Latest news with #EmbeddedFinance
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Open bankingplatform Tarabut gets in-principle nod from UAE central bank
Tarabut, an open banking and embedded finance platform operating in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, has obtained in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the UAE. This came in light of the recent Open Finance regulation introduced in the UAE. According to a press release posted on Zawya, Tarabut is now the first fintech company in the region to hold licences under Open Finance frameworks in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The platform's technology facilitates the use of customer-permissioned financial data by regulated financial institutions, lenders, insurers, and digital platforms. This capability is said to support 'real-time' credit assessments, income verification, and tailored financial offerings. By embedding these functionalities into partner platforms, Tarabut aims to enhance the accessibility of financial services across the region. The company has been providing credit cards for individuals with limited credit histories. It has also been offering revenue-based financing options for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and pre-check tools tools to lower underwriting expenses. Additionally, it employs AI-based insights to customise user experiences. These initiatives are in line with broader economic goals, promoting entrepreneurship, and lowering barriers to credit access. Tarabut founder and CEO Abdulla Almoayed said: 'This is a pivotal step forward for financial inclusion in the UAE and across the region. 'We're proud to partner with the Central Bank of the UAE to help realise the national vision for Open Finance. "Tarabut's infrastructure delivers real-time, data-driven products - credit cards for the underserved, embedded SME financing, and more, driving real economic value and enabling access where it's needed most.' "Open bankingplatform Tarabut gets in-principle nod from UAE central bank" was originally created and published by Retail Banker International, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Finextra
5 days ago
- Business
- Finextra
Open banking platform Tarabut gets approval from UAE central bank
Tarabut, MENA's leading open banking and embedded finance platform, has received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) following the introduction of the UAE's Open Finance regulation. 0 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. Tarabut, MENA's leading open banking and embedded finance platform, has received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) following the introduction of the UAE's Open Finance regulation. This milestone positions Tarabut at the forefront of Open Finance in the region and marks the third national regulatory license for the company, after Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. With this approval, Tarabut becomes the first regional fintech to be licensed under Open Finance frameworks in all three major Gulf economies, underscoring its critical role as the infrastructure layer powering the future of financial services in the region. Tarabut's technology enables regulated financial institutions, lenders, insurers, and digital platforms to leverage customer-permissioned financial data for real-time credit decisions, income verification, and personalised offerings. By embedding these capabilities directly into partner platforms, Tarabut unlocks inclusive, intelligent, and accessible financial services, at scale. 'This is a pivotal step forward for financial inclusion in the UAE and across the region,' said Abdulla Almoayed, Founder and CEO of Tarabut. 'We're proud to partner with the Central Bank of the UAE to help realise the national vision for Open Finance. Tarabut's infrastructure delivers real-time, data-driven products – credit cards for the underserved, embedded SME financing, and more, driving real economic value and enabling access where it's needed most.' Across the region, Tarabut has powered transformative use cases such as: Credit cards for thin-file customers Revenue-based financing for SMEs Pre-check tools that reduce underwriting costs AI-driven financial insights that personalise user journeys These solutions are directly aligned with national economic goals, supporting entrepreneurship, reducing credit barriers, and improving financial health for individuals and businesses. With real-time connectivity to all major banks in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and now regulatory clearance in the UAE, Tarabut is uniquely positioned to scale embedded finance and open banking across the Middle East, delivering infrastructure that is inclusive by design and built for impact.
Forbes
27-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Embedded Finance 2.0: Every SaaS Platform Wants To Be A Bank—Will Regulators Let Them?
