Embedded Finance Review

Games have always been built to take money in. What happens when the players making the content expect to get paid, and the money has to flow back out?In this episode, I speak with Ben Cousens, Chief Strategy Officer at ZBD, which builds what it calls the money layer for games. Ben explains what the full stack looks like inside a game: a player account that carries an IBAN or an ACH routing number, skins traded between players for game currency that converts instantly into real money, and a publisher-branded debit card that pays game points back on everyday spend.He also sets out why ZBD went after its own e-money, MiCA and US money transmitter licences instead of building on someone else's, and how the Lightning Network still runs underneath alongside fiat on and off ramps.In this episode we cover:Why the games industry only ever thought about money coming inWhat changed once players started making the content themselvesWhy player-to-player marketplaces stayed locked for two decadesThe full stack inside a game: accounts with IBANs, trading between players, and branded cardsWhy ZBD owns its licences rather than building on someone else'sSeparating the asset from the rail, and why stablecoins have no demand in games yetConnect with Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencousens/About Embedded Finance Review:Embedded Finance Review is a newsletter, podcast, and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. I also offer Office Hours, free intro calls for companies navigating embedded finance, and host regular in-person events across Europe. Find all details at embeddedfinancereview.com.This episode was produced by https://orama.tv/(00:00) Intro(02:08) Start(02:46) From Game Tester to Games Investor(07:28) How Games Made Their Money(09:28) Why Studios Started Paying Players(12:45) Why Player Marketplaces Never Happened(15:54) Why ZBD Runs on Bitcoin Lightning(18:24) What a Game Publisher Gets Out of the Box(20:50) Own the Licences or Partner(23:16) The Asset and the Rail(25:14) Stablecoins in Games(27:06) From a Call of Duty Skin to a Pret Lunch(31:50) The Next Five Years, and a Hot Take on Xbox(33:58) Where to Find Ben

Vertical SaaS sits at the centre of embedded finance, and companies like Phorest are the ones shaping it. Phorest has built software for 20 years and has been in payments for five of those years.In this episode, I speak with Patrick O’Donnell, Global Commercial Director, Payments at Phorest, the Irish software company that hair and beauty salons, med spas, and aesthetics clinics run on.Patrick explains why payments only arrived 15 years into Phorest’s life and came out of the US business rather than a roadmap, how the pay pillar group pulls product, engineering, ops, marketing and finance into one room, and why the capital product launched without customers asking for it.In this episode we cover:Why around 70 per cent of payment activity is card present, and what that means for terminalsWhat salon owners use embedded capital for, from the January slowdown to new machinery and new branchesHow buy now, pay later is rolling out, and why customers have to switch it on themselvesWhy embedded payroll starts in the US and Canada, and what booking and employee data lets Phorest do with itWhat share of revenue financial services could reach, and where it sits against the software businessWhat changes when you move from Citibank and Mastercard into a non-regulated software companyConnect with Patrick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-o-donnell-24354752/About Embedded Finance Review:Embedded Finance Review is a newsletter, podcast, and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. I also offer Office Hours, free intro calls for companies navigating embedded finance, and host regular in-person events across Europe. Find all details at embeddedfinancereview.com.This episode was produced by https://orama.tv/(00:00) Intro(03:14) When SaaS Should Add Payments(05:24) Why Embedded Payments Took Off(07:14) What Phorest Does(08:56) Full Stack Features And Markets(11:42) How Phorest Payments Work(14:49) Building The Fintech Team(19:24) Choosing New Finance Products(24:25) Revenue Versus Customer Value(30:54) Advice And Wrap Up

