Embedded Finance Review Podcast, episode 30. Published 7 August 2025. Guest: Juho Putkonen, Accountor Finago. Host: Lars Markull.
Lars Markull: We want to kill neobanks. That's a bold statement for any company, and it doesn't even come from a bank. That's the message of Juho Putkonen, who's responsible for embedded banking at Procountor. Procountor is a Finnish company that offers digital accounting services and financial management tools. The company targets accounting companies and business owners with different services. According to some sources, 13.5% of Finnish GDP is invoiced through Procountor services.
In this episode I speak with Juho about Procountor's journey in financial services, how one lucky conversation kicked off their embedded banking product, and how they want to revamp their invoice financing product.
My name is Lars Markull, and this is the Embedded Finance Review Podcast. Every two weeks I interview the builders and shapers of embedded finance. And a quick reminder from my side. At Embedded Finance Review I publish weekly newsletters, a biweekly podcast, and host in-person and virtual industry events. You can find all of these activities on our website, embeddedfinancereview.com. In addition, we also work with non-financial brands, infrastructure providers, and banks in understanding, designing and launching their embedded finance products. If you are interested in working with us, visit our website and please reach out. And now let's dive in.
Welcome
Lars Markull: Hi Juho, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today, and in what part of the world are you located right now?
Juho Putkonen: Thank you. It's really nice to be here. I'm located in the oldest city in Finland, called Turku. It's the nearest city to the sea, towards Sweden on the other side. I have been living here for 20 years, so it starts to feel like home.
Lars Markull: That's great. And in the pre-chat we already ticked off all the required chats about the cottages in Finland that most people own, spoke a bit about NHL. So now we can talk a bit more, or a lot more maybe, on embedded finance, embedded banking. And first of all, thanks for taking the time. We connected a couple of weeks ago at the Nordic Fintech Summit, where I think you put in the networking app that you're looking to connect with people who are into the topic of embedded banking. And when I read that one, I felt, okay, that's probably a person I should speak with.
And to kick things off, maybe you can tell us a little bit about the company you're currently working with. We spoke about that already. There are three names that at least while doing my research were floating around. There's Procountor, Accountor, and also Finago. So three brands or company names. So I'm quite curious to hear from you a little bit, what is the focus of each brand or company, and how they were put together?
Accountor, Finago and Procountor
Juho Putkonen: Yeah. I have to say that it's complicated, and it's going to be even more complicated, but I'll try to explain as well as I can. The company's name is currently Accountor. It's a public company, not a listed one. But the company's name is going to change in the upcoming weeks.
The former Accountor company was divided last summer, and the counterpart, which was the accounting office businesses, they were sold out of this company that I'm currently working in. And the name Accountor went with that company. So our name and brand is going to completely change in the upcoming summer, and I have no idea which company I'm returning to after my holiday, which starts tomorrow. So let's see.
But currently the company is called Accountor Finago, and we are a software company. We are building financial management software in Finland for a hundred thousand customers. So a hundred thousand companies in Finland are doing their accounting and invoicing with our software. And we are currently a Nordic company. So in the same family we have 24SevenOffice software, which is Norwegian based software, and they have I think around 30,000 companies in the Norwegian market and some in the Swedish market. But I would say that we are serving around 150, 160,000 companies at Nordic level with our financial management software.
And in the Finnish market we have different software. Procountor, which you mentioned, is the biggest one, around a hundred thousand companies are doing their accounting with that software. And in Accountor Finago we have also some smaller and even different types of businesses included in our business family. We have a company called Tasku, which is receipt handling software, a mobile app. Then we have Apix, which is an invoicing platform, they are redirecting invoices to different channels. And then we have Ecom, which is an ERP for small size construction businesses. And then we have Isolta, which is invoicing software for really small companies.
But I think the biggest one of the software is Procountor. And I think in these discussions that we are going through today, I will see the world mostly through Procountor eyes. Of course embedded banking, embedded finance, is a universal thing, and we can apply the same principles to all the software, it doesn't matter. But that's the reason I will see it mostly through my own eyes.
And I'm not a hundred percent sure if it's correct, but I have heard the number that 13.5% of Finnish GDP is invoiced through Procountor. So it's quite a big number. At least in the Finnish market, it's the biggest software in this business area. And it's mostly, of course, small and medium sized companies that we are serving.