CASHING IN
because they offer more robust security measures , helping eliminate misuse from hackers and fraudsters .
“ They also reinvent the way companies handle employee business expenses . Every employee has their own unique card , which means anyone can easily see who is spending what . Funds can also be assigned to team budgets and purchases can even be limited so that nobody spends more than what ’ s allocated to them .”
Embedded finance
Embedded finance is also expected to grow in 2023 , with searches for the term accelerating by a staggering 488 % in the last five years . The success of embedded finance will be predominantly down to distribution , trust and improved user experience .
Alongside this , data shows the term Banking-as-a-Service ( BaaS ) has seen 176 % global increase , too .
Banking-as-a-Service defines an ecosystem in which licensed financial institutions offer non-banking companies access to their services , typically through the use of APIs .
BaaS enables clients to embed financial services into their own products or build completely new financial services from scratch . Use cases vary from modern virtual card issuing products , creating in-app payment methods , or building the next neobank , to setting up traditional card programmes , white-label payment processing or embedding multi-currency IBAN accounts into your apps .
“ The emergence of API-led banking services means that distribution is no longer an issue . That layer of friction has now been removed , with any digital company being able to offer a financial service without the headache and complexity that offering financial services used to bring .
“ What WordPress did for the Internet , FinTechs are doing for finance ,” said Root .
Buy Now Pay Later 2.0
While Buy Now Pay Later has raised concern in recent years , the online trend allowing customers to split their payments into interest-free instalments continues to surge .
While traditionally , BNPL services were used to split payments for high value items , they soon became associated with online fast fashion brands , targeting Gen Z and Millennial shoppers . In recent weeks , BNPL was further criticized after Klarna partnered with fast-food delivery app , Deliveroo , allowing customers to ‘ Eat Now , Pay Later .’
And although many mainstream banks are steering towards virtual cards , in January 2022 , Klarna launched its first physical credit card , allowing customers to pay in three instore as well as online .
In 2023 , although it is expected to further expand , BNPL will be more regulated in the UK , as the government will bring legislation into effect requiring lenders
AI will continue to drive infrastructure decisions in the FinTech sector .
30 www . intelligentfin . tech