Embedded Finance and CXGX: Measuring and Improving Customer Experience in Embedded Journeys

The New Era of Embedded Finance: Why Customer Experience Matters More Than Ever

The financial services landscape is undergoing a profound transformation. No longer confined to traditional banking channels, financial products—such as payments, lending, insurance, and even full banking services—are now seamlessly woven into non-financial digital journeys. Whether it’s a payment option at e-commerce checkout, a lending offer within an ERP platform, or insurance embedded in a ride-hailing app, these experiences are increasingly invisible, distributed, and delivered across a complex web of brands and platforms.

In this new world, customer experience (CX) is the primary battleground for adoption, loyalty, and growth. As financial services become less visible and more integrated, the quality of the experience—how easy, intuitive, and emotionally resonant it is—becomes the key differentiator. For banks, fintechs, and digital platform providers, excelling at CX is no longer optional; it’s essential for standing out and driving business results in embedded finance ecosystems.

The Challenge: Fragmented Journeys, Multiple Brands, and Invisible Services

Embedded finance journeys are inherently complex. A single customer experience might span an e-commerce platform, a third-party payment provider, a bank’s lending API, and a retailer’s loyalty program—each with its own brand, technology stack, and customer expectations. The customer, however, expects a seamless, frictionless journey, regardless of who is providing each component.

This complexity creates several challenges:

• Fragmented Data and Ownership: Customer interactions are distributed across multiple systems and brands, making it difficult to capture a holistic view of the journey.
• Invisible Financial Services: As banking becomes embedded and less visible, the opportunity to differentiate on brand alone diminishes. Experience becomes the key lever for loyalty and growth.
• Complex Partner Ecosystems: Success depends on close collaboration between banks, fintechs, and non-financial partners, each with their own priorities and customer expectations.

Traditional CX metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) fall short in this environment. They offer little actionable insight into which investments will truly move the needle, especially when journeys are fragmented and ownership is shared.

The Solution: The CXGX Framework for Embedded Finance

To address these challenges, Publicis Sapient has developed the Customer Experience Growth Index (CXGX)—a new standard for measuring, benchmarking, and improving CX in financial services, including the unique context of embedded finance.

How CXGX Works

CXGX is built on the “Three E’s” of customer experience:

1. Experience: Did the customer get what they wanted?
2. Expectation: Was the experience better or worse than expected?
3. Emotion: How did the experience make the customer feel? (Measured across 18 possible emotions, from angry to uplifted)

By surveying customers at key moments across 11 touchpoints—including mobile apps, websites, live chat, call centers, and more—CXGX generates a granular, channel-specific view of the customer journey. Each interaction is scored from -100 (strongly negative) to +100 (strongly positive), allowing banks and partners to pinpoint which touchpoints delight or disappoint.

Why CXGX Is Different

• Actionable Insights: CXGX doesn’t just measure satisfaction; it reveals which experiences are memorable (good or bad) and which fall into the “Valley of Meh”—forgettable and unlikely to drive loyalty or growth.
• Growth Linkage: There is a strong, data-backed correlation between high CXGX scores and both customer growth (e.g., net account gains) and future usage intent. Banks with higher CXGX scores consistently see greater customer acquisition and retention.
• Investment Prioritization: By mapping CXGX scores against usage rates for each touchpoint, banks can identify where to focus investment—either by improving high-usage, low-scoring channels or by migrating customers to high-scoring channels.

Applying CXGX in Embedded Finance: Practical Guidance

1. Benchmarking and Measurement

CXGX enables banks and their partners to benchmark their CX performance not just against other banks, but against digital leaders in every sector. This is critical in embedded finance, where customer expectations are shaped by the best digital experiences, regardless of industry.

2. Prioritizing CX Investments

The CXGX value chain approach combines touchpoint scores with usage data to highlight the biggest levers for improvement. For example:

• If a bank’s mobile app scores highly but its desktop website lags, migrating users from desktop to mobile can boost overall CXGX—and growth.
• If live chat delivers a better experience than call centers (and at lower cost), encouraging adoption of live chat can improve both CX and operational efficiency.

3. Designing Embedded Journeys with CX at the Core

Embedded finance is about meeting customers where they are. The CXGX framework helps banks and partners design journeys that:

• Seamlessly integrate financial services into non-financial contexts
• Prioritize the digital touchpoints that matter most to customers
• Deliver emotionally resonant experiences that drive loyalty and advocacy

4. Overcoming Fragmentation and Brand Silos

CXGX provides a common language and measurement system that can be used across partner ecosystems. By focusing on the moments that matter—regardless of which brand “owns” the touchpoint—banks and their partners can collaborate more effectively to deliver seamless, end-to-end experiences.

Embedded Finance: CX as a Differentiator

As embedded finance matures, the winners will be those who move beyond technical integration to true customer-centricity. This means:

• Co-creating propositions with partners that blend financial and non-financial value
• Building modular, API-driven architectures that enable rapid iteration and scaling of CX improvements
• Empowering cross-functional teams to own the end-to-end customer journey, breaking down product and channel silos

Banks that embrace the CXGX framework can:

• Benchmark and improve their embedded journeys in real time
• Prioritize investments that drive measurable growth
• Differentiate themselves in a crowded market by delivering experiences that customers remember—and return to

The Bottom Line: CXGX as a Growth Engine for Embedded Finance

Customer experience is the new battleground in embedded finance. The CXGX framework provides banks and their partners with the tools to measure, benchmark, and improve CX across every embedded journey. By focusing on the moments that matter, and investing where it counts, organizations can turn superior CX into a powerful lever for growth, retention, and long-term value.

Ready to put CX at the heart of your embedded finance strategy? The future of growth is experience-led—and it starts with CXGX.

Relevant Links

• The CX Growth Index (CXGX): A New Framework for Enhancing Customer Experience and Driving Growth in Financial Services
• Le CX Growth Index (CXGX) : Un nouveau standard pour mesurer et prioriser les investissements dans l’expérience client dans les services financiers (Europe)
• The CX Growth Index (CXGX): A New Framework for Enhancing Customer Experience and Driving Growth in Financial Services
• El Índice de Crecimiento de la Experiencia del Cliente (CXGX): Una Nueva Era para la Banca en América Latina (LATAM)
• Libérer la puissance de l’indice de croissance de l’expérience client (CXGX) : Un levier stratégique pour la croissance des banques européennes (Europe)
• El Índice de Crecimiento de la Experiencia del Cliente (CXGX): Una Nueva Era para la Banca Comercial en América Latina (LATAM)
• CXGX in Commercial Banking: Unlocking Growth Through Customer Experience Transformation
• El Índice de Crecimiento de la Experiencia del Cliente (CXGX): Una Nueva Era para la Banca en América Latina (LATAM)