketplace and cloud-based banking as a service platform. Originally created as a division of financial institution, Trent led the organization from inception in 2014 through its sale in 2022. 

A 30+ year banking and payments veteran, Sorbe has held leadership and board positions at nationwide payment card issuers and was a senior examiner at the FDIC. He founded a successful fintech accelerator and podcast, and regularly authors articles on payments and banking.  He also currently serves on the boards of three early-stage startup financial technology companies and is an advisor and mentor to a number of fintech founders. 

In 2023, Sorbe was named the recipient of the Maher Achievement Award from the Innovative Payments Association, recognizing his support and advocacy for the payments industry.  Trent is also responsible for products garnering nine Paybefore Awards, three of which garnered Best in Class or Category. He is also the inventor on 14 patents related to consumer financial services.