Embedded Finance Review

Lars Markull

Welcome to the Embedded Finance Review Podcast, hosted by Lars Markull. Join us biweekly as we delve into the transformative world of embedded finance. Each episode features in-depth conversations with the builders and shapers of embedded finance, who are integrating financial services into everyday products and experiences. We go beyond the surface to explore the relevant details, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of how embedded finance is reshaping vertical SaaS, marketplaces, and more. Perfect for professionals, enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the evolving financial landscape.

  1. vor 1 Tag

    E-Money or Bank? Why Your Provider's Licence Matters, with Phoebe Wallis from Griffin

    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 bank Why many fintechs start with an EMI and move to a bank once they want control over pricing and risk appetite Why Griffin chose the slower route of applying for its own bank licence Why a non-financial brand needs internal conviction and a business case before it talks to a bank The three types of no, and why the flow of funds document is the biggest yes or no What to check before approaching a bank, from risk appetite to public pricing and sandbox Connect 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/

    E-Money or Bank? Why Your Provider's Licence Matters, with Phoebe Wallis from Griffin

  2. 17. Sept.

    How a Restaurant Platform Makes Most of its Revenue from Financial Services, with Cancan Liu from allO

    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/

    How a Restaurant Platform Makes Most of its Revenue from Financial Services, with Cancan Liu from allO

  3. 3. Sept.

    After Selling His Company to SumUp, He Built a Compliance Business with Aurimas Bakas from Copla

    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 compliance 2. What actually changes for a fintech once the regulator starts auditing 3. How Copla turns registers of vendors, assets, risks, and incidents into the reports regulators ask for 4. The role AI can play in compliance, and where the human still needs to decide 5. Why managing DORA and ISO 27001 on spreadsheets breaks as you scale 6. His advice for founders facing DORA for the first time, and why proportionality matters Connect 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

    After Selling His Company to SumUp, He Built a Compliance Business with Aurimas Bakas from Copla

  4. 20. Aug.

    How to Work With Lawyers When Building a Financial Product with Patrick Liptak (MYLE)

    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 table Connect 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

    How to Work With Lawyers When Building a Financial Product with Patrick Liptak (MYLE)

  5. 11. Juni

    Why German Platforms Are Leaving Money On The Table with Julius Danek (Stripe)

    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

    Why German Platforms Are Leaving Money On The Table with Julius Danek (Stripe)

  6. 28. Mai

    Embedded Accounting and the Race to Own the SME, with Mark Holleman from Thred

    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

    Embedded Accounting and the Race to Own the SME, with Mark Holleman from Thred

  7. 7. Mai

    Why Embedded Finance Wins Where Banks Can't Reach, with Tom Sellin from Airwallex

    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

    Why Embedded Finance Wins Where Banks Can't Reach, with Tom Sellin from Airwallex

  8. 29. Apr.

    What Software CEOs Get Wrong About Embedded Finance, with Jane Podbelskaya from Charge Forward

    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

    What Software CEOs Get Wrong About Embedded Finance, with Jane Podbelskaya from Charge Forward
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Welcome to the Embedded Finance Review Podcast, hosted by Lars Markull. Join us biweekly as we delve into the transformative world of embedded finance. Each episode features in-depth conversations with the builders and shapers of embedded finance, who are integrating financial services into everyday products and experiences. We go beyond the surface to explore the relevant details, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of how embedded finance is reshaping vertical SaaS, marketplaces, and more. Perfect for professionals, enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the evolving financial landscape.

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  • Erstellt von
    Lars Markull
  • Jahre aktiv
    2024 - 2026
  • Folgen
    53
  • Bewertung
    Unbedenklich
  • Copyright
    © Lars Markull
  • Sendungswebsite
    Embedded Finance Review

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