On April 15th, we hosted our 9th Embedded Finance Review Event in Berlin, and it was our biggest yet. 240 people joined us at Alice Rooftop for an evening of conversations on embedded finance and fintech infrastructure, as an official side event of FIBE.
But not everything went perfectly: the registration queue was so long that we started almost 30 minutes late. Apparently, 240 fintech people in Berlin do not always run on German time.
a user sets up to switch between payment methods based on the merchant, amount, or
Flexible Credentials and BNPL Infrastructure with Eliot Marcus from Visa
Eliot Marcus from Visa opened the evening with a session on flexible credentials and their implications for BNPL infrastructure. A flexible credential is a single card that a user sets up to switch between payment methods based on the merchant, amount, or product. Once configured, the card handles the rest at the point of transaction. For embedded finance builders, this is relevant because it moves BNPL from a standalone product into the card infrastructure layer itself, making it invisible to consumers and easier to embed on the platform.
The B2B Buyer and the Evolution of Embedded Cards with Marqeta and Mondu
The second session looked at how embedded financial products for B2B buyers have evolved. Mondu is a good case study here: the company started with B2B BNPL, giving business buyers the ability to pay on invoice at checkout, and has since added card products via Marqeta. Axel Neumann and Guy Webster walked through what that product evolution looks like in practice and what it means for platforms thinking about how to serve the B2B buyer beyond a single payment method. The direction of travel is from single-product to multi-product, as platforms realise that the B2B buyer has more than one financial need at the point of transaction.
Pre-Approved Loans and the Next Generation of Embedded Lending with YouLend and eBay
The fireside chat between Leonard Strigel from YouLend and Felix Kristl from eBay closed the stage programme with a conversation on what the next generation of embedded lending actually looks like. The eBay example made it concrete: a marketplace like eBay sits on transaction data that tells it exactly which sellers are growing, which ones have cash flow gaps, and which ones could benefit from capital. That allows eBay to offer pre-approved loans to merchants before they ever think to apply for one, reaching businesses that would never have walked into a bank. That is a fundamentally different distribution model for lending, and it only works because the platform owns the relationship and the data.
Sturmz and the Custom T-Shirts
This year, we added something different. Berlin-based artist Sturmz created live custom t-shirt designs at the event, combining sponsor logos with Berlin icons like the Döner Kebab. It was a good way to give the evening a bit of personality and send people home with something they actually wanted to keep.
Networking
As always, the stage content is just the setup. The real conversations happened over dinner and drinks, and with 240 people in the room, the energy was exactly right. Thank you to everyone who came, and to the new subscribers who joined through the event: welcome, and I hope to see you at Event #10.
