In this episode of the Connector Podcast recorded live at DFS, host Koen van der Huydonk interviews Marnix, the Benelux lead at Swan, to discuss the company’s embedded finance platform and its expansion into the Benelux region. Marnix explains Swan’s core mission: to make banking features (bank accounts, IBANs, payment cards) easily embeddable into non‑financial products, likening the concept to Uber’s seamless integration of transport and payment. He outlines the recent $37 million funding round that fuels the Benelux rollout, emphasizing the market’s digital‑payment readiness, euro‑zone advantage, and the strategic need for a European footprint. The conversation then moves to Swan’s hyper‑localization approach—conducting market‑specific compliance analysis, prioritising local IBANs, and adapting KYC/SCA flows—to build trust with end‑users. Marnix details Swan’s regulatory standing as an e‑money licensed institution, which allows partners to leverage Swan’s licence for KYC, strong customer authentication, and payments without building their own banking infrastructure. He showcases a breadth of vertical use‑cases—accounting software, B2B lending/factoring, expense cards for HR, mobility cards, and property‑management solutions (e.g., the Belgian client Syndic offering “Revolut‑for‑VMEs”). The discussion highlights Swan’s white‑label model: 115 clients use Swan’s backend while the brand remains invisible to end‑users, delivering a seamless, near‑instant banking experience (account opening in hours, cards issued quickly). Looking ahead, Marnix predicts a shift from fragmented banking‑software relationships to fully integrated platforms, with banking operating in the background. He invites listeners to explore Swan’s open‑source platform on the website, noting a Belgium‑specific sign‑up flow. The episode closes with a call to action to follow the Connector Podcast for more fintech insights.
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Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Koen van der Huydonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
Welcome to another podcast of the Connector and Belgian Fintech live from DFS, and I have with me Marnix, Marnix from Swan. Who are you guys?
Hi, Koen, thank you very much for the enthusiastic introduction. Uh, of course I do my best. No, my name is Marnix. I'm responsible for the Benelux at Swan, which includes Belgium, of course. So hence we have this, have this conversation. Um, about— yeah, thank you, thank you. About Swan in a nutshell, what we do is like embedded finance, which is a bit of a buzz term at the moment. But yeah, to briefly explain what we do, I think embedded finance, you can compare it to, for example, Uber. It's a very well-known example, of course. It used to be very difficult to get a taxi, to pay. Everything was in a different way, not like super, super user-friendly. And they all combined it in one app, which is like, I think, a perfect example of how embedded finance works. And yeah, I think the philosophy of our founders was that it was super difficult to embed banking features, embed payments, embed banking into your company from both like a technical perspective, from both like a licensing perspective. So they really wanted to build something which was accessible via like, for example, website. You can go to a website, create your own bank accounts, create your own payment cards basically. and then pay for a cappuccino the next day. So that was a bit of the philosophy, and that's also what they did with, with Swan.
Oh, interesting. And I think that many, many people are very jealous at you because you guys just recently raised $37 million for expansion, and that expansion includes the Benelux. So I'm just wondering, um, what drove you to this decision to come to the Benelux as a company, and, and how are you willing to spend your funds wisely?
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was, it was— I think our founders were like extremely happy, and then all the employees, employees of course as well. I mean, raising some funds in difficult times, I mean, it's, it's really, uh, it's really impressive, I think, uh, what they, what they did. Um, yeah, the Benelux is a super interesting market. I mean, it's, it's quite tech savvy. Um, and people, people like to pay in a digital way. Uh, we have the euro of course here, so it's, it's very easy to expand and also from like a European perspective, really want to grow like a European company and, um, being active in all the major markets in Europe. And then yeah, you cannot, uh, you cannot do that without going to the Benelux, of course.
And what's the history of the company? Where are you originally from?
Originally from France, but we're really positioned as a European company. So that means that we have offices in, in Berlin, in, in Milan— Milan is coming— uh, Barcelona, Amsterdam, and we're also looking now into, into Belgium, for example, because we think that it's a little bit super important market for us for our future growth. And, uh, yeah, it's great to have the local connection with the local people, right? So this hyper-localization strategy, that's super important for us.
No, that, that is, that is something which is super interesting as well. Um, I think if you talk about hyper-localization, then I think you talk about adaptation and getting sort of into a local market. So, how do you deal with that from maybe a cultural point of view, but also from a regulatory point of view?
Yeah, we conduct analysis of the market in terms of compliance, in terms of in what way are people used to pay, like bankcontact here in Belgium, for example. What kind of currency do they have? How does the KYC onboarding flow look like? Every market has its differences. So, we do a very rough, thorough analysis of the market and we act based on that. Most important thing is the local IBAN. So you really need to be comfortable with using your bank account as your primary bank account. And a local IBAN, although you can use an IBAN from, from any country, I mean, in terms of functionality, it doesn't really matter. But people really trust when there is a BE in front of your IBAN or an NL in the Netherlands or whatsoever. So to really become local and trusted and, and used especially as well, I mean, you really need a local IBAN. And that's it. That's what's— that's what we do. And our founders, like, super proud of that. About every day, they have like a where they sing about the local IBAN and what they do, need to do to become local. And then we have like for every new feature, our CEO or CPO is like making a song for that. And that's like, it's really like our bread and butter. It's really like what we want to be. We want to be local.
Marnix, I hope you realize that we want you to sing a song for us now.
I was already afraid. Luckily, I don't know the song.
Well, I can give you some music if you want.
Something with a local IBAN.
Indeed.
Yeah.
No, so, so what you do as Embedded Finance, you enable non-financial institutions to integrate banking services. But can you explain a little bit what's the transformation for that customer? What does it really mean for them?
