What Is Embedded Lending?
Embedded lending is consumer credit offered inside a merchant’s own checkout, under the merchant’s brand, funded by a lending partner rather than the merchant. The customer is approved in about 20 seconds. CredX structures it so the merchant keeps the customer relationship and recovers a share of transaction costs.
What follows is the mechanics, in the order your business would meet them.
How embedded lending works, step by step.
Four steps, and only the first one asks anything of your business.
- 1
You integrate, and nothing at the counter changes.
CredX connects to the setup you already run. Your point-of-sale system, your terminals, and your management software stay exactly as they are, with no new hardware. Integration typically runs 4 to 8 weeks.
- 2
Your customer is offered credit in your brand.
At checkout, the customer sees a credit line and a value-back offer carrying your business’s name. Approval takes about 20 seconds. Every part of what they see is yours.
- 3
A community lender funds it, and carries the risk.
The credit is funded by community lender partners, and repayment risk stays with the lender, not with your business. CredX manages underwriting, servicing, and collections, so a missed payment never reaches your books.
- 4
You recover on transaction costs and keep the relationship.
Spend that moves through the value layer costs less than the same spend on a standard card. The customer, access to the data, and the reason they return stay with your business.
Where your transaction costs land, before and after.
Interchange recovery runs from 40% up to 85%, depending on qualifying volume.
Every card sale carries interchange. On $1M of monthly volume, that is roughly $36,000 to a competing credit facility. Routed through the value layer instead, the same volume costs in the region of $6,000, and the difference stays where it was earned. That example sits at the top of the published range. Across the range, $1M of monthly volume returns roughly $14,000 to $30,000.
Results vary by volume and card mix.
The credit your customer uses is priced below the average credit card rate, so the offer stands on its own without a discount funding it.
The loop that sends value back instead of out.
Spending at your business earns value back under your brand. The customer builds it up with you, which gives them a reason to return, and your business keeps both the margin and the visit.
What the customer earns is counted in dollars, not points, and a dollar earned is worth a dollar spent. Their own spending produced it, and it reaches them through your business rather than through someone else’s statement.
The loop also leaves a record of who returns and how their spending changes once they do. This record is always opt-in and de-identified.
The five questions operators actually ask.
Who actually funds the credit?
Community lender partners fund it and carry the credit risk. CredX manages underwriting, servicing, and collections, so the lending never sits on your books. You are paid in full and upfront on every sale, exactly as you are today.
What does the credit cost my customer?
The cost is below the average credit card rate. The offer is designed to stand on its own rather than depend on a discount, and the terms are shown to the customer before they accept.
What happens if a customer does not repay?
Repayment risk stays with the community lender partners that fund the credit, not with your business. CredX manages underwriting, servicing, and collections, so a missed payment never reaches your books.
Who has access to the customer data?
CredX manages the data infrastructure, and merchants access structured intelligence from their own customer base. Today, that intelligence sits with a competing credit facility, and the merchant sees none of it. Access is opt-in and de-identified at every step.
How soon do I see savings?
Interchange recovery starts the month after activation and is reported per location and in aggregate.
The mechanics are settled. The number is yours to find out.
They work the same way for any business with recurring customers and card volume. What changes from one business to the next is the amount that stays.