Embedded finance to be the next big thing in disruptive tech

Future banking apps should be more customer-centric, much like Grab and Netflix.

The banking industry has been enveloped by the rapid demands of its users: adapting to the latest technology, going digital, and being able to serve customers practically anytime and anywhere.

This past year, another development has been seen rising in the industry. Embedded finance and embedded insurance have started to pick up as effective tools to deliver banking needs more instantly to a wider number of users -and this time not just in banking apps.

To delve deeper into what embedded finance is, Singapore Business Review spoke with Peter Miller, CEO of Fermion, to know how different it is from banking-as-a-service (BaaS) models.

"Embedded finance revolves around integrating access to financial services and solutions, whilst banking-as-a-service (BaaS) centres on providing a technological foundation that banks rely on to offer those financial services and solutions, Miller said.

Expounding on the concept, Miller explained that embedded insurance stands as a subset or part of embedded finance or BaaS model.

The idea is to add embedded finance as an interconnected set of complimentary services. A good example of embedded insurance is when purchasing an airplane ticket, travel insurance or further extensions such as telemedicine or emergency money are made available to the customer.