Revolut just integrated Revolut Pay into Booking.com's checkout. To be clear, this is a standard payment partnership and not really embedded finance. Customers can now pay with one click, earn RevPoints loyalty rewards, and Booking.com gets lower payment processing costs. For Revolut customers, this is an account-to-account transfer, but non-Revolut customers can make a regular card payment with Revolut Pay. This move reveals something bigger about how Revolut is building a fintech super app, and travel is central to that strategy.
The Partnership Basics
Approximately 9 million Revolut users have already made purchases on Booking.com, so this integration was inevitable. When customers choose Revolut Pay at checkout, they're redirected to the Revolut app where they complete the transaction in one click with biometric security. Initially, accommodation bookings will be available; flights and car rentals will follow. As an exclusive benefit, customers earn extra RevPoints on all purchases made through RevPoints, the first pan-European debit loyalty card programme. For Booking.com, the math is simple: better checkout experience, lower payment processing costs, higher conversion.
The Super App Play: Why Travel Matters
But here's why this matters for embedded finance. Revolut has always focused on travellers. Low FX fees, multi-currency accounts, travel insurance, and now Swifty, an AI travel agent they acquired to automate travel planning. These are customers with money to spend and high transaction volumes. Travel isn't just one vertical for Revolut, it's the organising principle for their super app strategy.
The Booking.com integration is the latest move to combine travel and fintech services. Revolut is becoming the financial infrastructure layer for how people travel. They handle paym, accommodation bookings will be available; flightslike in practice. Not one company trying to do everything, but one company building the financial rails that connect all the pieces travelers already need.
Why This Isn't Really Embedded Finance (But Why It Matters Anyway)
Clearly, Revolut is a fintech company, and while they offer some non-financial services, it wouldn't be correct to describe them as embedded finance. That said, Revolut is one of the very few fintech companies I find relevant to track, even with an embedded finance focus. Firstly, their interest in building and launching solutions for completely different verticals is unique. Revolut People, their HR software for other companies, is a perfect example. Secondly, in many of the things Revolut does, you can see they're thinking outside the usual financial services mindset. They're focused on solving customers' pain, not just staying within financial services. And above all, Revolut just announced they achieved a valuation of USD 75 billion. That's what happens when you get the formula right (Revolut).
