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Embedded finance is on the rise in the business-to-business (B2B) payments market, which is projected to reach $1.91 trillion by 2028. As more and more businesses look to get in on this growing opportunity, it’s important to know what to look for in an embedded finance platform.
What Is Embedded Finance?
Embedded finance platforms enable non-financial companies to include financial services or finance products in their digital products. It makes buying faster and easier for customers, while providing opportunities for businesses to streamline backend processes and unlock an additional revenue stream.
It’s also giving rise to embedded fintech, which is when finance companies embed fintech options into their products and customer experience. These are both different from the buy now, pay later (BNPL) trend that’s also happening in the finance space. Whereas BNPL allows buyers to purchase a product immediately and pay for it over time in several regular installments, embedded finance is about the payment solution being integrated with the platform, which solves challenges on all sides of the buying equation – for buyers, suppliers, and platforms.
Embedded Finance Platforms and the Opportunity for B2B
Having financial products and services built-in to online transactions is business as usual for B2C – think about the experience on websites like Amazon and eBay. Buyers in the B2C ecosystem have many options when it comes to payments – credit card, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Wallet, among others – as well as a plethora of B2C BNPL options appearing in just about every ecommerce checkout flow. Now, it’s becoming the same way for the B2B sector as expectations around online purchases shift.
Embedded finance options are now becoming expected, even for B2B purchases that have traditionally been handled offline. Prior to 2020, 70 percent of B2B decision makers reported being open to making fully self-serve or remote purchases valuing over $50,000 – with 27 percent of those open to spending more than $500,000. That number is only expected to continue growing as embedded finance takes off and buyers, sellers, and platforms reap its benefits.
Places that handle digital B2B payments, including B2B marketplaces, apps, and ecosystems (MAEs), know that it makes sense to facilitate payments in any way possible, and are all trying to figure out how to navigate this hurdle and choose the right embedded finance platform.
Why Partner With an Embedded Finance Platform?
Even though having their own financial solution might make sense for some, partnering with an established embedded finance provider offers a faster time to market solution, ultimately providing more tailwinds to growth. Some other benefits of partnering with an embedded finance platform rather than trying to become a fintech include:
- Keep organization lean. With an embedded finance partner, there’s no need to hire and develop systems for multiple areas of expertise – like the underlying technology required, regulatory issues, and finance itself. Your partner takes care of the heavy lifting, so you can keep your organization lean and focused on the core business.
- Avoid distraction from core mission. Additionally, building a financial solution in-house might take business owners away from their core missions and strategies during a critical time in their development when their focus is on getting buyers and suppliers interested in using digital platforms. Fintech payment companies already have the necessary workflows in place to ensure a fast, seamless integration.
- Get fast access to capital. While many large, established organizations have access to quick, inexpensive cash, it’s often still faster and easier to use the cash of a partner. This ensures cash flow is always readily available.
- Less risk and financial burden. By partnering with an embedded finance company, apps, ecosystems, and marketplaces can lessen their financial burden and credit risk as there’s no need to do their own underwriting – the fintech takes care of those details using the platforms’ data.
- Gain data for strategic decision making. Another reason embedded finance is so valuable for marketplaces, ecosystems, and apps is because of the data generated. When the payment process is part of the platform experience, leaders have access to raw information about who is buying from which sellers, the size of the transactions, seasonality, the most popular products, and more. This data is crucial for making strategic decisions about maximizing success generally, such as defining target markets, segmenting users, and enhancing the product. But it’s also important at the individual level; this data can be used to boost sales by making personalized purchase recommendations based on previously purchased or viewed items. Many fintech startups and established fintech payment companies already have data that can help, as well as the means to get an embedded finance solution up and running faster, which means platform-specific data will be generated faster.
- Customized experience with an experienced team. Embedded fintechs have already figured out the workflows to make the integration of the payment experience smooth and easy for platforms (and can often customize them) so that it will serve the needs of both buyers and suppliers.
Ultimately, an embedded finance platform helps free up capital on all sides, giving buyers, sellers, and MAEs what they want. Without having cash tied up in extending credit to buyers, marketplaces, portals, and apps can use their cash flow to grow and compensate for rising inflation or COVID-19 supply chain disruptions. Their balance sheets also look healthier since they’re not carrying extra debt financing. In turn, buyers can enjoy fully integrated online payments that they’ve come to expect in other aspects of purchasing.
