Jifiti’s Role in Shaping Embedded Finance

Jifiti is revolutionizing embedded finance by collaborating strategically with banks to deliver personalized solutions. This partnership is vital as the embedded finance market is expected to grow by 148% by 2028, as outlined in Fintech Nexus. 

Co-founder and CEO Yaacov Martin shared that Jifiti was founded over a decade ago to provide technology for retailers. Initially, clients hesitated due to integration concerns. To address this, Jifiti developed solutions requiring minimal integration, building on existing infrastructures.

Their approach proved successful, earning trust from large companies. This trust positioned Jifiti to excel in embedded finance, creating real-time connections between consumers, finance, and retail.

“Creating a real-time connection between three different parties proved very challenging for all three players, and our infrastructure was able to tackle much of that,” Martin said.

Since 2021, the landscape of embedded finance has shifted significantly. Companies once flourished without banks, but rising interest rates and stricter regulations changed this dynamic. Jifiti seized the opportunity by working with banks, which are stable, regulated, and experienced.

“When you are operating in an environment where interest rates are zero, and you’re only measured on growth and profitability, great,” Martin explained. “If they couldn’t show profitability when their cost of capital was close to zero, how would they overnight show profitability when they’re paying 6x for the same dollar?”

While others aimed to eliminate banks, Jifiti collaborated with them, enhancing their technology to make loans more accessible. This required patience, especially with Tier One banks, but it allowed Jifiti to design systems tailored to each client’s strengths.

Jifiti’s first major bank client was secured through a cold call. This led to a focus on offering infrastructure outside the United States. Jifiti now operates in 12 countries with plans to expand further.

Jifiti’s growth is driven by strategic partnerships. Recent collaborations with Ingenico, FIS, and Finastra highlight this approach. These partnerships allow merchants to offer bank financing at points of sale, provide end-to-end embedded solutions, and enable finance offerings via a single platform.

“They also realized that our platform gave validity to their components,” Martin explained. “You can’t operate with an underwriting component if you don’t have the rest of the origination or if you don’t have the rest of the disbursement.”

Integrating with back-end partners is complex, requiring simplification within highly regulated environments. Jifiti aims to be involved early in the process, aligning financial products with transactions to avoid irrelevance or mismatched financing.

Looking ahead, Martin anticipates more Tier One banks offering POS solutions, with Jifiti ready to support them. “We’ve gotten broader and gone deeper,” he concluded. “We’ll have a few new markets as well, but what we’re really doing is doubling down. We’re in 12 markets and doubling down on many of those.”