Dive Brief:
- Marqeta, an Oakland, California-based fintech that provides virtual credit card services to commercial clients, has lined up Giftbit, Vivian and Whistle as customers of its embedded finance services, according to a Thursday press release.
- Giftbit, which allows businesses to offer incentives and rewards to customers and employees, will use Marqeta to provide “faster, more flexible, disbursement solutions to their growing international customer base,” the release said. Vivian Health, a healthcare jobs marketplace, will use Marqeta to issue cash rewards cards to participants in its VIP program. And employee loyalty platform Whistle will use “a digital, rewards wallet powered by Marqeta,” the release said.
- With the new ties, Marqeta will seek to “develop innovative payments offerings with embedded finance,” Marqeta Chief Revenue Officer Todd Pollack said in the press release.
Dive Insight:
Since taking over as CEO in January, Marqeta CEO Simon Khalaf has been pushing the company to move into embedded payment services.
“Embedded finance is very powerful because it gives companies extra revenue,” Khalaf told Payments Dive in a January interview. Khalaf aimed to provide clients with additional revenue during a year of economic uncertainty. Marqeta could do that by offering its clients a slice of the interchange fees that accompany transactions
More than half of new bookings for the first half of the year were embedded finance customers, a Marqeta spokesperson said by email. Marqeta’s Q2 bookings grew 60% over Q1, with embedded finance accounting for two-thirds of its bookings, the spokesperson said.
In the months since, the company has been on a turbulent path, acquiring Power Finance, cutting its workforce, closing and opening international operations and renewing a vital contract with Block.
Marqeta’s Turbulent 2023
-
January 30
Marqeta acquires Power Finance for $275 million in cash in order to expand its credit card services.
-
January 31
Former Chief Product Officer Simon Khalaf becomes Marqeta CEO.
-
May 9
After the first quarter, the company announced it will cut 150 jobs in an effort to become profitable.
-
May 29
Marqeta shut down operations in Australia in a continued cost-cutting push.
-
July 11
The company expands to Brazil in an effort to grow in Central America and South America.
-
August 8
Marqeta announced a four-year extension of its contract with fintech Block. That single partnership accounted for 78% of Marqeta’s net revenue for the second quarter of 2023.
Now that the Block contract is secured for four years, Khalaf can continue growing the embedded finance portion of the business. The spokesperson declined to provide details for the deals announced on Thursday.
“We continue to see tremendous opportunity for non-financial companies to embed payment and financial services into their solutions,” the spokesperson said in an email.
