The rise of Banking-as-a-Service and embedded finance is signaling the end of
#finance and banking as we know it, in a twist that entails both a threat and an opportunity. Let’s take a look.
While the term embedded finance is relatively new, its precursors have been around for decades (i.e. store and branded credit cards offered by retailers or airlines). In these cases, traditional financial products were offered via alternative channels or different branding, but without the embedded concept. The game changer today is the ability to directly integrate financial offerings into any (non-finance) environment, via interactive distribution rails that we call
#APIs.
BaaS and embedded finance are often used interchangeably but are not the same thing: BaaS is the bottom, infrastructure layer that feeds into the various embedded finance offerings on the outcome, front-end side. The combination of these two distinctive layers into one unique (bundled) offering is a paradigm shift that builds and further expands on a revolutionary development that has been driving the FinTech revolution of the past years and is an equally disruptive "embedded" force: the decoupling of the customer experience from infrastructure.
In such an environment, we are witnessing the metamorphosis of a few, scattered, fast-moving concepts into business models that are gradually re-writing the
#future of the industry. And whereas there is a multitude of variations to be found across the entire end-to-end spectrum, they are all defined by two major parameters:
— Licensing together with all the obligations connected to it (compliance, risk
#management, balance sheet, etc)
— A back-end
#technology stack than seamlessly connects to diverse environments acting as an enabler
The diversity of the models on the market today is directly linked to the fact that whereas both parameters are needed to synchronize in a bundled way, they do not (necessarily) have to be offered by the same provider. From traditional banks leveraging (only) their
#banking license to
#FinTechs acting as
#technology bridges to full stack
#BaaS players leveraging both
#licensing and technology in end-to-end vertically integrated models to niche providers or to segment specialists, the sheer number of combinations is telling.
To cast further complexity, in many cases layers can be added or removed depending on the positioning of the partners along the value chain: i.e. Goldman Sachs’ partnership with Apple is a classical
#B2B2C offering, whereas Stripe operates with Stripe Treasury a B2B2B2C set-up, where Stripe acts as a provider in its own right behind marketplaces or platforms (i.e. }
#Shopify).
In a world where customers are increasingly making
#finance decisions in non-financial contexts, we have just started scratching the surface of embedded finance's potential and the myriad ways in which it is changing business and the
#economy.
#GSB #Revolut #SEB #Amazon #Apple #ebay #bmw #BBVA #HSBC