A step change in embedded finance

At Unit, our mission is to help innovative companies launch the next generation of financial services and expand financial access. 

We envision a world where financial products like bank accounts, credit cards, and lending products are personalized and offered instantly to customers directly within the apps and websites people already use. The approach we have taken since day one to tackle this mission has always been about making it significantly easier to build and launch on Unit.

It’s a radical vision, and we’re in the beginning stages of the journey. Last year, we made significant progress towards that goal by making it 10x simpler to launch banking and lending. In particular, we announced our White-Label Components, and our White-Label App, which enables companies to launch banking and lending with one line of code.

We'd like to thank our team, partners, and customers - from publicly traded companies to high-growth startups - for your trust and continued partnership. 

Powering over $22 billion in transactions

In 2023, we saw our strongest adoption and growth to date with customers added across many industries and use cases. This includes vertical SaaS platforms like Outgo and Baselane, companies that power small-business finances like Relay and Nav, marketplaces that offer payouts like Veryable, and many more. 

Unit now powers bank accounts for over 1.2 million end-customers, with over $875 million in deposits. Transaction volume grew 5.5x over the last year, surpassing $22 billion. 

A more robust embedded finance platform

This year we continued to add new products and functionality to make Unit the most robust embedded finance platform in the ecosystem. We enabled landlords, contractors, and others who rely on paper checks to have a simple way to send checks in app and order checkbooks. We introduced transaction enrichment to create better user experiences that transform card transaction data from cryptic code to useful information. Additionally, we turned on cash deposits to make depositing cash convenient and accessible, with more locations than all US bank branches combined. 

We also expanded our Lending offering. We launched a full suite of products that makes it simpler for companies to extend capital instantly to their customers, generate significant new revenue streams, and improve customer satisfaction. 

We saw strong adoption from customers, like Toolbox, which uses charge cards to improve cash flow for customers in the construction industry, and Highbeam, which powers the growth of consumer brands with capital. Nav embedded both banking and lending into their product to give their customers a one-stop-shop to manage business finances and build credit history at the same time.

“When it came to Charge Cards, Unit was on board to innovate and build what we needed. As a result, our platform is more compelling for new customers and we can better engage with our existing customers going forward.” - Greg Ott, Nav, CEO

We have seen impactful results. Companies that have created a one-stop-shop solution differentiate themselves from competition and drive customer loyalty. Their customers who use embedded financial features in their products are 2.5x more likely to use additional products and have a 35% higher NPS score.

‍Making it simpler to launch

Leaning into one of our core values of customer obsession, we took lessons we honed serving hundreds of customers and delivered products that make it even easier to embed financial features. 

Over the last year, we delivered:

• No-code and low-code frontend experiences, including White-Label Components and our White-Label App, to accelerate time to market from months to days – with one line of code.
• Capital and underwriting, so companies can get started with lending quickly without having to raise funds or impact their balance sheet.
• Scalable oversight tools, to improve monitoring and risk management with Dashboards and tools that provide  centralized and consistent visibility in real-time. 
• Streamlined compliance, that leverages our White-Label App, to create uniformity and consistency to applications, account closures, and everything in between. 

“The White-Label Components enabled us to integrate Unit into our existing app in under a month. Many companies promised similarly fast integrations, but only Unit actually delivered.” - Matt Pavelle, Piñata, CTO and Co-Founder

‍Building a stronger foundation for the industry 

As an infrastructure platform, safety, reliability, and compliance are core to what we do. We’re proud to live our company value of “compliance inside.” We expanded our team of compliance and risk leaders to over 50 employees, making it the most experienced compliance and risk oversight team in the embedded finance space. This group is focused on improving safety, sustainability, security, and reliability for the entire ecosystem.

• Safety and scalability: We focused on strengthening our network, processes, and laid the groundwork for a safer and scalable fintech ecosystem across reconciliation, AML/BSA, security, and banking operations. 
• Sustainable growth: We continued to grow our network of bank partners, with over 10 banks as part of our ecosystem to ensure we can responsibly scale. We also developed new oversight tools, including an Audit Log, that make it easier for all of our bank partners to manage and oversee our mutual customers. 
• Security and reliability: Our engineering and information security teams have continued to make our enterprise-level security and reliability even stronger. White-Label App helped increase security for every participant in the ecosystem and we maintained consistently high availability through significant growth.

Our prediction for 2024

We are committed to making Unit the fastest and easiest way to embed a complete suite of financial services. In 2024, you can expect us to add new features and functionality to our White-Label UIs, making it simple for our customers to enhance their product with little-to-no additional engineering investment. For the customers who want more flexibility and customization, we will release new API-based features, functionality, and integrations.

Additionally, we will continue to make Unit the best partner in the ecosystem by enhancing our White-Label UIs to create stronger connections between Unit, bank partners, customers, and end-customers. 

Our roadmap is ambitious and we’re excited to continue helping our customers accelerate their businesses with more powerful banking and lending experiences. 

If you’re looking for a simple way to add robust banking and lending to your product, sign up for sandbox now or contact us to book a demo. We can’t wait to see how you delight your customers with better financial services.