Samir Pekaz
Senior Product Manager @ d.labs
“I didn’t know our HR tool offers early wage access.”
Embedded finance used to be for fintech startups and tech giants. It was something early-stage startups used to impress investors. Fast forward to today, and it’s slowly, quietly becoming part of the day-to-day operations at mid-sized companies.
Without many noticing, it’s showing up in HR platforms, ERPs, logistics services - quietly, but meaningfully. Why? Because infrastructure evolved. And because it solves real problems.
You’ll see this shift not on the front page of TechCrunch… but in how your payroll system handles salary advances, or how your wellness platform lets employees invest. Your HR system might now offer on-demand pay. Your accounting software might include working capital tools. Your benefits provider might help employees build savings accounts. This is how embedded finance is sneaking in. It’s not making noise, it doesn’t need to. It’s making things easier.
This is a new kind of benefit, a new type of retention tool and efficiency lever. And if you’re not using tools like this yet, there’s a good chance someone on your team is already looking into them.
Example:
ThanksBen used Weavr to let employers offer flexible benefit wallets - employees could spend on wellness or learning in real time. Admin dropped. Usage soared.
Mid-sized businesses used to sit on the sidelines of financial innovation. Innovation was for either the fast and nimble or those with deep pockets. Embedded finance was messy, (over?)regulated, and expensive to build. Unless you had a tech team the size of a smaller bank, it wasn’t worth the effort.
Then the infrastructure shifted.
This is what the report by @WhiteSight and @Alchemy Crew calls the “indirect ecosystem” of embedded finance -where non-fintech companies quietly integrate financial value into tools their users already trust.
Example:
Finway added payments layer to let teams issue project-specific cards, automate approvals, and stop finance chasing invoices.
Thanks to the rise of Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), modular APIs, and embedded wallets, it’s now possible to add financial features without starting from scratch. You can plug into finance the way you plug into Slack.
This change matters because it lowers the barrier for usefulness. Now, it’s not about launching a new neobank. It’s about helping your employees get paid faster. Or letting your finance team track spend without four tools. Or even building internal loyalty programs without reinventing the wheel.
“The infrastructure’s had it’s moment - making it realistic for mid-market companies to reap those benefits that were accessible only to large entreprise before.”
- Uros G. VP of Engineering @ d.labs
This is especially true if you're a mid-sized business. You’re in a rare position where both pressure and potential are high. You're too big to tolerate inefficiencies—manual processes, disconnected tools, and the endless spreadsheet gymnastics that come with them.
But you’re also still small enough to move. You don’t have 17 departments and five layers of approval slowing every decision. You can test things (as you should!). You can roll out new tools. You can experiment without a nine-month procurement cycle. That’s exactly why embedded finance makes so much sense at this stage.
You're not building financial products from scratch-you’re integrating existing ones into the systems you're already running.
You're not disrupting your business model-you're making it more useful to the people inside and outside your company who interact with it every day.
Put simply: embedded finance gives mid-sized companies the chance to do what big companies wish they could do-and what small ones can’t afford to do yet. It gives you leverage in the places that matter most:
→ Employee experience
Offer salary advances, savings accounts, business cost debit cards or wellness perks directly inside your HR portal.
Example: A SaaS HR Club Employés integrated Weavr’s plug-and-play card issuing feature. This allowed companies to offer debit cards with spending controls for employee perks—directly through their HR dashboard. No new systems. No extra apps.
Impact: HR teams saved hours of manual expense processing, while employees used their perks more frequently (and happily). Engagement went up, admin went down.
→ Vendor loyalty
Create wallets or payout systems for freelancers or partners who work with you regularly.
Example: B2B SaaS companies have started embedding wallets or direct payout systems for partners using tools like Toqio and Orenda. These platforms let users offer early payouts, prepaid cards, or internal balances for vendors and freelancers.
Impact: Reduced vendor churn. Faster onboarding. Better control over payout flows. And in one case, a 20% increase in repeat contractor usage within a quarter.
→ Cash flow control
Give finance teams the tools to manage budgets, issue cards, and track expenses-all under your brand.
Example: Soldo, a London-based spend management platform, enables businesses to issue prepaid cards to employees, assign budgets to departments, and monitor expenses in real-time through its web and mobile apps. Companies like Bauli (an Italian bakery group) used Soldo to decentralize spending while maintaining central oversight.
Impact:
Bauli reduced manual reconciliation time by over 50%, streamlined approvals, and empowered business units to manage their own spending within guardrails. Finance gained instant visibility into company-wide spending—without waiting for month-end reports.
→ Retention + differentiation
Your competitors might offer gym memberships. You offer a real financial edge.
Use case: bunq, a challenger bank catering to tech-savvy consumers and remote-first professionals, partnered with Qover to embed travel insurance directly into its app. Users automatically received coverage without filling in extra forms or leaving the banking environment.
Impact: The insurance feature boosted user engagement and trust while reinforcing bunq’s brand as a lifestyle enabler—not just a bank. It became a key differentiator in a crowded digital banking market, helping the company grow loyalty without adding complexity.
What’s missing? Awareness. And a partner (like d.labs) to help you map it.
If you're reading this and thinking, "Sounds interesting, but..." - you're not alone. We’ve heard the same thing from CEOs, CFOs, HR leaders, even tech teams inside mid-sized companies. This sounds like Tomorrowland… until you start thinking about the real-world blockers: Compliance. Integrations. Internal buy-in. Vendor selection. Risk.
It goes from “can we do this” to “should we?” and “how much of a mess will it be if we get it wrong?”
These aren’t just technical hurdles - they're business/trust issues. You're putting financial functions closer to your core systems and to your people. That requires confidence, not just curiosity. So let's quickly walk through the biggest concerns we hear- and why they might not be as painful as they seem.
→“Isn’t this all too complex?”
No. Not anymore. The infrastructure matured. Most modern embedded finance solutions offer full compliance and APIs that slot into your stack. Your most important choice here is who do you trust to implement it.
→“Do we even need this?”
Maybe not everywhere. But what if one feature could reduce employee churn, save your team hours each month, or streamline how vendors get paid?
→“We don’t have time to reinvent anything.”
Good. You shouldn’t. You should start small- with the pain points that already exist. And you don’t have to build it alone or spend many months on it.
If embedded finance still feels a bit abstract, it’s because you’re probably not seeing it all in one place yet. Unlike trends that hit like a wave, this one’s coming in sideways. Quiet integrations, back-end upgrades, new features tucked into tools you already use. So the best place to start? Start small. Start where the friction already is.
→ What parts of HR, payroll, finance, or ops feel clunky, slow, or painful?
→ What’s the one benefit your team keeps asking for, but you’ve never been able to offer?
→ Are there any tools you’re using today that mention “wallet,” “payout,” or “rewards” features you’ve never explored?
Bring these questions to your team. Or your next leadership meeting. Talk to companies who have done it, or explore with partners like us. You might be surprised by how many ideas and frustrations are already bubbling just below the surface.
It’s not about tech. It’s not even about finance.
It’s about being more useful to the people who rely on your company.
Your employees. Your finance team. Your vendors. Embedded finance makes you a better partner to all of them. And the best part? You don’t need to build it alone.
Here are 5 things to remember:
At d.labs, we’ve worked with teams in this exact position: curious but not convinced, cautious but open. Sometimes we help implement. Sometimes we just guide the exploration.
We’re happy to send a few relevant use cases, no strings attached. Just drop a message or leave a comment - we’ll keep it useful and jargon-free.
We’ll leave you with this: You don’t have to be first. But you don’t want to be last. Especially not when the tools are finally built for companies like yours.
