Recap of our 6th Embedded Finance Review Event in Berlin

On April 9th, we welcomed the Embedded Finance Review community for our sixth public event in Berlin. It was the biggest event we have ever hosted (so far). We counted 180 guests, almost doubling the roughly 100 guests we had the year before.

I started the Embedded Finance Review Events in early 2023 when I realised that the industry's stakeholders need a place to meet, network, and exchange learnings. This is highly important for any stakeholder, specifically non-financial brands considering building and launching financial products, as they often lack the fintech network or experience.

Our supporters

Our sixth event was hosted during the FIBE Conference, Berlin’s biggest fintech conference. We also hosted our third event during FIBE in 2024; thus, we anticipated that interest in our sixth event would be bigger than ever. Thus, we decided to increase the number of sponsors from two to three and opted for a much bigger venue.

A big thanks to 13books Capital, Swan, and Visa for their support!

The content on stage

As a frequent reader of my newsletter, you will know my definition of Embedded Finance (If not:My Embedded Finance Primer). For this event, we simplified a bit, and we invited three different startups that are targeting a different customer group with a fintech product:

1. Property Management

Marcel Meitza, founder and MD of Getmomo, spoke with 13books Capital partner Steve Gibson about their journey of building a vertical fintech product in the property management space. Getmomo offers rental deposit accounts, guarantees for tenants and bank accounts for property managers in Germany. Marcel spoke about their experience working with different banking partners in the background and the challenges of addressing a legacy industry with a digital and innovative product.

2. Accounting for Freelancer

Tino Keller, CMO and MD Germany of Accountable, joined Florian Thiel, Head of DACH at Swan, and Embedded Finance Review founder Lars Markull on stage and explained their decision to launch an Embedded Banking product. Initially, the company relied fully on open banking and connected to the freelancer’s existing accounts. While that worked, it was not the best customer experience, and the Accountable team thought they could offer a better product if the banking were embedded, which resulted in the launch of Accountable Banking in partnership with Swan. For the past few years, accounting providers have been Swan's focus, which is unsurprising as accounting and banking are tightly connected.

3. Corporate Expenses

Riaan Stipp, VP of Product at Circula, spoke with Lukas Gottschick, CCO at Pliant, and Ryan Mol, Head of Fintech Central Europe at Visa, about their credit card offering for corporate expenses. The Embedded Credit Card was launched a few years ago after Circula’s and Pliant’s cofounders met and discovered that such an offering was mutually beneficial. Circula could grow its revenue through the additional interchange income and offer a better customer experience for employees and employers. On the other hand, Circula was one of Pliant’s first card-as-a-service partners, but the company has since partnered with other brands and financial institutions.

My personal take aways

With 180 guests, this was probably the biggest event we have ever hosted. I don’t believe that bigger events are better; what matters is that the right people are in the room. It’s not good when an event grows, but the added people don’t add value to the other participants.

Personally, I enjoyed the three different panel discussions a lot. Over the past few events, we have tried different formats (presentations and panels), and finding the right content for everybody in the room is not always easy. But most guests liked that three companies built and launched financial products were on stage. This provided some details about each company and market but also showed the breadth of Embedded Finance and Vertical Fintech.

After hosting three events in the first few months of 2025 (two public events in Frankfurt and Berlin and one private dinner in London), it feels weird not to have concrete plans for my next event.

That said, I will definitely host another public event in the second half of 2025. This could be similar to the public events I have hosted before. But I am also thinking about a new format:

• Half-day or maybe even a one-day conference

• Every participant is either invited or has to apply to attend

• Mix of non-financial brands, infrastructure providers and experts

• Max 80-100 guests in total

• Content on stage must serve the audience

• Anybody can suggest a presentation or panel

• A group of experts will pick the most interesting ones

Do you think this makes sense? If you want to sponsor, support, or just share your thoughts, please get in touch.