embedded payments
Embedded payments means card, online and Direct Debit payments built into a software product, so the platform's customers accept payments inside the software they already use rather than through a separate provider. The platform sets up its customers, usually sets a fee, and earns on the payment volume.
The term describes a product outcome: the invoice is paid from the invoice screen, the membership is collected from the membership record, the booking deposit is taken at the booking. The customer's customer pays; the software's customer sees the money reconciled where it belongs; the platform earns a share of each payment. It is the category label most of the market uses, and it has a wide range of meanings underneath, from a referral link to a full payment facilitator.
Why it matters to a software platform: embedded payments is, for most UK vertical software companies, the largest revenue line they are not yet earning. The question is rarely whether to build it. It is which model (referral, payfac, payfac-as-a-service or regulated partner), and then the harder question: how to get the customers you already have, who already take payments somewhere else, to move onto it. Building the feature is the smaller job; moving the existing customers onto it is the work.
What to watch: a provider that says "embedded" and means referral. Under referral the customer signs with the provider, the provider sets the price and owns the relationship, and the platform earns a share of someone else's revenue. Ask who the customer contracts with, who sets the fee and who holds the money. Synapto's answer: the customer signs up inside your product, you set the fee, our regulated acquiring partner holds the funds.