Your embedded INVESTMENT and INSURANCE summer reading: What happened in 2025 (so far)

Hi {{first name|embedded finance friend}}

If I am being honest, I was most afraid of this edition during summer mode. As a regular newsletter reader, you hopefully know that Embedded Finance consist of five financial products (banking, payment, lending, investment, and insurance). But you will have also realised that my focus is more on the first three than the last two.

Thus, summarising my news coverage for the Embedded Investment and Insurance ecosystem will be less material than the other editions, even though I have already combined two financial products. Why is there so little news for each of them? I explain in the newsletter below.

Welcome to the 4 new subscribers since last week (total 1,663).

Are you new to Embedded Finance? Check out my slide deck, long article and YouTube video. If you need additional support, visit my website or get in touch with me.

As a reminder, this is the final week of summer mode for my newsletter. Due to the low number of new announcements, I'm summarising the biggest stories from January to July 2025, and this edition focuses entirely on Embedded Investment and Insurance:

August 5th → Banking (Link)
August 12th → Lending (Link)
August 19th → Payment (Link)
August 26th → Investment & Insurance (today!)

And now let’s dive in 👇

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Embedded Finance in Central and Eastern Europe with Danuta Czapeczko from PragmaGO (Podcast)

Think embedded finance only happens in the US and Western Europe? Think again.

In this episode, we dive deep into the thriving embedded finance ecosystem of Central & Eastern Europe with Danuta Czapeczko, an industry veteran from PragmaGO, the region's largest embedded lending provider.

In the episode, we discuss:

Why Poland has 380+ Fintech companies you've never heard of
How Allegro (Europe's first marketplace) is crushing embedded finance
The surprising transportation and retail innovations happening in CEE
The unbanked populations in CEE represent massive untapped markets
B2B embedded lending is exploding across e-commerce platforms

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

Top Stories in Embedded Investment (Jan - Jul 2025)

My comment: The news about Embedded Investment in the first half of 2025 was exclusively about infrastructure providers. I have covered exactly zero non-financial brands in launching or growing their investment product. Did I miss them? If that’s the case, please send the links to me. But I have my doubts, since the core product from most non-financial brands is significantly different from investing. As a comparison, when a B2B SaaS company launches a new embedded banking product, it is likely an ERP, digital accounting, vertical SaaS or similar, but rather unlikely a CRM or outreach tool because it is much harder for them to combine their core products with financial services.

While the same applies to non-financial companies and investment products, I am still extremely excited about the opportunities. It might be a bigger stretch for non-financial companies, but if a company can crack the nut, the benefits might be substantial (perhaps not just for the company, but also for the users and maybe society).

🇩🇪 Lemon Markets → The brokerage-as-a-service provider was acquired by German Deutsche WertpapierService Bank, also known as dwpbank (Finextra). Lemon Market’s decision to exit was explained by often losing out on deals because of being too small, and having a new owner of much bigger size should reduce this risk.

🇬🇧 Seccl → The British infrastructure was sold to Octopus Group already in 2024. And earlier this year, the new owner announced fresh for Seccl (News), and appointed a new UK CEO this August (Finextra).

🇬🇧 Wealthkernel → The British infrastructure provider was acquired by US competitor Alpaca (News). The acquisition follows Alpaca’s Series C funding, where it already shared its plan to grow internationally.

Podcast with Embedded Investment and Insurance Stories (Jan-Jul 2025)

🇩🇪 Can utility providers embed investment products? With Iven Kurz from Evergreen (Podcast) (The episode was published in 2024, but since it is my only podcast episode with a focus on Embedded Investment, I felt I needed to share it here again)

🇩🇪 Why does a pet retailer offer insurance products? With Christopher Meyer-Mölleringhof from Fressnapf (Podcast)

Other Embedded Finance Highlights (Jan-Jul 2025)

And to conclude my newsletter’s summer mode, I am sharing relevant news stories from the past seven months that I could not fit into any other category:

🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🇳🇴 BMO, OMB and DNB → The banks show three different ways for how to enter the world of embedded finance (News).

🇫🇷 Orange → The telecommunications giant is planning to sell its subsidiary Anytime to Crédit Coopératif as the company is exiting the banking industry as a whole (News).

🇺🇾 Mercado Libre → Can the e-commerce giant compete with Nubank and build Latin America's largest digital bank? (News)

🇪🇺 Is embedded accounting the next big thing in Europe? (News)

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this edition.

My newsletter, podcast, and event activities are free, but I need your support to continue. Please share Embedded Finance Review with your friends and coworkers, and let me know your feedback (links above).

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)