SME owners are spoilt for choice for BaaS embedded SaaS solutions, but will regulators let it ... More continue? Last week, when Xero spent US $2.5 billion to buy Melio and weave Melio's bill-pay rails into Xero's cloud ledger, the accounting giant confirmed what insiders have whispered for months: the next payments land-grab won't be led by banks or flashy neobanks, but by software vendors whose day-one product had absolutely nothing to do with money. Toast began life hawking point-of-sale hardware for bistros; now Toast Capital quietly extends short-term working-capital loans to more than 100,000 restaurants. Shopify lets merchants swipe cards, stash proceeds in Shopify Balance, borrow against their receivables and, if Ottawa eventually blesses it, park deposits outright. Call it Embedded Finance 2.0, where the 'Pay' button graduates into a full on-platform treasury desk and the question morphs from Can we process a payment? to Should we hold your cash? The logic is seductive. Merchants already live inside these dashboards, so the data firehose is constant: real-time ticket size, refund velocity, day-of-week sales quirks. In a world where underwriting used to mean poring over last quarter's financials, SaaS firms now grant credit in minutes because they see tomorrow's revenue today. Small wonder analysts peg the embedded-finance prize at US $146 billion next year, compounding 36 percent to US $690 billion by 2030. That's not incremental revenue; that's venture-scale upside hiding in plain sight. Regulators Tighten the Screws Which brings us to the buzz-kill second act. Most platforms eager to bankroll their users don't actually own a banking charter. Instead, they 'rent' one from community institutions such as Evolve, Cross River or Sutton. That outsourcing made sense when your goal was a sliver of interchange. It looks shakier now that you're warehousing payroll and tax escrows. After the Synapse meltdown stranded end-customers without access to funds and a blizzard of fraud losses peppered the headlines, U.S. regulators decided that outsourcing the plumbing didn't mean outsourcing accountability. The FDIC has already slapped sponsor banks with consent orders demanding real-time visibility into fintech partners' ledgers, sharper BSA/AML controls and board-level oversight. Reuters soon reported that examiners were turning up, physically, in fintech offices to inspect controls firsthand, a move that effectively drags non-banks into the same supervisory perimeter as traditional lenders. Meanwhile, a fresh proposal would obligate sponsor banks to keep end-user balances at individual account level, eliminating the opacity that helped Synapse blow up. Banking lawyers warn the record-keeping cost could break the economics of low-margin BaaS deals, nudging software firms toward pricier state money-transmitter licenses, or the nuclear option of a national charter. Across the Atlantic, the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority is poking at bank-as-a-service structures, while APRA in Australia refuses to water down prudential rules just so SaaS hopefuls can play banker. The thread that ties London, Washington and Canberra together is a simple phrase that keeps compliance officers up at night: regulatory crackdown. Survival Playbook for Embedded Finance 2.0 How do software founders thread this regulatory needle without killing the growth story investors are salivating over? First, the deep-pocketed few will likely chase full-fat charters. Intuit already controls an OCC-granted industrial loan company, and rumor has it Shopify is exploring a Canadian Schedule I license so it can plug directly into FedNow and CAD settlement rails. Owning the license erases sponsor fees, provides direct central-bank access and turns Fed holidays into just another dashboard metric. It also drags CEOs into capital-ratio land, where quarterly stress tests replace flashy conference-stage keynotes. Second, mid-tier platforms are furiously diversifying sponsors. Stripe quietly maintains half a dozen partner banks across continents; Adyen splits deposits between its European and U.S. charters so funds never cross jurisdictions. A multi-tenant model may mollify supervisors who now demand credible 'if-this-bank-fails' exit plans. It also means engineering teams must reconcile half a dozen core-banking APIs before morning coffee—a non-trivial tax on velocity. Third, a new generation of BaaS providers such as Unit, Treasury Prime, and Griffin, is selling compliance as the actual product: automated KYC, ledger-level reporting, FDIC-ready dashboards baked right into the API call. The value prop is clear—'Let us worry about Section 314(b) so you can focus on restaurant software'—but only holds if the RegTechs stay ahead of evolving rules. If they lag, their SaaS clients inherit the audit headache anyway. Lest we forget, heavier oversight could produce the ultimate plot twist: entrenching the very incumbents fintech promised to disrupt. Community banks, already sweating thin BaaS margins, might pull back, leaving only the megabanks able to swallow compliance overhead. Worse, chatter in policy circles suggests deposit-rate ceilings could surface to stop so-called 'shadow banks' from poaching deposits via juicy yield. That would freeze innovation exactly when the real economy could use cheaper credit lines. Investors haven't missed the knife-edge. Venture capital still sports bruises from 2024's BaaS flameouts, yet the deposit-plus-credit revenue multiplier looks too tasty to ignore. Boards are now forced into a binary decision: double down—pay up for ex-banker talent, spin up second-line compliance, turn ISO 20022 into a religion—or retreat to pure subscription margins and hope the competition does the same. No Bullet Lists - Just Reality Checks If Embedded Finance 1.0 merely added a Pay button, 2.0 aims to become the balance sheet. The platforms that survive will treat compliance as a feature, not a cost center. That means real-time ledgers auditors can query in a single GET request, FedNow and SEPA Instant wired in at the kernel, and credit models transparent enough that supervisors nod before shareholders cheer. SaaS founders used to brag about daily active users; tomorrow they might brag about their Liquidity Coverage Ratio. The irony would be delicious if it weren't so expensive. For all the hand-wringing, regulators may ultimately decide they can't afford not to let software companies be banks. Once embedded finance volumes crest half-a-trillion dollars, systemic stability demands oversight inside the platforms where money truly lives. The badge on your business debit card might one day read Shopify, Toast or Xero—but the compliance brain under the hood will need to think, grizzled and cautious, like JPMorgan. The real race in embedded finance is no longer to launch faster features, but to master risk so completely that regulators become partners rather than gatekeepers—and that contest has only just begun.
