Embedded Finance Review Podcast, episode 44. Published 19 March 2026. Guest: Ismael Belkhayat, CEO and co-founder of Chari. Host: Lars Markull.
Lars Markull: Three years ago a Moroccan e-commerce startup went to every bank in the country looking for banking as a service. But none of these banks really knew what APIs were. So the founders went to the central bank, got a payment institution licence, and built the entire infrastructure themselves.
Today I'm speaking with Ismael Belkhayat, CEO and co-founder of Chari. What started as a B2B marketplace for small retailers has become Morocco's first VC backed fintech with a full payment institution licence. They're backed by Y Combinator, Orange Ventures and Rocket Internet. They built their own core banking system, card management, payment gateway, everything in-house. And now they're opening that infrastructure to third parties as a banking as a service provider.
We talk about why Moroccan banks couldn't deliver what they needed, what it actually takes to build a licensed fintech stack from scratch, how they're positioning as both a merchant super app and a BaaS provider, and why European fintechs should think about Morocco as their next market.
My name is Lars Markull. I'm the founder of Embedded Finance Review, a newsletter, podcast and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. Every week I help non-financial brands and fintech builders navigate the infrastructure landscape. And if you're working on an embedded finance project and want a free intro call to get feedback and meet the right providers and partners, head to embeddedfinancereview.com. And speaking of meeting the right people, we are hosting our next event in Berlin on April 15th as an official side event of FIBE. If you want to be in the room with the people building and buying embedded finance in Europe, details are on the website. And now let's dive in.
Welcome
Lars Markull: Hi Ismael, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today, and in what part of the world are you located right now?
Ismael Belkhayat: Hello Lars. I'm doing very well, thank you for inviting me. And I am today speaking out of Casablanca, Morocco.
Lars Markull: Yeah, thanks for joining. And maybe a quick note for the listeners out there. A couple of weeks ago I started the office hours feature in my newsletter, where people can reach out to have a chat with me about their embedded finance project. You were one of the first ones to reach out. We had a chat and I found it super interesting what you're building. To be honest, I didn't know anything about Chari and what is happening in the Moroccan market. So I said let's do a podcast. So maybe a quick hint for everybody out there, if you're wondering why Ismael is on the podcast, it's because Ismael did reach out. So feel free to do that. I cannot take everybody on the podcast, but if it's an interesting story like this, happy to have them.
Ismael Belkhayat: I have to admit that I am a big fan of your newsletter and I read it whenever it hits my mailbox. So I'm really happy to be here with you today, and I'm really happy that I made the most of the opportunity of that hour with you.
From B2B e-commerce to fintech
Lars Markull: Very kind, Ismael. As you said, you're based in Morocco. You have built a couple of ventures in Morocco. Your current venture is Chari. And I would love to hear a little introduction from you. If I put it in my own words, you started a B2B e-commerce platform many years ago. Over time this has evolved quite a bit, and today you're also offering embedded finance, banking as a service products. Maybe give us a quick intro. How did that journey evolve, and when did you realise that you want to get into the fintech offering?
Ismael Belkhayat: Yes, indeed. We started in 2020 a B2B e-commerce platform for no-name independent retailers. The small grocery stores that you find around the corners in Morocco. There are millions of them. And in every developing country, as you may expect, these guys are covering the fast moving consumer goods market, whereas in Europe and more developed countries it's usually the big chains and the big brands.
Anyway, back in 2020 we were helping these shopkeepers with their procurement. Back at that time, if you remember, investors were looking for fast growing companies and everybody was only looking at top line. Fast forward to 2022, obviously things have changed and the same investors who were looking for top line started asking for unit economics and bottom line. And that's when we realised that B2B e-commerce was a very tough business model with thin margins, and we had to pivot to a model in which we could make more money. That's how we realised that we had built trust with these small merchants, and that's when we started offering them financial services.