Here to help me close out our six-part series on embedded finance is Inktavo CEO James Armijo. After a brief stint in finance, James was quick to ascertain the truth that spending 16 hours a day working a spreadsheet would not lead to a tremendous amount of career satisfaction for him personally. So, he made the jump from finance to SaaS companies and payments and never looked back! As for what keeps him up at night these days, it has a little to do with payroll and a lot to do with the future of the embedded finance ecosystem. 

For those of you who may not know, Inktavo is a SaaS platform that supports apparel decorators (or screen printers) in their mission to provide decorative apparel to their local community. Their software is unique in that they provide an all-in-one platform for their customers to thrive and flourish, including customizable designs, web checkout, order tracking and (of course) embedded finance options.

In talking with James about the embedded finance journey, it’s interesting to hear his take on the steppingstones and stumbling blocks present in such a prolific ecosystem. For Inktavo’s customer base specifically, lending is one of the most significant value adds they can provide in a much more streamlined fashion due to the data they have access to. 

Tune in this week to hear James discuss all things embedded finance, including the three-phase embedded roadmap and the benefit that comes from focusing on customer pain points versus just monetization when it comes to your embedded strategy. We also talk about where he sees the embedded ecosystem in the next 2-5 years as it relates to payroll and AP/AR initiatives.