Long Take: Stripe will drink your embedded finance milkshake

Gm Fintech Architects —

Yes, the UST/Luna thing is a total slow-motion disaster. A bank run, combined with potentially a bunch of hostile capital, powered by a confidence game that is losing confidence. We want to let it play out a bit more so that there’s a full picture on the mechanisms, and the lessons. So perhaps next week.

Today we will dive into the following topics:

• Summary: We look at Stripe, and its position in the embedded finance markets. In particular, we think about the expansion into data aggregation, as well as moves within crypto payments and ESG services. Does Stripe have to own the entire fintech developer go-to-market, or is there room for smaller companies to compete? And how should we think about decisions like backing the failed checkout startup Fast, in the context of this strategy?

• Topics: embedded finance, payments

• Tags: Stripe, Plaid, Aspiration, MoonPay, Transak, Fast

If you got value from this article, please share it. Long Takes are premium only, and we need your help to spread the word about how awesome they are!

---

Long Take

Stripe’s Mint Moment

We assume you know Stripe, the developer payments giant of Silicon Valley. If you don’t, let’s get the basics out of the way with the Generalist report, or the Ben Thompson take, as well as our adjacent coverage here and here.

It is top of mind for us, because there was a recent product development from Stripe, where the company launched a financial data aggregation service in the US.

Source

Depending on your vintage, you might recognize this as Mint.com, or Yodlee, or Plaid. Plaid has won the data-aggregation mind share game, and is the current champion of putting API scotchtape on top of the outdated American bank infrastructure. That’s a valuable thing to do, because it solves account opening and identity verification for the modern distribution footprints — i.e., fintechs — as well as powers up bank connectivity to Web2 and mobile commerce.