Most fintech companies in Europe run on an e-money licence, not a bank licence. With both licences, the provider can offer basic banking features. But the "how" differs and can matter for some brands.In this episode, I speak with Phoebe Wallis, Chief Revenue Officer at Griffin, a UK bank that other companies build financial products on. Phoebe explains why all e-money institutions still have a bank underneath them that the brand never sees, why Griffin went through the bank licence process itself, and why the flow of funds document decides most of her yes or no calls.In this episode we cover:What you give up when an e-money institution sits between you and the bankWhy many fintechs start with an EMI and move to a bank once they want control over pricing and risk appetiteWhy Griffin chose the slower route of applying for its own bank licenceWhy a non-financial brand needs internal conviction and a business case before it talks to a bankThe three types of no, and why the flow of funds document is the biggest yes or noWhat to check before approaching a bank, from risk appetite to public pricing and sandboxConnect with Phoebe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phoebe-wallis-6758a0a4/About Embedded Finance Review:Embedded Finance Review is a newsletter, podcast, and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. I also offer Office Hours, free intro calls for companies navigating embedded finance, and host regular in-person events across Europe. Find all details at embeddedfinancereview.com.This episode was produced by https://orama.tv/

Three-quarters of allO's revenue comes from payments, lending and insurance. None of it was planned.Cancan Liu co-founded the Munich-based restaurant platform in 2021 as a QR code ordering tool. Every financial product since started with a restaurant owner asking for something. allO is now live in around one thousand restaurants across Germany, with Austria next.In this episode we cover:The four phases of allO, from scan to order and pay to digital employeesWhy integrating with existing point of sale systems was a dead end in GermanyThe cuisine go-to-market, with dedicated Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese and German teamsHow one night of manual reconciliation turned allO into a payments companyWorking with finmid and Stripe on lending, and what restaurants get from their bank insteadWhat happens to a software business when financial services become three quarters of revenueConnect with Cancan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liucancan/About Embedded Finance Review: Embedded Finance Review is a newsletter, podcast, and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. I also offer Office Hours, free intro calls for companies navigating embedded finance, and host regular in-person events across Europe. Find all details at embeddedfinancereview.com.This episode was produced by https://orama.tv/

Aurimas Bakas is a serial fintech entrepreneur, and each of his companies grew out of the last. Running a payments business, he kept hearing from customers that they didn't want the payment service; they wanted the core banking underneath it. That became Paysolut, which he co-founded and sold to SumUp in 2021.Building core banking for licensed financial institutions across Europe then sparked the next idea. As a critical vendor, he had to prove his own security and compliance to every customer, long before DORA existed. He could see where the regulation was heading. That became Copla.In this episode, I speak with Aurimas, CEO and co-founder of Copla, a compliance platform built specifically for the financial industry. Copla helps licensed financial institutions manage DORA end-to-end, and helps their vendors handle the ISO 27001 and other frameworks their customers demand. The platform acts as a register layer for vendors, assets, risks, and incidents, with AI agents doing the heavy lifting on reporting, documentation, and training. Copla already serves over one hundred regulated companies across Europe and raised a six-million-euro round in February.In this episode, we cover:1. How each of his ventures seeded the next, from payments to core banking to compliance2. What actually changes for a fintech once the regulator starts auditing3. How Copla turns registers of vendors, assets, risks, and incidents into the reports regulators ask for4. The role AI can play in compliance, and where the human still needs to decide5. Why managing DORA and ISO 27001 on spreadsheets breaks as you scale6. His advice for founders facing DORA for the first time, and why proportionality mattersConnect with Aurimas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aurimasbakas/About Embedded Finance Review: Embedded Finance Review is a newsletter, podcast, and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. I also offer Office Hours, free intro calls for companies navigating embedded finance, and host regular in-person events across Europe.Find all details at embeddedfinancereview.com.This episode was produced by https://orama.tv/(00:00) Intro(01:54) ‌Start(02:10) Founder Night Worries(04:08) Why Build Core Banking(06:40) SumUp Partnership And Exit(08:18) Life After Acquisition(09:33) From Core Banking To DORA(11:52) Copla Platform Pitch(13:56) Who Uses It And When(16:59) DORA Outputs And Audits(19:19) AI Versus Compliance Tools(22:50) Selling Compliance To Fintechs(25:15) Funding Vision And Advice