What to Look for in an Embedded Finance Platform
When it comes to finding the right embedded finance platform for your business, you can help narrow your choices by asking yourself the following questions:
Do they have the technology in place?
When partnering with an embedded finance platform, you want to ensure they have the infrastructure in place to handle your business. Is there a process in place when it comes to know your customer (KYC) vetting, fraud prevention, and available tech expertise in case of any issues?
Can they scale with you as you grow?
You ultimately want to grow your business to serve more customers, and any partners you bring on board should be able to meet those growth demands with you. You should be questioning any potential embedded finance platform about whether they have the necessary capital, staff, and infrastructure in place to grow with your business as you scale.
Do they align with your values?
Getting involved in any relationship – including business – entails ensuring both parties have similar values. Those that see the most success take a partnership approach – where the embedded finance partner works with you every step of the way, from the discovery call and onboarding process, right through to ensuring a seamless payment process.
Do they have experience in your specific vertical?
Many businesses want to know that an embedded finance platform has experience in their specific vertical or a related vertical – whether that’s energy or transportation and logistics, among others. They also want to know that an embedded finance partner has experience working with large buyers and their workflows, different types of platforms, and their technology. This helps streamline the integration process.
Do they have enough capital?
Apps, ecosystems, and marketplaces should ensure that any embedded finance platform they’re looking to partner with has access to the capital required to meet their needs. They should also ask about whether or not there are any minimum or maximum funding amounts – you don’t want to get caught trying to manage a million-dollar invoice yourself when you’d expected your partner’s capital to cover it. Additionally, you should discuss the source of capital, and whether (and when) you’d like to use your own.
Will they make the integration easy?
When looking for an embedded finance platform, ease of integration is often top of mind. Many platforms want a solution that works with their API and other infrastructure already in place. You want the integration process to be as seamless as possible, so that all sides of the payment transaction have access to the terms and conditions they want. Ideally, a partner should be able to customize a workflow based on your API.
The FundThrough Approach: Embedded Instant Invoice Payments
Embedded instant invoice payments get invoices paid in days to unlock cash flow for you and your suppliers while allowing buyers to pay when they want. You can give suppliers fast payments and buyers flexible terms inside your platform with embedded invoice funding by FundThrough.
As the largest AI-powered invoice funding fintech in North America, FundThrough has established infrastructure, workflows, underwriting, and data, as well as experience across industries simplifying complex B2B payments typically done offline. With fast, flexible payments, you’ll be able to drive more volume, stickiness, and ultimately growth for your platform.
Benefits of embedded finance platforms
- Get invoices paid in days
- Buyers pay on preferred terms
- Reduce risk; we can use your data to underwrite for you
- Customizable for large buyer workflows and different types of data
- Use your capital or ours
- Increase stickiness and transactions to grow
- Gather data insights for platform improvements and growth opportunities
- Collect a revenue share of all transactions
Embedding a payment solution with FundThrough saves 30 to 45 days of waiting to get paid on average, and gets you and your suppliers paid 97 percent faster.
Embed an easy way to get paid with 3 simple steps
1. Choose funding.
AI technology creates customized funding options for the client to choose from.
2. Provide information.
Clients give us basic information to verify their identity, business and the invoice.
3. Confirm funding.
We get to work and communicate the next steps. Upon approval, clients can receive next-day payment.
Interested in Embedding FundThrough?
Whether it’s a vertical marketplace connecting buyers and suppliers online or an invoicing platform solving challenges facing a particular industry, becoming a leader means getting to market fast – and embedded finance will be an expected part of the user experience. FundThrough is here to help, and has plenty of experience working with large buyers across many different industries to simplify complex B2B payment processes typically done offline. We level the playing field by paying invoices ahead of net terms, in days – not months. We also give platforms revenue share to further fuel their growth.
FundThrough’s invoice financing solution can be embedded into platforms of all kinds. While payments are causing pain for many marketplaces, portals, and apps, embedded payments offers a solution, while adding more value for buyers, suppliers, and platforms alike.
Learn more about our approach to embedded invoice financing and schedule a meeting with our Partnership Development team, to discuss your needs.