ClearBank Names Barclays Vet Mark Fairless as CFO

Embedded banking firm ClearBank has named Mark Fairless to lead its finance team.

In addition to his duties as CFO, Fairless, a veteran of companies that include M&G, Santander and Barclays, will also serve on the ClearBank board and executive committee and help the company’s international expansion, the U.K. firm announced on its website Tuesday (Jan. 17).

Based in London, ClearBank offers an API that lets financial institutions offer their customers a “fully regulated banking infrastructure and real-time clearing access,” per the company website.

Last year was an active one for the company, which launched a number of partnerships and integrations, including one in October with the investment and savings platform Raisin.

The appointment of Fairless “comes at a pivotal time for the business with ClearBank Ltd. reaching profitability in 2022,” the company said in the news release. “Off the back of this success, the business expects to roll out a range of new products and services, as well as launch into Europe later this year, with other markets to follow.”

It’s also a pivotal time for the world of embedded finance.

Speaking to PYMNTS last week, Itai Damti, CEO of Banking-as-a-Service platform (BaaS) Unit, said BaaS and embedded finance models would transform the dynamics of banking, payments, and retail in the coming years.

In the long term, Damti said, “if you really think about the number of dollars that are out there in the world today, and you think about the value that software products give us as consumers and businesses every day, to me it’s inevitable that a large portion of these dollars over time are going to find their way into software that’s going to be automated and streamlined and more convenient to use.”

Meanwhile, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are eager to tap into the $51 billion embedded finance market, PYMNTS research has found.

These businesses, PYMNTS wrote, often face a host of obstacles when trying to process payments swiftly and securely, such as incorrect invoices, insufficient cash reserves, and late payments from customers or to their vendors.

Close to one-third of organizations said they are often unable to pay vendors thanks to accounts payable (AP) or accounts receivable (AR) troubles, and 60% of business owners worry about cash flows on a monthly basis because of these accounting problems.