Hi Embedded Finance Friend
After a great Berlin event, I'm already onto the next one. On May 21st, we're hosting our 10th event in Frankfurt at TechQuartier as part of the TQ Digital Accelerator. Full agenda will be released shortly, but don't wait: register here.
I'm also working on an Embedded Finance Report that we plan to publish by June. If you're building financial products at a non-financial brand, I'd really appreciate 5 minutes of your time on our survey.
And now let's dive in 👇
Launching a branded card is one thing. Turning it into revenue is another. On May 6th, I'm joining Alexander Snurnitsyn (Beneflo) and Wallester's team to break down how platforms actually make money with embedded cards: Register here.
Norwegian Bank Embeds Froda Inside Its Own Banking App
What happened: SpareBank 1 Østlandet, Norway's fourth-largest savings bank, integrates Froda Embedded into its digital banking environment ++ Froda's first partnership with a traditional bank ++ One of the first deployments of its kind in Europe
For years, banks have struggled to lend profitably to the smaller end of their SME base, where the cost of underwriting and servicing a loan does not shrink with the loan amount. SpareBank 1 Østlandet's answer is to outsource the whole thing: SMEs apply for a loan natively in the bank's frontend, but Froda underwrites it, disburses it via Visa Direct, and pulls repayments through the card rail. In 2024, HVB took a similar first step with Banxware in Germany, although HVB went deeper by underwriting the larger tickets itself.
Read the full story on Embedded Finance Review.
Hokodo Shuts Down After Eight Years and €500M+ in Financed Invoices
What happened: European B2B BNPL provider Hokodo ceases operations after raising ~$177M and financing €500M+ in invoices ++ Founders launch Liquidity Lab, an AI-focused B2B trade credit consultancy ++ Sprinque also shut down, decision made in summer 2024
Two B2B BNPL providers have closed within a year, while Billie and Mondu are still active. The Hokodo founders published an unusually candid post-mortem on what went wrong: they took too long to narrow their ideal customer profile, and in the 2021/22 funding environment they mistook small wins for product-market fit. This level of public reflection is rare in fintech, and it makes the shutdown one of the more instructive embedded finance stories of the year. The category looks like it is consolidating around the providers that found focus earlier.
Read the full story on Embedded Finance Review.
In other Embedded Finance news
- Adyen acquires loyalty platform Talon.One for €750M: Adyen, typically known for building everything in-house, will acquire Berlin-based loyalty and incentives platform Talon.One in a definitive deal expected to close in H2 2026 (Adyen). Talon.One serves 300+ merchants and is expected to hit ~€60m ARR by end of year. The deal extends Adyen's Unified Commerce strategy by combining payments data with real-time loyalty decisioning at checkout, and is also positioned for the emerging agentic commerce wave. Loyalty and payments are starting to converge at the wallet layer, and merchants who hold the customer's stored value will sit upstream of AI agents handling discovery and checkout.
- Lovable adds Stripe payments: European vibe-coding platform Lovable now lets users add Stripe checkout, subscriptions, and usage-based billing to apps generated on the platform via a chat-driven flow (Lovable). While the story has a limited Embedded Finance angle (simple payment acceptance), Lovable's distribution scale makes it interesting. Lovable is one of Europe's fastest-growing platforms, and with Stripe Checkout baked in by default, embedded payments (and maybe even banking and lending) might become relevant for indie founders and small businesses at a later point.
- Commercial embedded banking is the bigger opportunity: A new Deloitte report frames commercial embedded banking, especially via ERP integration and B2B marketplaces, as the more significant wave compared to consumer embedded banking (Deloitte). The headline numbers: 78% of corporate clients rank ERP integration as a top priority and 62% would switch banks for better connectivity. Deloitte projects $13 trillion in B2B financial transaction volume by 2030. The framing is US-authored but the diagnosis applies to Europe.
That's it for this edition. If you enjoy my newsletter, podcast, or events, the best way to support me is to share them with others in your network. Feedback is always welcome, too.
Need help with an embedded finance project? Visit my website and let's talk.
Best wishes from Berlin,
Lars Markull (LinkedIn)
