ZBD has launched a financial stack that lets game publishers run real-money accounts for their players inside their games. Players can deposit funds, trade with each other and cash out without leaving the game, and studios can issue a debit card under their own brand that pays rewards back into the game. The stack was announced in August 2026 and covers four products: Embedded Accounts, Embedded Payouts, Embedded Rewards and Branded Debit Cards.
ZBD is a payments provider for the games industry, founded in 2019 as ZEBEDEE and headquartered in New Jersey, and says it has raised $90m from investors including RAINE, Square Enix and Lakestar, most recently a $40m Series C from Blockstream Capital Partners in January 2026.
What ZBD is offering game studios
With the Embedded Accounts offering, game studios can embed a payment account for each player in-game, covering deposits, player-to-player trading, creator earnings and cash-out. So far, ZBD positions it primarily for PC and console game studios. Embedded Payouts is the cash-out layer that pays players, creators and esports competitors, with KYC handled directly in-game. Embedded Rewards is the existing SDK, which sits on top of a game's economy and pays real money for progression, and ZBD says it processes more than 120 million transactions a year across the games running it. The branded debit cards are white-label, with in-game currency replacing cash-back.
ZBD is already working with several studios. For example, 1047 Games and ZBD are using payouts to run a real-money referral feature, and Joygame and ZBD have launched rewards. ZBD says its rewards integration with TapNation lifted day-14 retention in TapNation's Idle Bank by 142%.
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Why the account product starts on PC and console
Most of the studios ZBD works with today are mobile-focused; however, the Embedded Accounts offering is focused on PC and console. I couldn't find an explanation, but I assume it is because mobile games come with the challenge of an existing app store ecosystem. These app stores take a cut of money going in and restrict real money coming back out, while on PC and console the studio has more room to be the counterparty to its own players. Deposits, trading between players and cash-out are precisely the flows the app store provider would otherwise sit in the middle of.
The licences behind the stack
ZEBEDEE Europe B.V. in Amsterdam holds an electronic money institution licence, which was issued in July 2025, and partners with ClearBank, which handles its operational and safeguarding accounts across the EEA. In the US, ZBD holds money transmitter licences across most states. The company also holds a MiCAR authorisation from December 2024, which covers the Bitcoin Lightning rails it has used for payouts to gamers since its early days.
