Unlocking global payments for the B2B software ecosystem with Brex Embedded

Becoming a fintech doesn’t mean building one

Over the past decade, many B2B companies have tried to transform themselves into fintechs, especially when capital was readily available. The thesis was simple: as B2B payments skyrocketed, software companies saw an opportunity to capture a slice of that spend. However, many are now realizing that becoming a fintech requires building financial infrastructure — a task that is both challenging and resource-intensive.

Fast forward to today. In this economy, the question isn’t whether every company should become a fintech company, but rather: should every company build financial services in-house? In our view, the answer is no. Instead, they should partner with Brex, and here’s why.

Building financial services remains complex and costly

Building a software company is faster and more turnkey than ever — thanks to infrastructure services like AWS, code optimization tools like OpenAI, and efficient company creation services like Stripe Atlas. But building financial services remains slow and resource-intensive. Acquiring the necessary licenses and permits can take over a year, not to mention the additional overhead costs. Operating within regulated industries requires entirely new systems and processes, and even marketing becomes more complicated due to regulatory scrutiny.

We know this because we’ve done it. From day one, Brex has been focused on reimagining financial services to shape the future of business. We’ve built a secure, smart, and global financial infrastructure — powering payments and card issuing in over 50 countries and 30 currencies. We painstakingly developed our own payment rails (card, ACH, checks, wires) that seamlessly work with either a customer’s existing bank account or their Brex business account. We have always doubled down on being a card-first company — it is our most developed product, our most differentiated, and what most customers come to Brex for. It wasn’t easy, but we did it to support our customers globally. And the results have compounded.

Today, tens of thousands of companies use Brex cards and payments to power their businesses, with many of our enterprise customers choosing to integrate Brex’s financial infrastructure into their existing workflows, primarily their ERP, travel, and procurement software platforms.

There’s a faster way — Brex Embedded

As business needs continue to evolve, we’re excited to extend the value of our financial infrastructure to B2B software vendors and their customers through Brex Embedded — a new way to embed Brex virtual cards into any workflow to deliver global payments and 100% reconciliation.

We’ve heavily invested in our technical infrastructure to accelerate global money movement. These investments, particularly in critical frameworks and direct processing, mean that Brex’s comprehensive issuing platform is on par with major banks and card programs like Amex, Citi, JPMorgan, and HSBC. In fact, our technical ownership of our payment stack gives us more flexibility and control than these traditional players. Even our network partner, Mastercard, has remarked on how globally capable we’ve become, citing us by name in their Q2 2024 earnings release.

We consistently receive feedback from our current platform partners that Brex’s global acceptance, underwriting and onboarding, usability, and use-case flexibility make our program their preferred offering with their customers:

• Onboarding and underwriting: We differentiate ourselves from traditional issuers by significantly reducing onboarding and underwriting time, completing the process in half the time per local entity. Our speed and efficiency have been key factors in why Embedded partners choose to work with us and recommend us to their end customers.
• Direct processing: Our investment in direct processing with Mastercard gives us complete control over the issuing APIs that we can build and develop. This means we can eliminate middleware players, reducing our operating costs and increasing our flexibility. Our highly technical frameworks allow for card issuing at the end of all software workflows, giving us maximum flexibility for our own and partner systems. We can work however the end partner wants (Brex APIs, Mastercard ICCP, Conferma).
• Global issuing: With local-currency cards, Brex drives best-in-class global card acceptance and interchange around the world, giving us competitive global interchange economics that we can extend to partners – and in turn, their customers.
  

Brex Embedded brings all these strengths together, offering B2B software vendors a superior payments experience without the need for them to build their own infrastructure.

Meeting our customers and partners where they are

Expense management software remains a vital part of Brex’s offering, and we will continue to build world-class spend software for our customers. But in Brex 3.0, we have realized that we can best serve customers — and more of them — by meeting them where they are.

For some, Brex is the all-in-one platform they rely on, but for others, we’re a trusted payment provider integrated into their preferred procurement platform, ERP, travel platform, or even spend platform. Brex Embedded lets us offer higher credit limits, enhanced card controls, and automated financial workflows like reconciliation — meeting our customers’ needs in the way that works best for them.

Give your customers what they want: fast, secure global payments on Brex

For B2B software vendors looking to incorporate financial services, Brex is the ideal partner to help you:

• Streamline payment workflows: Automate core workflows across expenses, payments, and accounting for 100% transaction reconciliation inside of your B2B software environment.
• Deploy fast with zero overhead: Deliver a great customer experience in days, not months, without the overhead of underwriting, onboarding, and credit risk.
• Unlock new revenue, globally: Serve global customers and create new revenue streams with embedded payments in local currencies for 50+ countries with zero FX fees.
• Enable payments with confidence: Over 25,000 customers, from startups to global enterprises like Flexport, Sonos, Compass, and ScaleAI already trust Brex for their payment needs.
• Partner with an innovative leader: Brex stays ahead of card technology, expands into new geographies, and continues to innovate in underwriting, issuing, and workflow automation.

Five years ago, many companies thought they could be fintechs. Now, they’re realizing they don’t need to be. Thankfully, Brex has built the industry’s most powerful, user-friendly global financial infrastructure — and now it’s available to partners like you. Learn more at brex.com/embedded.