Yeah, that's a very good question. What does it add, right, in terms of value?
Correct.
Why would you like to use banking through, yeah, through your accounting software platform, for example? I think what many companies at the moment are struggling is with getting a bank account. It's expensive. It takes a while. So the service is not great. So from a user experience perspective, if you can open a bank account somewhere else, for example, at your accounting software company— I mean, every company has an accounting software company— and you can open it for free, you have it within 3 hours. You have your expense cards for your company to do company expenses all in a few hours. I mean, that, that it's, that's, it adds so much value to, to the, the entrepreneur who just needs a bank account, or a freelancer who just needs a bank account to get started, right? And if it's also fully integrated with your accounting software, I mean, that's, that's like the best of both worlds in that sense.
So the fact that you actually issue IBAN codes, that also makes you a regulated company. So can you explain us a little bit more what, what, how are you regulated? Are you a PSD2? Are you a money license? Are you a bank?
Yeah, we are an e-money licensed institution. So that means that we can hold and move funds, basically hold deposits and do payments. Um, and our setup is super unique in that sense. Um, we can issue and help our partners, and we can use our license so they can lean on our license, basically, which means that they don't have to do anything. I mean, back in the days, it was super complicated to add banking features, especially as a non-financial— even as a financial institution. Let's say as a non-financial institution. And by using us, you can do it the next day. And how does it work? I mean, we take care of all the sensitive operations that are part of this license. So that means the KYC, the strong customer authentication. If you want to do a payment, we have the license, of course, in the first place. And because we all have this license and everything that belongs to it, the license, we can really enable clients without any knowledge about banking or regulation or whatsoever. So that is a very unique setup and that makes us like plug and play for every organization to get started the next day, literally, if you want.
Now, when people talk about embedded finance, then very often the immediate bridge is made between e-commerce. But what I think was unique when looking at your proposal I saw sectors like HR, property management, and several others. How does that combine?
Yeah, yeah. In e-commerce, do you see— and often in the context of, for example, embedded lending or embedded insurance, we are really like the core of embedded finance, which means bank accounts, payments. And one of our main focus areas is accounting software, for example, where you can open a bank account directly through your accounting software company. But we can also provide, I don't know, a B2B lending company or a factoring company with the infrastructure to perform their business. So, for example, collect invoices automatically or pay out the loans automatically. And then we can provide them with their customers with an account where they can pay the loan to. So, other companies that just got a loan, they can also immediately have it— they have it on an account, so they immediately have a bank account. They can spend it with a linked card to that account. So you really have like the whole infrastructure for these kind of companies. So we have like a bit of a different angle there. Another interesting example is the expense card. An expense card, you can have it for general expenses, right? For general business-related expenses, which is interesting for— I don't know, you have these typical companies who do that, right? But you can also use it as an HR software company. You already have the access to all these employees. You already do many things in terms of the expenses. And now you can also integrate the payment yourself and benefit from the revenues that come from that. But you can also use it for mobility. Let's say you have a card and you just say, okay, you can only use the limit for, I don't know, public transport, e-scooters whatsoever. And all of a sudden you have a mobility card and you can serve as a mobility as a service company. So this, this, this, this— I think we have about 15 verticals where we're active in at the moment. I mean, the use cases are, are almost unlimited in that sense. We also have this Belgium client. I think, Sindic, yourself is one of our first first client. And I think it's a great example of what embedded finance can do for, for example, VMEs. But it's— you can replicate this example to any other business. It's super difficult for a VME to open a bank account these days. It's super expensive. You don't get any interest on the account. It takes a while. Many banks don't accept you anymore from a compliance perspective. And now they integrated our services, and now you can open a bank account via Syndic yourself. Which is a property management company, right? And I think, um, what I really like about it is that the CEO really wanted to build something that looks like Revolut, right? Revolut for businesses. And that's exactly what he did. So we are actually pretty proud of what, what he achieved. He basically built a Revolut for VMEs in his own look and feel, and that makes it like super accessible for everyone. You can open an account, you get interest on your account, you can have a card if you want. And I think that's a perfect example of how you can integrate banking features into a— this time, a property management company.
Well, looking ahead in terms of embedded finance, what can we expect and how do you think your company will play a role in shaping that new future?
It was the status quo. You had a bank, you had your software company, accounting software, HR, whatsoever. But now it's all integrated. So I think the status quo is really, really changing. So you used to go to 2 different parties, and now you're just going to the party where you have everything integrated in one platform. So the user experience is changing drastically in that sense. Think about the Uber example, right? I mean, you had to go to the bank, you pay in cash, you need to order a taxi or on the streets, and now it's all integrated. Same goes with banking. I really think that we can serve clients in a way— more user-friendly way.
It's almost saying that the banking is a— is in the background rather than in the front end.
Definitely, you will, you will. And that's also a bit what we do. I mean, we're white-labeled, so you will never see that, that you deal with us, right? I mean, we have 115 clients, but people know our clients, but people don't know us. So I think that, that is, I think, a bit of the strength indeed. It should be seamless, right? It should be— you don't want to wait for 2 months on a bank account. I think that's, that's no longer the case anymore in the future.
Okay, makes a lot of sense. So I guess many of our audiences are very interested to learn more about you, and my question would be then, where can they find you?
You can go— I mean, everything is open source, so you can literally go to our website and, and install your own and, and brand your own bank accounts, your payment cards, etc. So you can try it out, but there's also a button if you click it and your IP address is in Belgium, you can Automatically, automatically will be sent to to to my email inbox. So I see you there.
Excellent, excellent. Marnix, thank you so much for joining this podcast. Thank you also to the audience for staying tuned, and we'll get more news coming from DFS. Thank you so much.
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