The conversation around embedded finance isn’t theoretical anymore, it’s operational and measurable. As the finance leaders gathered at Toqio’s Partner Connect: 2025 Executive Session in London clearly agreed, it’s quietly transforming how corporates create value.
Hosted at the famed Eight Club in London, the event brought together senior voices from throughout the financial ecosystem, from banking to payments to lending. Everyone shared how embedded finance is being deployed, scaled, and monetized.
Setting the stage: From product to growth engine
Toqio CEO Eduardo Martínez opened the session with a simple and direct statement that gave the audience pause:
Embedded finance isn’t a cost centre anymore. Done right, it’s a growth engine.
The challenge, he commented, is to move beyond vague definitions and instead focus on contextualized, vertical solutions that purpose-built for the SMEs within a corporate’s ecosystem.
“When corporates see financial services not as an operational tool, but as a lever for growth, it changes everything,” he said.
Martínez cited Mahou San Miguel, Spain’s leading brewery and a Toqio customer, as a case in point. The company developed a vertically-integrated platform to finance its bar and restaurant clients, offering tailored products like interest-free loans contingent on continued product purchases. “It’s not about selling financing. It’s about reinforcing the commercial relationship while creating entirely new revenue streams,” he said.
Unit economics over headlines
Co-founder and CPO Mike Galvin followed and focused on relevant business cases, not from the lens of billion-dollar market sizes, but through individual SME unit economics. His message came through loud and clear: The numbers add up.
Toqio’s model estimates a mid-sized SME could generate between GBP 1,000 - GBP 1,500 per year in financial product revenue, with 80%+ margins. “Even a modest uptake rate delivers powerful numbers at scale,” said Galvin.
He rightly emphasized that successful embedded finance isn’t just about offering loans or cards, it’s about stickiness. “Daily active use, not vanity metrics like brand logos on cards, drives monetization.” Further, he added:
Lending can drive both profitability and operational efficiency, but it’s often the card that unlocks long-term engagement. While card programmes may not offer the strongest direct margins, especially in markets like the UK and EU where interchange is capped, they play a vital role in activating daily usage.
A card rollout that reaches employees beyond just directors can transform how a platform is used. It’s not about the card revenue itself, it’s about frequency of use. Cards drive transactions. Transactions drive stickiness. Stickiness opens the door to broader platform adoption and additional services. That’s where the real value lies.
Partner perspectives: From payments to lending
The day featured perspectives from partners including Adyen, ClearBank, YouLend, Modulr, and others.
Payments as a platform
Speakers highlighted the strategic role of embedded payments. Beyond fees, embedded payment flows unlock critical merchant data, enable quicker settlements, and offer new levers like merchant cash advance. Adyen’s example showed how payments can kickstart broader financial engagement.
Vertical ecosystems
The opportunity lies in creating sector-specific value. FMCG, for example, was called out as an industry suffering from payment delays and margin erosion. Toqio’s work with Mahou again surfaced as a blueprint for delivering sector-specific finance that enhances loyalty and increases share of wallet.
Lending as the linchpin
SME lending took center stage as the true monetization core. With banks increasingly risk-averse, corporates are better positioned to vet SME health through transaction data, inventory drawdowns, or purchase behavior. As a rep from UK-based Allica put it, “The embedded finance market isn’t about replacing banks. It’s about connecting the right money to the right SMEs at the right moment.”
Real-time reconciliation
ClearBank offered insights on operational efficiency through embedded banking infrastructure, reducing reconciliation cycles from weeks to real-time with virtual accounts and API-first design. “For clients processing dozens of invoices daily, the time savings translate directly to margin gains,” said their rep.
Product update: The Toqio Design Studio and new Partner Portal
The event also served as the official unveiling of new Toqio capabilities:
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Toqio Design Studio, now available to partners and clients, allows for the rapid creation of sector-specific solutions (like Toast for hospitality, or Shopify for e-commerce). These can go live in as little as two weeks.
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Toqio’s Marketplace and Integration Hub have expanded, enabling partners to deploy configurable services through a single interface.
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The newly launched Partner Portal provides access to marketing, training, certifications, and co-selling tools, part of Toqio’s growing investment in ecosystem success.
“We’re not just offering tools, we’re offering leverage,” said Martínez. “If our partners win, we win.”
What’s next?
If there was one takeaway, it’s that embedded finance is finally moving from conceptual to concrete. More use cases. Faster deployment. Tighter monetization. This time, it’s corporates (not banks) that are leading the charge. As Galvin said during the session,
Every time we help a corporate launch financial services for their SME ecosystem, we’re not just helping them grow. We’re building something the market didn’t have before.
The next Toqio Partner Connect event is already in the works. Stay tuned!