If you are building a financial product inside a non-financial brand, the legal question tends to show up late. The product is designed, the provider is picked, the first customer conversations are underway, and then somebody asks whether you can actually launch it as you have built it.Patrick Liptak is a partner at MYLE, a Berlin law firm whose name stands for Making Your Life Easier. MYLE advises clients across the full spectrum, from early-stage startups through to listed companies, on IT law, data protection and digitalisation projects. Patrick has sat on both sides of this conversation, first building and leading in-house legal teams and now advising from the outside, and his view is that most of the pain comes from when legal gets involved rather than from the law itself. He is also the first lawyer to join me on this podcast, and we recorded this one in person in a studio in Berlin.In this episode we cover:Why companies actually reach out to a lawyer, which is far more often a customer or investor requirement than a founder discovering they need a licenceWhat Patrick wants a product team to send him before the first conversation, and why a recorded demo beats an explanationHow to pick the right kind of legal advisor for your stageWhy short contracts are harder to write than long ones, and how contract length feeds directly into deal velocityWhat has happened to document quality since teams started drafting contracts and compliance documentation with AIWhere companies waste money on compliance platforms that deliver compliance on paper and little elseWhy some startups are now inviting their lawyer onto the cap tableConnect with Patrick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-liptak/Embedded Finance Review is a newsletter, podcast, and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. If you're working on an embedded finance project and want a free intro call to get feedback and meet the right providers and partners, head to embeddedfinancereview.com.This episode was produced by https://orama.tv/(0:00) Intro(02:18) Meet Patrick Liptak(04:07) Why Companies Call Lawyers(06:51) Legal As Deal Enabler(09:52) Show Demos Not Decks(12:40) From Strategy To Contracts(15:25) Risk Based Decisions(19:02) AI Docs And Fake Compliance(26:58) Trends And Final Advice

Most platforms in Germany are still defaulting to a grey-label setup with their payment provider, where their merchants see and interact with the PSP directly. According to Julius Danek, product lead for Stripe in DACH and CEE, that is leaving real money on the table.In this episode, I sit down with Julius to talk about what Stripe Connect actually unlocks for a platform on day one, when it makes sense to layer Capital and Issuing on top of payments, what the recent launch of Stripe Capital for Platforms means for German platforms, and why Julius thinks German companies in particular should run far fewer RFPs and start experimenting with these products instead.We also get into the white-label versus grey-label distinction in embedded payments, why platforms like Shopify, Toast, and the German restaurant SaaS allO went fully white-label years ago, and how AI and vibe-coded software are changing the defensive moat conversation for vertical SaaS platforms.Embedded Finance Review is a newsletter, podcast, and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. For a free intro call on your embedded finance project, head to embeddedfinancereview.com.This episode was produced by https://orama.tv/(00:00) Intro(01:45) Julius Role At Stripe(03:35) Localizing Payments In DACH(06:35) Embedded Finance And Connect(08:52) Direct Vs Platform Payments(11:06) How Connect Was Built(12:22) Beyond Payments Issuing Capital(15:43) White Label Payments Pitch(17:37) Germany Adoption And Trust(23:51) When To Launch Capital Issuing(31:03) One Platform Vs Specialists(35:54) Whats Next Stripe Tour and Agents

Embedded finance typically involves payments, banking, lending, investments, and insurance. But there are adjacent areas evolving with the same logic, and embedded accounting is one of them.In this episode, I speak with Mark Holleman, co-founder of Thred. Mark is a returning guest. The last time we spoke, we discussed embedded lending and the build-versus-buy decision. His first startup, the lending provider Sprinque, has since shut down. Now Mark and one of his Sprinque co-founders, Manoj, have started Thred. They are building the layer they wished existed when they offered lending products: an embedded accounting layer for vertical SaaS, SME banks, and financial platforms across Europe.We talk about what embedded accounting actually means for a vertical SaaS, like a yoga studio platform or a tattoo studio tool, how AI agents and human bookkeepers split the work in practice with a confidence score on every journal entry, why scaling accounting across Europe is harder than it sounds, and whether this is also the data layer that finally makes embedded lending work.Mark also shares why a dual go-to-market with direct customers helps Thred earn the trust of platforms before they put the product in front of their own SMEs, how the convergence of banks, accounting software, and vertical SaaS is shaping the financial operating system for SMEs, and why this time around he can build with a much leaner team than at Sprinque.Connect with Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markholleman/About Embedded Finance Review:I'm Lars Markull, founder of Embedded Finance Review, a newsletter, podcast, and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. If you're exploring embedded payments, banking, or lending for your platform, I offer free intro calls where I share honest feedback and connect you with the right providers and partners. Book a call at https://www.embeddedfinancereview.com/office-hours/.This episode was produced by https://orama.tv/(00:00) Intro(03:10) Welcome(04:09) From Lending to Accounting(04:40) Why Books Stay Outdated(06:04) Embedding Where Data Lives(08:20) What Embedded Accounting Means(11:10) Full Service Scope(12:56) Go To Market Netherlands(17:00) Agentic Stack Explained(22:37) Real Time Proactive Finance(25:49) Convergence Banking and SaaS(30:17) Learning From US Players(33:28) First Mover Lessons and Wrap

