Embedded Finance Review Podcast, episode 52. Published 1 October 2026. Guest: Phoebe Wallis, Chief Revenue Officer at Griffin. Host: Lars Markull.
Intro
Lars Markull: Many fintech companies and banking-as-a-service providers in Europe run on an e-money licence instead of a banking licence. Banking products typically don't differ, but what sits behind them does. So does it matter when a brand launches a financial product based on an e-money licence or a banking licence?
Phoebe Wallis is Chief Revenue Officer at Griffin, a UK bank that other companies build financial products on top of. She was one of the first employees, joining while the banking licence application was still running. Griffin started that application at the beginning of 2020, and the process took considerably longer than the team expected, partly because the pandemic and the rate environment made regulators more cautious than they had been for the Monzos and Starlings before them.
We get into what you actually give up when you work through an e-money institution instead of a bank, why Griffin chose the slower route of applying for the licence itself, and what Griffin looks for before agreeing to work with a company. Phoebe also walks us through the flow of funds document, which is the thing that decides most of these conversations and the one most brands are least prepared for, the three different types of no she gives and why. Selling a bank licence puts you somewhere between a bank, a management consultant and a venture capitalist with no funds to deploy.
My name is Lars Markull, and I'm the founder of Embedded Finance Review, a newsletter, podcast and event series covering the European embedded finance ecosystem. If you're working on an embedded finance project and want a free intro call to get feedback and meet the right providers and partners, head to embeddedfinancereview.com.
And now let's dive in.
Welcome
Lars Markull: Hi Phoebe, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today, and in what part of the world are you located right now?
Phoebe Wallis: Lars, I'm great, thank you. I'm currently in Bath in the UK, where we have experienced a real summer for the first time in a long time, and I can't say I'm enjoying it.
Lars Markull: Okay, great. The summer over here in Berlin has been quite a different one as well, in other ways. But it's great to speak with you. Today we'll focus quite a bit on fintechs or non-financial brands selling to banks, and on how to work with banks specifically. I'm saying banks because, when you're building fintech products, there are quite different types of providers you can work with. As we know, in the fintech ecosystem the majority are arguably running on e-money licences. But of course there are also the banks in the room with, let's call it, the full bank licence. As a kick-off question: how does it really compare, working as a fintech or non-financial brand with a provider that has an e-money licence versus one with a bank licence?
E-money licence versus bank licence
Phoebe Wallis: If you take a step back to your end consumer, so not the fintech or the non-financial brand, it all looks and feels the same. You have an account number, you have an IBAN, you have payments, and both the bank and the EMI can offer that. An EMI is effectively offering custody of funds, and a bank is accepting a deposit. Those are fundamentally different things.