What is embedded finance? How to add FX and payments to your platform

Embedded finance means offering financial services, such as accounts, payments and currency exchange, inside a product your customers already use. To add FX and payments to your platform, you connect to a regulated provider's API suite and build four things: accounts to collect money into, FX to convert it, payouts to send it on, and webhooks to track every step. Verto Atlas gives fintechs and platforms all four through one integration, so you don't have to build banking infrastructure before you launch.

If your customers trade with Africa, this matters even more. Collecting naira, shillings or rand, converting to dollars and paying a supplier abroad usually means several vendors, several contracts and several days. Embedded FX and payments put that whole flow inside your own app.

What is embedded finance?

Embedded finance puts financial services inside a non-financial product. A marketplace that gives each seller an account number is one example. A software platform that lets customers convert currency and pay suppliers is another.

It has three parts:

• Embedded payments: collecting and sending money inside your platform.

• Embedded FX: currency conversion inside the same flow.

• Banking as a service: a regulated provider supplies the infrastructure, and you build the customer experience on top.

Verto Atlas is that infrastructure for cross-border money transfer, with a particular focus on African and other emerging-markets.

How do you add FX and payments to your platform?

Follow these seven steps. Each one maps to something you can build and test on its own.

1. Map your money flow first. Write down who receives the customer's money, which account it sits in, who converts it, who sends the payout and who handles refunds and failed payments. What your platform does with customer funds decides which rules apply. The FCA's guidance on the scope of the Payment Services Regulations is a good place to check this.

2. Decide whether to build or partner. Holding customer funds yourself means applying for your own authorisation, with capital, safeguarding, governance and anti-money-laundering controls to run. Partnering means your product runs on a regulated provider's infrastructure. Atlas is the partner route.

3. Set up collections with sub-accounts. Give each of your customers a dedicated virtual account so they can collect funds locally. Atlas sub-accounts cover 14 currencies, including NGN, KES, TZS, ZAR, USD, GBP and EUR.

4. Add FX. Let your customers convert between currencies inside your platform. Atlas supports 24/7 FX execution through the API. Whatever provider you use, show your customer the rate, the fee and the amount the recipient gets before they confirm.

5. Add payouts. Atlas global clearing sends payments to 100+ countries in 48 currencies, including USD, EUR and CNH. For Africa, last-mile payouts run as instant, mass payouts by local bank transfer or mobile money.

6. Track every payment with webhooks. Webhook notifications tell your system when a payment comes in, so you can update balances and trigger the next step without polling. Keep your own ledger and reconcile it against what your provider reports.

7. Launch narrow, then widen. Start with one customer type and one corridor, for example collecting in KES and paying out in USD. Test failed payments, refunds and reconciliation before you add currencies.

What you can embed with Atlas

Atlas for Fintechs or Atlas for Platforms?

Atlas has two products.

• Atlas for Fintechs is for financial companies that want to add collections, FX and payouts to their own product.

• Atlas for Platforms is for marketplaces and expense management platforms that want to add payments, virtual accounts or cards to a product that wasn't built as a financial one.

Other businesses, such as cross-border payment companies, banks, brokers and remittance companies, use Atlas through one of these two.

Embedded finance in Nigeria

Nigerian platforms often need to collect naira, convert it and pay suppliers or partners abroad. With Atlas, you can create dedicated sub-accounts for each of your customers where you can create a unique local NGN account in the name of your client’s. Your clients can receive NGN from their clients locally, convert to any of our 48 currencies and send the payout internationally to over 100 countries.

Embedded finance in Kenya

Kenyan platforms often serve customers who collect in shillings and pay out by mobile money or bank transfer. Atlas sub-accounts support KES, and last-mile payouts in Africa run by local bank transfer or mobile money.

How Triply embedded payments

Triply, an African travel platform, used the Atlas API to run its payment operation in one integration: issuing virtual accounts, converting currency in real time and paying out funds. A process that took several days and several vendors became one automated flow. Triply now has full control and visibility over its financial transactions.

Run Atlas through the API or the Verto platform

You can control Atlas in two ways.

• API: Full control from start to finish. Create sub-accounts and wallets, receive webhooks for incoming payments, convert currencies 24/7 and start local or international payouts. See the Verto API documentation to get started.

• Verto platform: If you don't have developers free, or you want a ready-made option, you can do everything Atlas offers directly on the Verto platform.

Atlas is different from Verto's Core API. Core API is for a business that wants API access to run its own payments and FX. Atlas is for a business that wants to offer those services to its own customers.

What to check before you pick a provider

Ask every provider the same questions.

• Who holds the money? Confirm which legal entity holds funds and how they are protected. The FCA explains what to check when using payment service providers.

• Which rules apply to safeguarding? The FCA sets out safeguarding requirements for payment and e-money institutions. Ask how your provider meets them.

• Does coverage match your corridors? Check the currencies, countries and payout methods you need, not the headline number.

• How does support work? Atlas comes with 24/7 customer support and a dedicated account manager who knows your setup.

Verto is regulated in the UK and keeps customer money in separate, protected accounts, so your customers' funds are kept apart from Verto's own money.