Tom Sellin has a way of explaining how Airwallex's embedded finance offering works. He uses a Lego set.You have all the pieces: wallets, cards, payouts, and FX. The platform or fintech on the other side decides what to build. A small car. A rocket ship. Just one piece if that is all they need. The point is that you are not buying a finished product. You are choosing which building blocks to plug into your own.Tom is the first person on the ground building Airwallex in Germany. The company has 26 offices, 85 licenses, and infrastructure that already powers companies like Moss and Navan. His job is to make sure German platforms and fintechs know that infrastructure exists and can use it.In this episode, we talk about how Airwallex's embedded finance layer actually works, who is already using it and why, what the build versus buy decision looks like when you need to move money across 150 countries, and what it takes to bring a global fintech into a market where 80% of SMEs still bank with their house bank.Connect with Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomsellin/About Embedded Finance Review: I'm Lars Markull, founder of Embedded Finance Review, a newsletter, podcast, and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. If you're exploring embedded payments, banking, or lending for your platform, I offer free intro calls where I share honest feedback and connect you with the right providers and partners.Book a call at https://www.embeddedfinancereview.com/.This episode was produced by https://orama.tv/(00:00) Intro(02:23) Tom’s Career Dots(02:41) Rocket Internet Beginnings(03:15) PayPal and Braintree Growth(04:16) Clearpay Leadership Lessons(04:43) Why Airwallex Germany(06:15) Germany Localization Reality(07:35) House Bank Culture(10:05) Airwallex Platform Overview(11:35) Ideal Customers and Use Cases(19:17) Embedded Finance Lego APIs(29:02) Germany Roadmap and Wrap

Jane Podbelskaya does in North America what I do in Europe. She advises software companies and investors on embedded finance, runs a media platform called Charge Forward, and spends most of her time translating the world of fintech for software executives who know their vertical inside out but have never heard of a payfac or an attach rate.In this episode, we compare notes across continents. We talk about how VC and PE funds are actually thinking about embedded finance today, six years after Angela Strange said every company will be a fintech company.We get into why embedded finance is increasingly an antidote to AI disruption rather than a casualty of it, what the data advantage of vertical SaaS really means in practice, and where North America and Europe are at different stages of the same journey.Jane also shares the framework she uses with software CEOs from day one: how to assess whether embedded finance makes sense for your business, where to start, and how to avoid the most common vendor-selection mistakes.Connect with Jane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-podbelskaya-841426/This episode is sponsored by Hopae, the identity infrastructure layer connecting government identity systems worldwide so businesses can verify users across markets through one single API. Check them out at hopae.com.About Embedded Finance Review: I'm Lars Markull, founder of Embedded Finance Review, a newsletter, podcast, and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. If you're exploring embedded payments, banking, or lending for your platform, I offer free intro calls where I share what I know, give honest feedback, and connect you with providers I trust. Book a call at embeddedfinancereview.com.This episode was produced by https://orama.tv/(00:00) Start(02:12) Welcome and Guest Introduction(03:30) Shopify Spark and Fintech Investing(07:25) Why Education Is the Gap(11:03) Beyond Payments More Products(12:11) VC View After the Hype(14:42) Why Investors Care About It(17:40) Building the Product Roadmap(20:58) Vendor Trends Fragmentation(25:07) AI Moat With Embedded Finance(29:08) Europe vs North America Differences(31:00) Framework and Closing Advice