Embedded Finance Review Podcast, episode 42. Published 19 February 2026. Guest: Christin Burmeister, Head of Product at Otto Payments. Host: Lars Markull.
Lars Markull: At a certain scale, payments isn't a cost factor anymore. It becomes a strategic capability. That's a quote from Christin Burmeister, Head of Product at Otto Payments. For those of you outside of Germany, Otto is one of Europe's largest e-commerce marketplaces, with 7 billion euros in GMV, 12 million active customers and more than 6,000 merchants.
They started 70 years ago as a catalogue company and successfully transformed into a digital marketplace. And they built their own 250 person regulated payments entity to run it. Before joining Otto, Christin spent 11 years at Zalando Payments, where she helped build the payments unit from the ground up. So when we talk about large retailers building in-house fintech units, she has done it twice.
In this episode, we discuss why Otto decided to build its own payments company rather than use third party providers. We cover how they balance seller risk management with growth enablement, and the recent move into embedded lending with banks. Also, Christin shares honest advice on what it really takes to maintain a BaFin licence and why it's not for everyone.
My name is Lars Markull, and this is the Embedded Finance Review Podcast. Every two weeks I'm interviewing the builders and shapers of embedded finance. And a quick reminder from my side: at Embedded Finance Review I publish a weekly newsletter, a biweekly podcast, and host in-person and virtual industry events. You can find all of them on my website, embeddedfinancereview.com. In addition, I work with non-financial brands, infrastructure providers and banks in understanding, designing and launching embedded finance products. If you are interested in working with me, visit my website and reach out. And now let's dive in.
Welcome and introductions
Lars Markull: Hi Christin, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today, and in what part of the world are you located right now?
Christin Burmeister: Hi Lars. Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it. I'm in Hamburg today. It's my office day, usually Wednesday and Thursdays. I'm very fine. The sun is shining. It's bitter cold, but that is typical for January. So a very good day. Thank you.
Lars Markull: That's true. For me it's the same. It's the 21st of January as we're recording this. I just got back from India last week, so I'm readjusting to the temperature, to the weather. But yeah, that's the usual January here in Germany.
What Otto is, and how it got there
Lars Markull: And obviously, as a person living in Germany or growing up in Germany, Otto is a very well-known brand. I think many of the listeners who are from Germany will immediately know what the company does. People from outside of Germany, maybe not so much. Maybe before we dive into the whole embedded payments and payments angle and talk about all of this, you can get us up to speed and explain what Otto exactly does and how you would describe its positioning within the German ecosystem.
Christin Burmeister: Yeah, for sure. I'm with Otto for one and a half years now, so bear with me. I'm not the Otto person that knows actually every detail, but what I find very interesting is that if you take a look at Otto, it is one of those only catalogue pioneers in Germany that successfully transformed into an e-commerce marketplace.