Embedded Finance Review Podcast, episode 21. Published 19 March 2025. Guest: Paul Staples, embedded banking advisor. Host: Lars Markull.
Lars Markull: What's your biggest learning of embedded finance over the past few years? For me personally, it's that non-financial brands that are just launching but not embedding financial products are failing. These companies believe that purely their brand will drive usage to the financial offering. Maybe that worked some years ago, but not any more.
Instead, non-financial brands need to figure out and solve the jobs to be done of the customers. That's the topic of this podcast episode, where I'm speaking with Paul Staples.
Paul has worked in embedded finance for many, many years. Most recently he built the embedded banking offering at HSBC and ClearBank.
I'm speaking with Paul about how the industry has changed over the past five years, what kind of companies can succeed in embedded finance, and how he expects incumbent banks to react. My name is Lars Markull. Welcome to the Embedded Finance Review Podcast. Every two weeks I'm interviewing the builders and shapers of embedded finance. And now let's dive in.
Welcome
Lars Markull: Hi Paul, welcome to the podcast. I'm glad to have you finally on the show. How are you today, and in what part of the world are you located right now?
Paul Staples: Yeah, lovely to see you again, Lars. It's been a while. We've been promising to do this, so finally we've made it happen. So yeah, I'm based in Hertfordshire in the UK. Finally we've got some nice spring, sunny weather, so yeah, it's a nice part of the world.