Embedded finance for banks

Lend through your partners’ brands. Keep the credit decision yours.

Airlines, retailers, mobile operators and sports clubs want to offer finance inside their own customer journeys. Your bank has the licence, the funding and the credit judgement. Yet each partner becomes its own integration project. The credit and conduct risk stay with you. The Zoral Finance Operating System (fOS) runs many branded offers on one engine, all under your credit policy.

One engine behind every partner, with your bank in control.

Embedded finance is a distribution channel for your bank. Brands bring customers when they need finance. You bring the licence, the funding and the credit judgement. The hard part is running many partners at once without losing control of credit or of how customers are treated. Each partner wants its own look, product and reporting.

  • New partners, not new projects

    Add a brand by reusing the products, rules and journeys you already run. Connect through documented interfaces, a hosted journey in the partner’s branding, or an embedded-finance distribution network that places your offer in brands’ journeys. Your core stays away from partner traffic.

  • Their brand. Your proposition.

    Each partner gets its own look, wording and product variant, built from configuration rather than code: a co-branded card for an airline, instalments at a retailer’s checkout, season-ticket financing for a sports club. One engine runs them all.

  • Your credit policy decides, at the point of sale

    Your rules decide eligibility, affordability, pricing and limits, using verified data, inside the partner’s journey while the customer waits. Exposure can be capped per partner and per campaign. The platform is designed for high availability and peak events such as ticket releases and sales.

  • Conduct risk you can see

    The brand owns the journey. Your bank remains accountable for how customers are treated. Disclosures shown, consents given and affordability checks are recorded for every application. Partners see only the data you agree to share. Decisions are recorded with their reasons.

  • Every partner measured against plan

    Set the volumes, approval rates, revenue and losses you expect from each partner. Compare them with actual results, from daily to yearly. When a partner drifts from plan, see why, then adjust pricing, limits or the journey, with each change approved.

What your partners can offer, under their brand and your rules.

Each product, Islamic or conventional, runs on your credit policy and product rules. Each partner can have its own variant.

Zoral fOS has powered lending through retail and partner channels in several countries for years. References are available in confidence.

  • Co-branded cards

    A credit card in the partner’s colours, offered to its customers, members or frequent flyers. Eligibility, limits and pricing follow your policy, set per partner. The card is issued through your existing processor.

  • Instalments at checkout

    Pay-in-instalments offered at the partner’s checkout, online or in store. The decision comes back while the customer is still buying. Each plan is booked under your product rules. Customers see clear terms before they commit. See also BNPL & Point-of-Sale Finance.

  • Personal finance and savings

    Personal finance, cash lines and savings accounts offered to a brand’s members and loyalty customers, such as travel or season-ticket financing. Affordability is checked against verified data before an offer is made.

  • Device financing

    Phones, laptops and appliances financed at a retailer’s or mobile operator’s point of sale. Where your policy and the customer’s consent allow, the operator’s own data can support the credit decision for customers with little credit history.

  • Auto finance

    Finance offered through dealers and car marketplaces, in a dealer-facing portal carrying the partner’s branding. Your bank controls the credit decision, the documents required and the release of funds.

  • Home finance

    Home financing offered through property developers, brokers and estate agents. Income and assets are verified from documents and at source before an offer is made. The evidence for every case is kept for your credit team.

  • SME finance

    Working capital and merchant financing are offered through marketplaces, payment providers and accounting platforms to their business customers. Decisions use the trading data these platforms hold, with the business’s permission, under your underwriting rules.

Questions banks ask about lending through partners

Who owns the customer relationship, the brand or the bank?

You decide, partner by partner. In most programmes, the brand owns the journey. Your bank is the lender and holds the account and the credit relationship. Zoral records which party sees which data, under the agreements you set. This keeps the boundary clear for customers, auditors and the partner.

How much work is each new partner?

Less with each one. A new partner reuses the products, rules and journeys you already run. The remaining work is the partner’s branding, its product variant and the connection itself. A short scoping discussion gives you a realistic plan for the first partner.

