What is embedded finance?

When a company works with a financial-service provider to build financial products (e.g., bank accounts, cash advances) into their offering—that’s embedded finance.

Affirm is a prime example. Launched in 2012, Affirm enables merchants to embed flexible payment plans in their checkout flows. Other well-known examples include embedded bank accounts (e.g., Uber Pro), embedded cash advances (e.g., DoorDash Capital), and embedded payments (e.g., PayPal at checkout). (article continues below)

Embedded financial products are offered through a partnership between tech companies and licensed financial institutions. Many tech companies choose to facilitate the partnership with the help of a banking-as-a-service platform.