By Philipp Buschmann, co-founder and CEO of AAZZUR
Cashflow is the quiet pulse behind your operations. It’s what keeps your team paid, your suppliers happy, and your business breathing. And yet, many companies are still missing a major opportunity that lies right within their operations — embedded finance.
Not just another fintech buzzword, embedded finance is reshaping how money moves within businesses. It’s no longer just about banks and spreadsheets. It’s about building smart financial tools into the way you already work and unlocking better cashflow in the process.
Let’s break it down.
In the current climate, especially across Europe, cashflow pressures are real. Rising costs, longer payment terms, unpredictable demand, it’s a perfect storm. SMEs in particular are feeling the squeeze. In Germany and France, average invoice payment times have increased steadily since 2022, with delays of over 60 days becoming the norm in some sectors.
It doesn’t help that traditional finance systems are still slow. Applying for a business loan can take weeks. Accessing working capital through banks means paperwork, credit assessments, and waiting, all while bills stack up.
Instead of having to log into your bank or fintech provider to access funding or manage payments, embedded finance brings those tools directly into the systems your business already uses, whether that’s an invoicing platform, e-commerce backend, ERP, or even a logistics tool.
The result? Speed. Simplicity. And yes, better cashflow. Here are some examples:
- Smarter Invoice Financing
Take a B2B marketplace in the Netherlands, connecting manufacturers and buyers across Europe. Historically, sellers had to wait 30, 60, or even 90 days to get paid.
By integrating invoice financing directly into their platform, sellers can now access funds as soon as an order is confirmed. No need to leave the platform and no need to apply separately. Buyers still pay on standard terms, but sellers get paid instantly.
The platform benefits too. More liquidity means happier sellers and more transactions. It’s not just a financial service; it’s a growth lever.
- Embedded Payments that Speed Things Up
Mondu, a Berlin-based fintech, integrates directly into B2B e-commerce platforms and marketplaces. It lets buyers select flexible payment terms (e.g., pay in 30 or 60 days), while Mondu pays the merchant upfront. The impact? Online merchants got paid immediately, buyers’ purchasing power shot up, and it reduced the dependency on trade credit.
In an industry where margins are razor-thin, having embedded finance as your secret weapon gives you a competitive edge that will keep on paying you back.
- Access to Working Capital Without Leaving the Dashboard
Another example in this space is Juni, a financial platform purpose-built for digital commerce. It offers integrated banking, credit, and spend management tools, all embedded in a single dashboard. The impact on its cashflow was instrumental. It enabled e-commerce firms to have access to short-term credit lines tied to sales cycles or ad spend, real-time FX and spend tracking to help with forecasting and consolidated cashflow tools into one system.
Embedded finance is contextual, fast, and frictionless. It means small businesses can make stock decisions based on opportunity, not just cashflow constraints.
That’s not all, embedded finance isn’t just convenient, it’s timely.
With interest rates holding steady and inflation biting, many companies, especially SMEs, are stuck between growth potential and liquidity challenges. Traditional finance can’t move fast enough. Embedded finance offers an elegant workaround: providing capital where it’s needed, when it’s needed, and in a way that aligns with the business workflow.
The European market is also particularly well-suited to this shift. We’ve got a diverse SME ecosystem, a highly digital business environment, and increasingly open financial infrastructure thanks to PSD2 and other EU-wide regulations.
Companies that embed financial tools into their user journeys, whether B2B platforms, SaaS products, or marketplaces, stand to not just support their customers and alleviate pain points, but also to grow their own revenue and stickiness in the process.
You don’t need to rebuild your business to get started. Here’s how many European companies are making early moves:
- Partnering with embedded finance providers: Platforms like Swan, Solaris, and Raisin are helping European companies integrate payments, lending, and deposits directly into their own platforms.
- Offering embedded credit or buy-now-pay-later options for B2B clients at checkout or point of sale.
- Integrating real-time cashflow insights through accounting APIs to anticipate shortfalls and automate access to capital.
Cashflow has always been the lifeblood of business. The difference now? We’ve got smarter tools to manage it.
So if you’re a European business leader, especially in tech, retail, or logistics, it’s time to stop thinking of finance as something that happens elsewhere. Instead, ask: how can it happen right here, where my customers are already working?
Because the future of cashflow isn’t just faster, it’s built in
Philipp Buschmann, Co-Founder and CEO at AAZZUR
Philipp Buschmann is co-Founder and CEO at AAZZUR, a one-stop-shop for smart embedded finance experience. Recognised as a rising star in the FinTech space, AAZZUR’s mission is to build profitable banking whilst at the same time empowering consumers to have access to better informed financial choices.
Philipp is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience of working in Challenger Banking, Financial Services, IT and Energy across the world. He took one of his businesses public – Ignis Petroleum was publicly listed in the US and Germany.
Having started as a developer in Financial Services, Philipp has first-hand experience of the banking revolution from both a technology and financial perspective. His interest in behavioural economics helped inspire AAZZUR’s revolutionary work on customer centricity in banking. Philipp holds an MBA from the London Business School. He is passionate about entrepreneurship and loves exchanging ideas, insights and discussing FinTech’s future. He has spoken at major Fintech events including Money 20/20, MoneyLive, Finovate, Fintech Matters, and the Future of Retail Banking.