Consumers want financial experiences that are seamless and personalized, but research shows many financial brands are still missing the mark on the customer experience.1 With the door wide open to differentiate in this space, businesses of all kinds are leveraging embedded finance solutions to complement their existing offerings, meet a broader set of market needs, and increase brand loyalty and engagement with their existing customer experience.2 In fact, an estimated 47% of businesses are currently investing in digital finance solutions, with plans to launch them soon.3
Getting to market quickly and efficiently, while delivering on customer expectations, however, requires advanced technical capabilities, an understanding of the financial products you seek to integrate, and holistic management of the financial partnerships and ecosystem that will enable your success.
For all these reasons, many brands are going to market with an embedded finance partner, rather than starting from scratch. But to evaluate providers in a meaningful way, it’s important to get a clear picture of the value you’ll get out of the technology and the relationship. Ask yourself this: Are you buying just the underlying technology — or are you getting additional services on top of that? Let’s take a look at what you’re actually paying for, and how a potential partner’s capabilities can support your business model.
Evaluating an Embedded Finance Partnership: Technology
Naturally, an embedded finance partner must have rich technical capabilities that run on an enterprise-grade technology platform. Those with a proprietary payment processing platform also give you more direct control of features, enabling faster, more seamless integrations and customer experiences.
And when it comes to integrating a complex embedded finance program, there’s no replacement for the value of modern, open APIs that allow you to configure a unique solution and get to market faster.
Embedded finance products: Choosing the right solution
Looking to launch a digital wallet, a dynamic payment account or your own banking services? Not sure which underlying product structure is the best fit for your financial goals? Too often businesses get in deep without a full understanding of the details behind the financial product they want to enable. This can come with a steep price - both in opportunity cost and misdirected resources. You should also be able to easily gain a sense of how a specific embedded finance partner can tailor their solutions and programs to fit your customer profile and business model.
Working in the Financial Services Ecosystem: Don’t just pick a partner, pick a program
Ask your potential partners to outline all the capabilities and relationships they offer as part of their pricing structure. This should include risk, compliance, and fraud management services, as well as money movement, cash-in and retail distribution networks. Full-service partners help you handle the complexities of payments regulations, fraud management, technology, and infrastructure, so you can deliver differentiated embedded finance solutions within your existing ecosystem. And, the customer experience – and the customer – stay with you.
Each of these elements plays a key role in getting to market quickly and cost effectively, and running a sustainable – scalable – embedded finance program that integrates with your customer experience.
Data-backed Financial Modeling
Having a firm understanding of what you’re paying for and how these costs measure against your own program goals is critical in the first stage of entering any partnership. But you shouldn’t have to calculate the ROI on your own. The right partner has the track record and expertise to guide you through these decisions, present a transparent fee structure and show what level of support you should expect as you look to integrate new solutions, monetize that investment and support the administration of program.
Looking Ahead: Securing Your Embedded Finance Investment
Embedded finance solutions are estimated to be one of the most widely adopted digital technology in coming years.4 With the potential to help your business capture new revenue potential, build loyalty and gain valuable customer insights, it’s easy to see why the financial services industry is racing to put solutions into the market to attract and retain more customers.
Navigating the changing dynamics of the digital finance world is complex. Understanding the short and long-term cost structures, what you’ll get out of the program, and how it aligns with your business’ goals is pivotal to the success of an embedded finance program. Newer entrants in the fintech market often don’t have the experience to anticipate the risks ahead, which can end up creating unforeseen costs on both sides of the partnership.
The trick is determining how that partner can deliver the right mix of technology capabilities, industry expertise and program support to ensure your embedded finance solution seamlessly integrates into your existing business ecosystem and is flexible enough to scale with your program’s development.
To learn more about what you should be looking for in an embedded finance partner, download our free ebook: Embedded Finance: Uniting Finance and Technology: Increase Brand Value, User Loyalty and Revenues
1. The Financial Brand, “Banks Not Delivering the Experience Consumers Demand,” January 2022 https://thefinancialbrand.com/128429/banks-not-delivering-experience-consumers-demand-cx-martech/?BYO
2. DreamFactory, “How your API ecosystem can deliver benefits to your business”, June 2021 https://blog.dreamfactory.com/how-your-api-ecosystem-can-deliver-benefits-to-your-business/
3, KCDPR, “Driving financial inclusion with embedded finance”, September 2021 https://www.kcdpr.com/driving-financial-inclusion-with-embedded-finance/
4. Juniper Research, “Embedded Finance Market Value to Exceed $138 Billion in 2026, as APIs Intensify Fintech Competitive Landscape” July 2021 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210719005652/en/Juniper-Research-Embedded-Finance-Market-Value-to-Exceed-138-Billion-in-2026-as-APIs-Intensify-Fintech- Competitive-Landscape
