Built to Scale: How to Grow Embedded Payments Without Starting Over

Launch Is Only the Beginning

Embedded payments can be relatively easy to implement, but rising volume transforms the demands placed on payments infrastructure.

Embedded payments can deliver early wins.

The strategic purpose can vary. Some businesses use embedded payments to strengthen customer relationships; others want a more seamless experience, additional revenue or greater differentiation. Whatever the objective, Eric Frankovic, President of Corporate Payments at WEX, told PYMNTS Intelligence that companies need to establish the role payments will play in their broader strategy before deciding how to build the program. Skip that step, and the growth that makes a program successful can start creating problems of its own.

The irony is that those early wins can make an embedded-payment program appear easier to scale than it really is. The operational challenge often becomes visible only after the program succeeds.

Growth creates a ‘complexity cliff.’

As an embedded-payment program expands, the business must manage more than transaction volume. Entering additional markets and introducing new payment methods can add regulatory requirements and operational dependencies. Meanwhile, fraud monitoring, chargeback handling and payout management demand increasing attention. None of this arrives all at once. It builds gradually, almost invisibly, while the program keeps growing and the results keep looking good. The “complexity cliff,” in Johnson’s telling, is the point where that steady accumulation turns into something closer to a sheer wall: The operating model that got the business this far no longer has what it takes to climb higher.

A co-brand card program illustrates the transition. Launching the card may be a defined engineering project, but running it creates continuing obligations around the customer experience, risk, operations and the relationships needed to support the program as it grows. What begins as an integration becomes an enduring business responsibility.

That friction is widespread. Industry research found that 93% of companies reported challenges in offering embedded finance, including transparency and flexibility, technical integration, compliance and security, and strategic alignment.

The infrastructure that gets an embedded-payment program launched is not necessarily the infrastructure that can carry it through growth. The best time to prepare for that difference is before that complexity arrives.

Scale Starts Before Growth Arrives

Companies that plan for greater volume, risk and operational complexity from the outset can avoid the need to rebuild payments later around future growth.

Infrastructure should be built for tomorrow’s complexity.

Scalability also depends on how readily the infrastructure can incorporate new controls and adapt existing ones. Risk management, compliance and operational processes need to evolve alongside the payment program rather than be bolted on after each expansion. Designing for that flexibility from the outset can help businesses grow without repeatedly needing to rebuild the processes around their payments.

These decisions also raise an important question: How much of the growing payment operation does the business want to manage itself?

The provider decision becomes a scaling decision.

At launch, provider selection can look principally like a technology or processing decision. At scale, the questions become broader: Who manages compliance? Who helps navigate new markets or payment methods? Who responds when something breaks? And which responsibilities remain with the business?

Frankovic makes that pivot precise: Companies need to decide early how much infrastructure they want to own and where they expect the payment provider to assume responsibility. As a result, provider selection becomes less a question of who can move money today and more a question of who can manage the ecosystem that forms around the program tomorrow.

Industry research suggests that many businesses are already choosing to share those responsibilities: About seven in 10 companies now outsource at least part of their embedded-finance delivery to an outside partner. Nearly 90% of surveyed embedded-finance decision-makers identified trust and alignment as partnership drivers, while technology compatibility/customization and security/compliance were also major considerations. Larger organizations are more likely to use external providers, particularly a single provider.

A provider selected to help launch payments can ultimately become part of the infrastructure that supports the business itself.

Scaling by Design: The REPAY Case

REPAY’s experience demonstrates how embedded-payment infrastructure and provider support can turn scaling challenges into growth capacity.

Scalable infrastructure can turn payment friction into capacity for growth.

According to WEX, the results followed quickly: REPAY’s credit line grew fourfold within 18 months, giving the company room to expand. Making virtual cards its preferred payment method also opened a new stream of revenue right away, and the streamlined online process sped up both payments and onboarding.¹

“We generate business revenue from the WEX virtual card rebates,” Darin Horrocks, EVP of Business Payments at REPAY, confirmed. “WEX has the history, the experience and the people to smoothly support companies like mine.”²

Technology scales payments. Partnership helps scale the business.

Reliable technology is table stakes. As a payment program expands, however, businesses encounter situations their internal teams may be confronting for the first time. WEX’s dedicated relationship managers work with customers from integration through expansion, combining implementation support with practical guidance and experience drawn from other payment programs. Frankovic calls relationship management “one of the most overlooked or undervalued pieces of a great payments program.” The best ones, he said, don’t just maintain the account; they help push the business forward alongside the customer.

REPAY’s Fritz said the WEX virtual card’s capabilities make it feel like part of his company’s “core ecosystem.” He called WEX “an extension of who we are as REPAY,” saying it treats his company as “a true financial technology partner.”²

For Horrocks, that partnership also meant less to manage internally. “The support that WEX provides has allowed me to forget about that element of my business. … It’s been able to take one thing off my plate,” he said.¹

Building for the Growth You Want

The right time to prepare an embedded-payment program for scale is before its early success begins to strain the infrastructure behind it. Businesses should evaluate not only what a payment solution can deliver at launch but also how it will accommodate growing volume, additional capabilities and the responsibilities that come with expansion.

PYMNTS Intelligence recommends the following actionable roadmap for companies seeking to scale embedded payments:

• Define the business objective. Establish how embedded payments should improve customer experience, generate revenue or support the broader business strategy.
• Design for operational complexity. Choose infrastructure that can accommodate new payment methods, markets, risk controls and compliance requirements without relying on repeated workarounds.
• Clarify ownership early. Determine which payment responsibilities the business will manage and which it expects its provider to handle as the program grows.
• Evaluate the partnership, not just the technology. Assess whether a provider can offer the expertise, implementation support and ongoing guidance needed beyond launch.
• Build in room to expand. Favor flexible integrations and operating processes that allow the payment program to grow without requiring a fundamental rebuild.

Scaling embedded payments is not simply a matter of processing more transactions. It means preparing the technology, operating model and provider relationship to support the business that a successful payment program can become.

1. WEX Success Brief ↩︎
2. REPAY Approved Pull Quotes ↩︎