Hi embedded finance friend
I am still in the process of moving my tech stack. You might have noticed already my new website but I haven’t moved my newsletter tooling yet. I am still figuring out the best approach, so please bear with me if something is not working exactly as it should.
Our events in November:
- Embedded Lending → This Friday, we are hosting our Ask Me Anything Embedded Lending edition with two embedded lending experts. We will be small and selected group of people discussing the big questions of Embedded Lending: Register here
- Fintech Infrastructure → On November 19th, we are hosting our last in-person event of the year 2025 in Berlin. We will touch on fintech provider selection, the role of stablecoins and how to build Fintech producgtsat scale. We will announce the final agenda soon, but don’t wait: Register here.
Are you new to Embedded Finance? Check out my slide deck, long article and YouTube video. If you need additional support, visit my website or get in touch with me.
And now let’s dive in 👇
How to build your Embedded Finance team (Podcast)
Should your first hire be a product manager or a compliance expert? Do you need dedicated Fintech developers or can your existing tech team handle it? How do you actually convince top Fintech talent to join a non-financial brand?
In this episode, I sit down with Morten Laufer from Nova Search, a Fintech and embedded finance recruiter who works with both Fintech companies and non-financial brands to build their teams. We discuss the real challenges of breaking into Fintech as an outsider and the costly mistakes companies make when hiring their first Fintech talent.
What We Cover:
- The product manager vs. compliance debate: who should you hire first?
- Why most non-financial brands massively underestimate compliance needs
- How to evaluate Fintech candidates when you don't speak the language
- The opportunity cost of making the wrong hire (6+ months of lost progress)
- Why Fintech talent is surprisingly interested in non-financial brands
- The believability test: proving your Fintech project won't die in 3 months
- Compensation strategies that work (without breaking your existing salary structure)
- Technical expertise: when you need dedicated Fintech developers vs. leveraging existing teams
- Retention tactics beyond salary: impact, learning, and entrepreneurship
You can find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
HotelRunner Launches Ruby: Travel-Native Embedded Finance for B2B Payments
The global travel and hospitality platform HotelRunner launched Ruby, an embedded finance infrastructure built specifically for travel (HotelRunner). The functionality addresses to fix the industry's main problems like settlement delays, multi-currency headaches, and messy payment flows. HotelRunner has partnered with Visa on this, which might indicate that the launch of Ruby is not just a test but a serious move into adding financial services to their existing software stack.
HotelRunner’s core features include sales & marketing, guests & operations and automation services. With Ruby, they are adding end-to-end financial infrastructure for B2B travel transactions. Travel agencies and hotels can process cross-border payments, settle in multiple currencies, and manage compliance activities like KYC through one system. The platform syncs and reconciles every transaction from booking through the actual hotel stay, so both sides can see what's happening with their money. HotelRunner is targeting travel agencies and accommodation providers, and they already have over 10,000 properties enrolled across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. They're aiming to process more than 4 billion dollars in transactions annually. They also plan to keep adding more acquiring, issuing, and settlement partnerships as they scale up.
PS: If you are keen to learn more about the possible Embedded Finance use-cases in the travel industry, have a look at our podcast episode 22 when I spoke with Eric-Jan Krausch about the complex world of travel payments.
Lyft Cash Rewards: How Lyft Built a Prepaid Wallet Into Its Loyalty Program
Lyft launched Lyft Cash Rewards in October, a program where riders earn up to 5% back on their rides (Lyft). The catch is you need to preload money into your Lyft Cash wallet through an auto-reload system. There are three tiers: reload $25 and get 2% back, reload $50 and get 4% back plus some perks like relaxed cancellation fees, or reload $100 and get 5% back plus free XL upgrades and cancellation benefits.
From an embedded finance perspective, this is Lyft building a closed-loop stored value account into their app. Users preload money that sits in their Lyft wallet until they spend it on rides. The rewards structure gives them cashback as an incentive to keep that money locked in the platform. For Lyft, the benefits are pretty clear. They get to hold customer funds that don't earn interest, which improves their cash position. More importantly, having money already sitting in the wallet increases retention because users are more likely to stick with Lyft when they have a balance to spend. It's basically a prepaid wallet disguised as a loyalty program, or maybe a loyalty program that requires a prepaid wallet to work. Either way, the financial product is doing the heavy lifting for customer stickiness.
What's interesting here is that Uber launched Uber Cash years ago and it's been pretty successful for them (Uber). It's actually surprising it took Lyft this long to launch something similar. They're clearly playing catch up on the embedded finance side, which makes you wonder if they were skeptical about the model or just slower to prioritize it. The rollout is also pretty limited right now, starting with their most loyal long-term riders in San Francisco before expanding nationally.
PS: If you are interested in such wallet use-cases, have a look at our podcast episode 24 where I speak with Arda Cagaptay about the trend of merchant wallets 2.0.
In other Embedded Finance news
- Amsterdam-based Embedded Payments provider Embed is now authorized by the British regulator FCA, which enables them to provide payment services in the UK and EEA (LinkedIn).
- Corporate financial management and infrastructure provider Airwallex crosses $1 billion in revenue, and the UK is among fastest-growing markets (Finextra).
- Infrastructure provider Fiserv stock declined by almost 50% over the past few days. Some argue this is a legacy provider in a free fall (LinkedIn); others believe the stock price went to level where it was suppose to be all this time (Forbes). Pick your side.
- Walmart's OnePay is partnering with DriveWealth to launch investing features. Users can now trade stocks and ETFs directly in the OnePay app using DriveWealth's brokerage-as-a-service APIs. OnePay already offered savings accounts, credit building, and BNPL, basically turning Walmart into a one-stop financial services platform for everyday consumers (Finovate).
- Not Embedded Finance but relevant Fintech news: Publicly traded neobank Nubank became Brazil’s most valuable company with a valuation of $77 billion (LinkedIn).
- Embedded Lending provider Liberis launched a BNPL product in the US. Vagaro, a business management platform for the beauty, wellness, and fitness industries, is the first customer and they will offer it to their customers as capital for hardware (Finextra).
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this edition.
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And if you need help understanding, building, or launching an embedded finance product, visit my website and get in touch with me.
Best wishes from Berlin,
Lars Markull (LinkedIn)
