Embedded lending technology now allows any brand to offer high margin lending products quickly and easily.
Advances in embedded lending provide better options for consumers and higher sales with more certainty for merchants. It's a win-win.
Assurance came on my radar courtesy of Financial Technology Partners, which was the investment banker on Assurance's $3.5 billion sale to Prudential. Notably, the company is just 3 years old -- which comes out to a cool billion of enterprise value per year, likely a record comparable to the very few Ant Financials. Depending on the details, this is about $25 million of value per employee. So what does the company do? Simple, really. It is a destination website licensed to sell all types of insurance product (e.g., life, health, auto), with a clean onboarding questionnaire like any other roboadvisor, which then matches against policies on offer from third parties. AI and data science are used as the recommendation engine. It is a Kayak or Money Supermarket of insurance, simply designed, cleverly wired, with killer founders.
Is embedded finance dead? Ahon Sarkar said your answer depends on where you fit into the ecosystem. Sarkar is the general manager of Q2’s Helix division. Helix works with companies to make personalized banking products.
In this video conversation we feature a roundtable by The Defiant exploring how and if the gap between Fintech and DeFi will be bridged.
DeFi Panelists
Lex Sokolin, head economist at ConsenSys
Santiago Roel Santos, angel investor
Spencer Noon, Investor at Variant
Vance Spencer, co founder at Framework Ventures
Fintech Panelists
Keith Grose, head of Plaid international
Nik Milanovi?, founder of This Week in Fintech
Simon Taylor, co-founder of 11:FS
Bruno Werneck, Business & Corporate Development at Plaid
Moderator
Camila Russo, Founder of The Defiant
I dig deeply into the $5.3 billion acquisition of data aggregator Plaid by $500 billion payments network Visa. We examine why this deal is worth 25-50x revenue, while Yodlee's sale to Envestnet was priced much lower. We also look at how Plaid could be an existential threat to Visa, and why paying 1% of marketcap to protect 200 million accounts may be a good bet. Broader implications for product manufacturers across payments, investments, and banking also emerge -- the middle is getting carved out, and infrastructure providers like Visa or BlackRock are moving closer to the consumer.
Jifiti is quietly shaping the future of embedded finance by working strategically with banks to deliver personalized solutions.
Embedded finance and buy now, pay later (BNPL) are hotbeds of innovation, and Marqeta is in the middle of the action, CEO Simon Khalaf said.
Embedded finance can help small businesses manage their money end-to-end, but not all companies are equipped to offer it properly.
Pinwheel’s partnership with payroll provider Workday company One Source Virtual (OSV) ushers payroll into the same convenience levels as other areas of finance. It will also help banks achieve primacy with their customers.