Most software teams still think of payments as a chore. We take you inside the playbook that turns it into a growth engine. I sits down with NMI CTO Phillip Goericke to unpack how embedded payments evolved from a basic checkout to a full-stack platform that handles onboarding, underwriting, payouts, analytics, and even embedded finance. The conversation is straight talk on what actually works when you’re shipping fast and scaling globally.

We dig into the architectural choices that matter: start with a no-code drop-in to activate revenue quickly, then progress to low-code SDKs and finally full APIs when you need deep control. Phillip shares where platforms stall - manual KYC, fragmented global rules, and data blind spots and how a modular approach fixes these without ripping out your stack. You’ll hear how compliance-as-a-service, network tokenization, and adaptive 3D Secure can raise approval rates, reduce fraud, and simplify audits while keeping the checkout experience seamless.

Looking ahead, we explore why identity, compliance, and data are the foundation for embedded finance. Philip outlines NMI’s unified experience that brings payments, onboarding, insights, and new services like business capital into one place. We also tackle AI with clear eyes: use it to augment decisioning and anomaly detection, but wrap it with deterministic controls so money-critical outcomes are consistently right. The key takeaway is a mindset shift: stop treating payments as a feature and start using it as a strategic lever for revenue, retention, and product velocity.

If you’re building software with transactions anywhere in the flow, this is your blueprint for turning payments into a competitive moat. Subscribe for more deep dives, share with a teammate who owns monetization, and leave a review to tell us what topic you want next.