Scaling Embedded Finance: How Banks Can Build and Operate Multi-Partner Ecosystems

Embedded finance is rapidly reshaping the financial services landscape, enabling banks to deliver their products and services directly within the digital journeys of non-financial partners. As the sector matures, the challenge for banks is no longer just about launching a single embedded finance proposition—it’s about scaling these offerings efficiently across a diverse ecosystem of partners, each with unique needs, technology stacks, and customer expectations. This page explores the operational and technical strategies banks need to build, run, and scale multi-partner embedded finance ecosystems, drawing on real-world lessons and proven frameworks.

The Imperative: Why Scale Matters in Embedded Finance

The embedded finance market is experiencing explosive growth, with global revenues projected to reach $160 billion by 2025. While fintechs have led the early charge, banks are increasingly recognizing the opportunity to leverage their regulatory expertise, risk management, and trusted brands to play a central role. However, the economics of embedded finance only become attractive at scale. Serving a single partner is rarely viable; banks must be able to efficiently onboard, customize, and support dozens—or even hundreds—of partners to unlock meaningful value.

The Multi-Partner Challenge: Complexity and Opportunity

Scaling embedded finance is fundamentally different from traditional product launches. Banks must move beyond one-off integrations and embrace a platform mindset, where modularity, interoperability, and rapid customization are the norm. Key challenges include:

Diverse Partner Needs: Each partner—whether a retailer, ERP provider, or digital marketplace—has distinct commercial goals, customer journeys, and technical requirements.
Integration Complexity: Partners operate on different technology stacks, requiring banks to support a range of APIs, data formats, and security protocols.
Customization at Scale: Efficiently tailoring propositions for each partner, without ballooning costs or operational overhead, is essential.
Regulatory and Risk Management: Banks must ensure compliance and risk controls are maintained across all embedded channels, even as they cede some customer touchpoints to partners.

The Modular Architecture: Foundation for Scale

A scalable embedded finance ecosystem is built on a modular, API-first architecture. This approach decouples core banking systems from partner-facing services, enabling rapid integration and efficient customization. The key layers of a successful embedded finance stack include:

Customer Proximity (Partner Layer): Partners own the customer relationship and digital journey, embedding financial services where they add the most value.
API Layer: Robust, multi-tenant APIs allow partners to access banking services in a compliant, resilient, and operationally efficient manner. This layer is the digital bridge, enabling seamless integration and servicing across multiple partners.
Product Manufacturing: Banks design and manage the financial products—payments, lending, insurance—tailored to the needs of each partner’s customer base.
Banking Infrastructure: Underlying processes, risk management, and compliance capabilities ensure products are delivered securely and at scale.
Regulated Entity/Balance Sheet: The bank books the financial products and manages associated exposures, maintaining regulatory compliance and capital adequacy.

Practical Steps to Build and Operate Multi-Partner Ecosystems

1. Define Your Strategic Role and Target Market

Banks must clarify their position in the embedded finance value chain. Will you be a white-label infrastructure provider, a branded product manufacturer, or a full-stack platform operator? Define your target partner segments and customer profiles to focus resources and avoid “me too” propositions.

2. Invest in API-First, Composable Technology

A modern, cloud-native, event-driven architecture is essential. APIs should be designed for reusability and multi-tenancy, allowing new partners to onboard quickly without bespoke development. Data should be centralized in a data lake, enabling real-time analytics and insights across all partner channels.

3. Streamline Partner Onboarding and Customization

Efficient onboarding is critical to scale. Develop standardized onboarding journeys, robust developer portals, and self-service tools for partners. Modularize product features so partners can select and configure offerings to fit their needs, reducing time-to-market and operational friction.

4. Build Agile, Cross-Functional Delivery Teams

Adopt a start-up mindset: launch minimum viable products (MVPs) quickly, gather feedback, and iterate. Cross-functional teams—combining product, technology, compliance, and partner management—are essential to support rapid development and ongoing partner success.

5. Foster Deep Ecosystem Partnerships

Success in embedded finance depends on strong relationships with both fintechs and non-financial partners. Treat fintechs as strategic collaborators, not just vendors, and co-create solutions that deliver mutual value. Joint roadmaps and shared technology investments can accelerate innovation and differentiation.

6. Maintain Rigorous Risk and Compliance Controls

As you scale, ensure that risk management, KYC/AML, and regulatory compliance are embedded in every layer of the platform. Automated controls, real-time monitoring, and clear audit trails are essential to maintain trust and meet regulatory expectations across all partner channels.

Lessons from the Field: Publicis Sapient in Action

BaaS-First SME Bank: Built a cloud-native, API-driven SME bank in just nine months, orchestrating 22 fintech partners and targeting 350,000 SMEs. The platform’s modular architecture enabled rapid onboarding, real-time data analytics, and fully automated operations.
Strategic Joint Venture in Asia: Helped a major bank create a platform-as-a-service business, integrating both banking and non-banking services (e.g., food delivery, wellness, travel) to serve over 10 million customers. The joint venture leveraged best-in-class technology, agile delivery, and deep local expertise to accelerate digital transformation and scale.

The Road Ahead: From Pilot to Platform

Scaling embedded finance is not a one-time project—it’s an ongoing journey of platformization, partnership, and continuous innovation. Banks that succeed will:

Embrace modular, API-first architectures for rapid integration and efficient customization
Build agile, cross-functional teams and delivery models
Develop robust partner onboarding and servicing capabilities
Maintain rigorous risk, compliance, and data governance
Foster a culture of experimentation and ecosystem collaboration

The future of banking is embedded, and the winners will be those who can scale—efficiently, securely, and with a relentless focus on partner and customer value. Publicis Sapient stands ready to help banks navigate this transformation, leveraging deep industry expertise, proven frameworks, and a track record of delivering at scale.

Ready to scale your embedded finance ecosystem? Connect with our experts to start your journey.