Italian digital accounting provider Sibill launched an embedded banking product in partnership with Swan. The banking product consists of a debit card and a payment account with Italian IBANs (Aziendabanca).
The Natural Convergence of Accounting and Banking
As mentioned many times before, digital accounting is an obvious hot area for embedded banking. Historically, accounting and banking services have been provided by two different parties, not because it was the best solution, but because entry barriers made it difficult for one party to offer the other's services. Nowadays, we see many digital accounting providers launching banking products, and even some banks venture into partnerships with accounting providers to compete with the digital accounting and embedded banking product stack.
What Makes Sibill's Approach Stand Out
Two things stood out for me in the launch announcement for Sibill. Firstly, the modularity of the embedded banking product. SMEs can decide whether to use cards and accounts, only cards or only accounts. In some cases, B2B embedded banking products encourage their users to use cards as frequently as possible, generating additional revenue through interchange. The accounts-only option indicates that the team has carefully considered the problems and preferences of their customers and launched a product that addresses these.
Breaking Ground in the Italian Market
Secondly, while we have seen many digital accounting providers with embedded banking products before, we have not seen as many from Italy. Perhaps, we can even extend that to Embedded Finance solutions in general. There are probably two primary reasons for this: the limited number of (larger) tech companies in Italy, especially compared to Middle & Western Europe and the regulatory scrutiny. The latter point presented a challenge for a few infrastructure providers, who had to delay or de-scope their offerings in Italy due to the local regulator's intervention. Therefore, I am delighted to see the Sibill embedded banking launch announcement and really hope for their success, also because it might motivate other local companies to follow suit.