Finextra
17-06-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Ninth Wave launches new managed services division for open finance
Ninth Wave, a leading provider of Open Finance connectivity solutions, today announced the launch of Ninth Wave Managed Services, a new division focused on helping financial institutions deploy open and embedded finance capabilities such as ERP integrations, embedded payments, and wealth data connectivity – in under 90 days. 0 As banks continue to adopt cloud-native, API-first platforms, they face operational challenges tied to security protocols, regulatory compliance, and consumer consent frameworks. Ninth Wave Managed Services addresses these pain points with deep industry expertise and hands-on implementation support. Steve Schick joins Ninth Wave as Head of Managed Services, bringing extensive experience in financial services cloud technology from his tenure at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he served as the company's first enterprise-level hire focused exclusively on financial services. In that role, he led North American go-to-market initiatives and helped overcome early initial industry concerns about cloud security for regulated institutions. 'As the industry embraces modern, API-first infrastructure, the biggest hurdles are often operational, not technological,' said George Anderson, Ninth Wave's Founder. 'Steve brings the experience and mindset needed to help clients execute faster, with less risk and more impact.' The new division will follow Ninth Wave's Plan, Build, and Operate methodology combining technical execution with compliance/regulatory alignment and user adoption strategies. The focus will be on accelerating customer onboarding and delivering high impact capabilities such as: * Secure, API-first connectivity across ERP platforms like NetSuite, Sage, and Microsoft Dynamics * Real-time payments with entitlement driven workflows and automation of manual processes * Enhanced wealth data connectivity, particularly for high net worth households * Co-branded API portals, marketing assets, and adoption campaigns that position banks as integration-ready partners 'I'm excited to join Ninth Wave and contribute to its mission of simplifying open and embedded finance for financial institutions and their account holders,' said Schick. 'I look forward to building on the platform's proven capabilities to deliver meaningful results for our clients.'
FF News
22-05-2025
- Business
- FF News
Biggest Buzzword at the event?
What are the biggest buzzwords in fintech right now? During this year's Innovate Finance Global Summit (IFGS 2025) 2025, FF News hit the floor at London's Guildhall to explore what's generating the most excitement in the industry. We asked attendees one question: 👉 'What's the biggest buzzword of the event?' The responses at IFGS revealed a wide spectrum of themes driving conversations today. From the rising role of AI in everything from predictive analytics to fraud detection, to the growing relevance of embedded finance across industries, this year's IFGS captured the heartbeat of financial innovation. Here are just a few buzzwords that stood out: 💱 Stablecoin – Regulatory clarity and increased adoption keep digital currencies at the forefront. 🔄 Embedded Finance – Seamless, contextual financial services continue to expand across verticals. 🤖 AI – Artificial intelligence is influencing fintech from operational efficiency to smarter customer experiences. 🔓 Open Banking & Open Finance – The movement toward data collaboration is gaining momentum across ecosystems. 🚀 Innovation – As always, the foundational theme of IFGS, spanning product, infrastructure, and service design. What resonated most wasn't just the buzzwords themselves—but the energy behind them. One participant summed it up perfectly: 'Every time you come to IFGS, you've never seen so many companies, services, and ideas.' If you want to know where fintech is going next, this year's IFGS was the place to feel the momentum firsthand.
