Why Fintechs are Choosing Equals Money for Embedded Finance

For fintechs, platforms and scaling businesses, the opportunity in embedded finance is well understood, but execution still presents challenges. 

These include acquiring the necessary licences, building payment rails, navigating compliance frameworks and developing card-issuing capability that can take years – that's before a single customer is onboarded. 

Equals Money's Banking-as-a-Service platform is designed to remove those barriers, giving businesses access to regulated financial infrastructure they can build on immediately.

Launch without the regulatory groundwork

The single biggest obstacle for any business looking to embed financial products is regulation. 

Becoming an authorised payment institution, establishing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) frameworks and maintaining ongoing transaction monitoring carry substantial time and resource costs. 

As an Authorised Payment Institution (API) in the UK and EEA, Equals Money acts as the regulated partner, and has a partnership in the US with Cross River Bank for US operations. Businesses can launch card programmes, accounts and payment products operating under that regulatory umbrella, without building their own compliance infrastructure. 

KYC, Know Your Business (KYB), AML and ongoing transaction screening, including expert human oversight and clear escalation paths, are all handled as part of the proposition.

For contract for difference (CFD) businesses, digital asset firms and neobanks in particular – sectors where compliance obligations are heavy and scrutiny is high – this is a significant commercial advantage. It allows teams to focus on product and distribution rather than regulatory operations, and it removes one of the most common reasons financial product launches stall.

Two ways to build

Equals Money's embedded finance offering comes in two forms, designed to suit businesses at different stages and with different technical requirements.

The white-label programme is built for speed. It delivers an off-the-shelf card and account solution – complete with virtual, physical and tokenised prepaid or debit Visa cards, genuine sort codes and account numbers and a customisable web and app interface – that can be up and running quickly under a business's own branding. 

Customer services are provided by Equals Money across the UK and South Africa, and there is no need to manage KYC or KYB in-house. For businesses that want a credible, branded financial product without a lengthy build, it offers a fast route to market.

The bespoke API programme is built for control. Programme managers can create fully custom card and account solutions via API, integrate directly with their own platforms and take ownership of the customer experience end to end. 

KYC and KYB can be handled by Equals Money or by the programme manager, while tariff structures are fully customisable. 

The API is available across the UK, EU and US through a common set of endpoints, supported by comprehensive developer documentation and Postman collections designed to accelerate integration.

A hybrid approach is also available for businesses whose requirements sit between the two.

The payment infrastructure underneath

Both programmes are backed by the same payment infrastructure: access to UK Faster Payments, SEPA, SEPA Instant, BACS and SWIFT, with multi-currency accounts supporting 35 or more currencies, each with its own IBAN. 

Businesses can send and receive funds internationally without converting, create single or multiple named accounts and submit up to 10,000 payment requests via a single API call, a capability that directly addresses the high-volume payout workflows common in CFD, FX and neo bank operations.

For digital asset businesses, USDC off-ramping capability means customers can pay in stablecoins while the business receives USD, with no direct crypto exposure on the balance sheet. 

For FX and payments providers, integrated FX and in-house currency expertise supports more complete cross-border value propositions – not just execution, but end-to-end money movement and currency management.

Multi-currency accounts and virtual IBANs sit across all tiers, improving collections, allocation and reconciliation for any business running complex or high-volume international flows.

The commercial case

Beyond speed and compliance, there is a cost argument, too. Building and maintaining proprietary financial infrastructure – licensing, compliance programmes, payment rail connectivity, card issuing capability – requires substantial and ongoing capital expenditure. 

Equals Money's BaaS model replaces those fixed costs with flexible commercial terms that can scale with the business.

For SMEs, that translates into real-time cash flow visibility, rapid international transfers with same-day or next-day settlements and embedded compliance support without expanding headcount. 

For FX and payments providers, it means new revenue lines – accounts, cards and payments – can be added on top of an existing product without rebuilding the underlying stack. 

For neo banks, it means the full set of bank-like building blocks – card issuing, multi-currency accounts and payment rails – can be available from day one of being onboarded.

Across all areas, the result is the same: a faster path from commercial decision to live product, with the regulated infrastructure already in place.

Built on two decades of financial infrastructure

Equals Group’s infrastructure has been assembled over 20 years through a combination of organic growth and targeted acquisition. 

CityForex added FX capability and banking rails. CardOneMoney brought SME banking rails and ledger technology. Roqqett introduced merchant acquiring and open banking. Oonex added a European licence and banking rails. 

The 2025 merger with Railsr – itself a specialist embedded finance and BaaS provider since 2016 – brought further depth to the platform.

The Group now operates across seven countries with approximately 530 employees. 

For senior decision makers evaluating embedded finance partners, the questions that matter most are whether the provider can handle compliance, whether the rails are in place, whether the platform can scale and how quickly a product can go live. Equals Money's answer to each is grounded in infrastructure that already exists.

Find out more and speak to the team at equalsmoney.com/