Hope is not a strategy. That's a line from today's episode that stuck with me. Because in embedded finance, too many partnerships are built on hope: hope that customers will come or hope that the product will fit. But the companies that actually succeed? They do the work upfront.

Today I'm joined by Jas Shah, a fintech product consultant who has worked on both sides of embedded finance: from inside big banks like Citibank to advising fintechs on becoming "embedded ready."

In this conversation, we explore:

• What separates successful embedded finance partnerships from the ones that never take off
• Why the customer so often gets forgotten in bank-fintech deals
• How to test your embedded strategy before going all-in (hint: start with referrals)
• What "embedded ready" actually means for fintechs looking to partner with platforms
• Why ICP alignment matters more than brand names
• How agentic finance will transform SME lending by replacing brokers with AI agents
• Why accounting software providers might be the biggest winners in agentic finance

Connect with Jas on LinkedIn and check out his newsletter.

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This episode was produced by Orama.tv.

(00:00) Start(01:26) Introduction and Greetings(01:59) Diving into Embedded Finance(02:30) Klarna: A Case Study(03:55) Challenges in Embedded Finance(08:31) Customer Research and Market Testing(12:20) Finding the Right Partnerships(19:01) Getting FinTechs Embedded Ready(20:33) API Strategy and Technological Readiness(27:20) Agentic Finance: The Future of Financial Decisions(30:14) Practical Applications of Agentic Finance(35:00) Conclusion and Contact Information