Can each partner have its own products, pricing and limits?

Yes. Each partner can have its own variant of products you have already approved, with its own pricing, limits and eligibility rules. New variants are tested against simulated account activity before launch. Every version is kept with its approval history. Your credit policy stays the common base.

Does the partner have to build anything?

Not necessarily. Partners can use a hosted journey in their own branding, show your offer on their own screens through documented interfaces, or reach you through an embedded-finance distribution network that places offers in brands’ journeys with little work on the brand’s side. You choose which route suits each partner.

How do you handle peak demand, such as a ticket release or a seasonal sale?

Zoral is designed for high availability and to scale with demand. Expected peaks can be tested before the event. Your credit appetite can be capped per partner and per campaign, so a surge at one brand stays within the exposure you set for it.

If the brand runs the journey, who is responsible for affordability and fair treatment?

Your bank remains accountable as the lender. Zoral applies your affordability rules and records the disclosures and consents each customer saw. It can be configured to flag signs that a customer may be vulnerable, and keeps the evidence per partner. We have worked with clients regulated by the FCA in the UK, the CFPB in the US and the central banks of Malaysia and Thailand. The obligations are your bank’s. The platform gives you the controls and the evidence, partner by partner, to meet them.

Can we offer Islamic financing through partners?

Yes. Islamic and conventional products can run side by side, each under the contract structures and rules your bank approves. Your Shariah board or committee remains the authority; Zoral provides the configurable structures and the evidence trail for its review.

What does each partner see in its reporting?

Its own results: applications, approvals, conversion and the measures you agree to share. It does not see other partners’ data or your internal credit detail. Your teams see every partner side by side, against plan, with the reasons when results drift.

Do we have to replace our core banking system or card processor?

No. Zoral works alongside your core and your card processor, posting bookings to them through documented interfaces. Where it suits you, Zoral can hold partner accounts in its own sub-ledger and post to your general ledger. Your existing investments keep working.

How do you use AI, and who is accountable for decisions?

AI for Zoral helps our specialists and your teams build and check partner journeys, product variants and rules more quickly. It suggests; your people approve. You choose any language models involved, whether enterprise model services or open-weight models your team tunes and hosts. They connect to Zoral fOS through a standard interface (MCP). Client data stays under your governance, within the environments and agreements you control. Credit decisions run on the rules and models your bank has approved. Each decision is recorded with its reasons.

Where does Zoral run, and how is partner access controlled?

Zoral runs on AWS or Azure in your chosen region, or in your own data centre, to suit data residency rules. Zoral Document Fabric, which reads your documents, runs in your own AWS or Azure account, or your private cloud, in your region and under your control. Partners connect through documented interfaces, with access limited to what each needs. The platform is designed for high availability. Our controls are independently audited under SOC 2, with details on the Zoral Trust Portal. Architecture documentation is available under a confidentiality agreement.

Who runs the platform day to day?

You choose. Zoral can run and support the platform for you, your own technology team can run it, or we share the work and hand over as your team grows. Your people run the banking operations and the partner relationships.

What if we want to change provider in future, and who is Zoral?

Your data, product definitions and audit history remain yours and can be exported in standard formats. Zoral is an independent specialist founded in 2004, not part of a bank or a core banking vendor. Our platform is our own. We work alongside your advisers and integrators, and have a long-standing relationship with KPMG.

Who implements it?

Atelier, Zoral’s consulting and implementation team, works with your teams and, where you choose, with your advisers and systems integrators. The same team can help design the partner propositions and the credit decisions behind them.

Product innovation · Credit risk and decisioning

Choose the partner. Prove the channel with one product.

Bring us the brands you want to reach customers through, whether an airline, a retailer, a mobile operator or a club. A senior Zoral specialist will help you choose the first partner and product, set out what your bank controls and what the brand controls, and show what your risk and compliance teams would see.

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