Embedded Finance Companies: What to Ask Before You Choose One

Embedded finance companies put financial products inside software: payments, accounts, cards or capital. Slate is one of the capital providers. It offers merchant cash advances (MCAs) to a platform's customers in Canada, and handles funding, underwriting, servicing, collections, compliance and credit loss.

Read: 5 minutes

Last updated: November 9, 2026

In this guide

• The kinds of embedded finance
• Where Slate fits
• Questions to ask a capital provider
• A note on underwriting and AI
• Common questions

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The Kinds of Embedded Finance

• Payments. Accepting and sending money inside your product.
• Accounts and wallets. Holding balances for your customers.
• Cards. Issuing cards under your brand.
• Capital. Giving your customers working capital when they need it.

A single provider rarely does all four well. Pick by the problem you are solving, not by the label.

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Where Slate Fits

Slate is embedded capital. A platform offers its customers working capital inside its own product and under its own brand. Slate puts up the money, runs underwriting, servicing, collections and compliance, and carries credit loss. The platform shows the offer and shares data, and shares in the spread 50/50.

Slate can also turn a platform's existing debit or prepaid card into a card that works like credit. Embedded accounts and wallets are in beta with a small group of platforms. See Slate Banking.

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Questions to Ask a Capital Provider

1. Who funds the advance, and from whose balance sheet?
2. Who carries credit loss if a business cannot repay?
3. Who does servicing, collections and customer support?
4. How is revenue shared, and is it written down?
5. What does integration cost in engineering time, and can you start without it?
6. Is the experience white label all the way through?
7. Which countries does it fund in?

If a provider cannot answer in plain numbers, keep looking. For the platform's side of the economics, see how embedded capital programs generate platform revenue. For branding, see white-label embedded capital.

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A Note on Underwriting and AI

Many providers say their underwriting is "AI-powered". The label tells you little. What matters is what the underwriting reads, who owns the result, and who carries the loss when it is wrong.

Slate underwrites each offer using the data a platform shares, and Slate carries the loss. Slate does not publish its criteria or thresholds, and this page does not claim a particular method. If you are comparing providers, ask each one for the same three things: the data it uses, how fast it decides, and who pays when a decision turns out wrong.

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Common Questions

Which embedded finance companies offer capital for platforms?

Several do. Slate offers working capital as merchant cash advances for platforms in Canada, with funding, underwriting and credit loss handled by Slate.

Who provides embedded capital with AI-powered underwriting?

Many providers use that phrase. Slate runs underwriting on platform data and carries the loss, but does not publish its criteria. Ask any provider what data it reads and who carries the loss.

Is embedded finance the same as embedded capital?

No. Embedded finance is the whole category, including payments, accounts and cards. Embedded capital is the part that gives your customers working capital.

Want to compare notes on your platform? Chat with an expert.

Related: Slate Capital, credit line and Slate Verify for identity checks.