Three announcements that aren't embedded finance but should be on your radar

Hi {{first name|embedded finance friend}}

It’s summer, isn’t it? Somehow, neither the weather (at least in Berlin) nor the number of Embedded Finance news articles indicates any kind of summer vibes. This is good for me, as I plan to continue publishing this weekly newsletter throughout the summer. And if summer kicks in sometime in August, I have a backup plan.

My updates:

And now let’s dive in 👇

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Embedded Finance can learn a lot from Fintech. Maybe also partnerships with banks? In the newest Embedded Finance Review Podcast Episode, I speak with Fintech investor Richard Würl from Redstone. Richard analysed various bank-fintech partnerships and shares his learnings:

In this discussion, Richard shares learnings from his portfolio companies, including Atlas Metrics, Remind Me, and Banxware. All of them built successful partnerships with banks.

You can find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

What happened: Porsche is apparently moving its co-branded credit card portfolio from the German digital bank DKB to the Scandinavian duo Nordiska Bank and Enfuce (Manager Magazin). According to the article, the switch to the new providers is planned for autumn 2025.

My comment: Co-branded credit cards are not pure Embedded Finance. However, for some major brands, such as Porsche, it marks the first step into offering financial services. In this reporting, I am more interested in the infrastructure players behind the solution than the frontend, which doesn’t happen too often. For many fintech professionals, Enfuce is likely a familiar name. The Finnish issuer processor has been relatively active in Fintech, working with a few tier 2 banks and also supporting card programs from Pleo and Swile.

The Porsche Cards are credit cards, which brings our attention to Nordiska Bank, the enabler of the “credit” part. The Swedish bank has a strong focus on Embedded Finance, but it initially focused more on its savings and lending offering. Perhaps some of you are familiar with Nordiska from the savings marketplace Raisin (previously known in Germany as Weltsparen), where the bank has built up its deposits. The partnership with Enfuce and Porsche may indicate that Nordiska is expanding its presence in the card space. There are not many providers that cater to B2C use-cases and can offer actual credit cards; thus, it’s great to see Nordiska pushing into this space.

What happened: Scandinavian bank Nordea has announced its partnership with expense management provider Mynt (Bloomberg). Nordea aims to enhance its SME banking offering through integrating corporate expense management features, and the partnership is scheduled to go live in 2026 across Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark.

My comment: What timing. Last week, I wrote about Pleo’s launch of Pleo Embedded, where it also aims to partner with banks. And now, one of the biggest Scandinavian banks is partnering with Mynt. Mynt might not be as well-known outside of Scandinavia as its competitor Pleo; however, Mynt has been focusing on partnerships for some time. Fortnox and Visma, both major providers of accounting and business software, have already integrated Mynt; however, a bank has not yet been among their partners.

The trend of banks preferring to partner with expense management providers is also evident in other markets. German expense management provider Pliant has a similar partnership with Commerzbank and seems to be growing its focus on bank partnerships. Personally, it took me some time to understand that banks are willing to partner in the area of expense management and cards. Initially, this seemed like an area where banks prefer to keep it in-house. However, I assume this was the case only until some years ago. With the continuous improvement of these digital products by standalone players and their success in the market, a shift in the mindset of banks has occurred.

What happened: ClearScore has launched an embedded offering, enabling customers to access credit cards, loans, and car finance from ClearScore’s 150+ partners. Customers should be able to find the right credit products at the moment they need them most. (ClearScore)

My comment: ClearScore was founded in 2015 in the UK and enabled British consumers to access their credit score free of charge. The company has grown substantially since then, and as of 2024, it has over 20 million users, operating in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada. One of the most significant new product offerings is the financial marketplace, which allows consumers to find the right credit product from the numerous financial institutions ClearScore partners with. And with ClearScore Embedded, these features are becoming available within other digital products.

ClearScore’s Embedded offering is technically not a pure Embedded Finance, as the financial products are not fully embedded. But perhaps this is an improvement to the commonly used referral partnership. And if this is done well, especially in solutions where customers are already actively seeking car loans or credit cards, it can be highly beneficial for all parties involved.

Thanks to reader Jeff Poole for bringing this announcement to my attention.

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)