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Leaders In Payments
Leaders In Payments
Embedded Finance Special Series: Embedded Payments That Work with Conn Byrne, Payroc | Episode 514
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This episode is part of our Embedded Finance Podcast Series, exploring the strategies, opportunities and challenges shaping the future of embedded finance. The series is leading up to Embedify ’26, the Embedded Finance Summit for vertical SaaS leaders, taking place October 13 in Lehi, Utah. To learn more visit embedify2026.com.
In this episode I sat down with Conn Byrne, Executive Director of Integrated Payments at Payroc, to get practical about what embedded payments and embedded finance really mean for vertical SaaS leaders who want to scale without burning engineering time.
We dig into Conn’s three-part framework for making embedded finance work in the real world: the cardholder and merchant experience (where retention is won or lost), the developer experience (how fast your team can integrate and customize), and the partnership experience (what happens after launch when something breaks, priorities shift, or you need roadmap clarity). Along the way, we talk about what’s driving demand right now, from private equity expectations to the explosion of AI-built software platforms that can enter a vertical overnight.
We also map the natural product path after embedded payments: lending built on payment data, banking capabilities that improve funding speed and reduce fees, and add-ons like payroll that can turn your platform into a true operating system for your customers. If you’re evaluating an integrated payments partner, planning a migration, or trying to decide how far to go beyond payments, this conversation gives you a grounded checklist and a longer-term view.
And a special thanks to Payroc for being a supporting sponsor at the summit this year.
Welcome And Embedify Preview
SPEAKER_00Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast. I'm your host, Greg Myers. And as many of you know, embedded finance has quickly become one of the most important conversations in payments in FinTech. More vertical software companies are looking beyond their core platforms and exploring how payments and other financial products can create new revenue, strengthen customer relationships, and deliver a more seamless experience. It is also the focus of Embedify, the Embedded Finance Summit. I'm hosting on October 13th in Lehigh, Utah, where Vertical SaaS leaders, technology providers, and industry experts will come together to discuss how embedded finance is being built and deployed in the real world. We'll be talking not only about payments, but also lending, banking, insurance, accounting, and payroll. You can learn more at Embedify2026.com. As we lead up to the event, I'm talking with industry leaders who are helping software companies navigate the embedded finance opportunity. My first guest is Con Byrne, the Executive Director of Integrated Payments at Payrock. Con, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Greg. It's great to be back. Thanks, Million, for having me.
Conn Byrne’s Path Into Payments
SPEAKER_00Before we get into the embedded finance conversation, give us a brief overview of your career and maybe how you found your way into payments.
SPEAKER_01It's an interesting story, I suppose, and maybe not so different to a lot of others in the industry. I came into it through family, funnily enough. So my father was a founder of WorldNet Gateway, which ultimately was acquired by Payrock. I was fortunate enough that that gave me an angle into payments. I was always around payments. I remember a lot of interesting perks of my dad working with some of the card brands, soccer games, sports events, and all the rest of it. I was fortunate enough to get that. And then yeah, once my dad brought me into the company, that gave me an opportunity to come put my own roots down and make my own mark on the industry. So almost 15 years later, still here. It's been a great journey. Grateful that I got the opportunity to do it and just love being in the space 15 years later.
SPEAKER_00For anyone that may not be familiar with Payrock, can you give us a brief overview of the company, maybe the customers you serve and where Payrock fits into the payments industry?
SPEAKER_01I think a lot of people still see Payrock as an ISO agent shop. And that is true. That is the core of our business, or it has been the core of our business. But over the last five plus years, there's been a very determined and aggressive effort to help PayRock transition into being a fintech rather than just an ISO agent shop. That's been done through acquisition. We've added a lot of really good people over that period, as well as building out a ton of nice technology as well. So I think if you look at Payrock right now, we still serve that ISONEAGEN channel as our base, but I think over the last few years, we've seen a transition into a more ISONE agent focused business into an embedded or integrated payments first
Defining Embedded Finance Experiences
SPEAKER_01platform.
SPEAKER_00So when we kind of zoom out and you hear the term embedded finance, what does that mean to you today?
SPEAKER_01Again, it's about the experience. And then within that experience, there's going to be multiple stakeholders. If we look at the merchant or the cardholder experience, the SaaS platform can build the most attractive experience. It could be the best EV charger with the fastest speeds, and it could be in every single location across the country. But if somebody pulls up to charge their car and that payments piece doesn't work, the whole experience falls down. So I think when we look at cardholder experience, it's something people often don't think about, but it can be a vital component and ultimately it could be the piece that makes somebody not come back to that service or solution again. The next piece then, and I suppose when we speak to embedded payments, this is one of the big components, it's the developer experience. So how easy is it for the developer within any software platform or within any SaaS firm to actually integrate a certain platform or certain tools within a platform to their solution. And then ultimately, how can they make that experience or how can they make those flows part of their own experience and customize them to deliver that end customer or cardholder experience? And then the last piece, and this is something that it's not always easy for a SaaS company to determine this last piece until they're actually working with a partner. And that's why it's one of the most difficult pieces. But at Pay Rocket's one we focus on. It's the overall partnership experience. So how does the company that you're working with, how do they help you as a partner? Is there collaborative marketing efforts? If something goes wrong, are they there? Can you speak to the right people? Can you get decisions made quickly? Do they show you the roadmap? Do they say, hey, look, we understand this is where you are today, this is where we are, and this is where we expect we're going to be over the next few years? I think that transparency, that willing to partner, having dedicated people, having names you can go to, whether that's in a time of need or just to pick somebody's brain, I think that partner experience is key. So I think for me, they're ultimately the three components for embedded.
Why SaaS Wants To Own Money
SPEAKER_00What do you think is driving this increased interest from the vertical SaaS companies in owning more of this financial experience that you're talking about?
SPEAKER_01I'd love to just say it's not money, but ultimately it probably is, it probably is money that drives it. But there's reasons for that. So if you look across SaaS verticals, you're going to see a lot of these where private equity has really picked up in the last few years. And if a private equity firm acquires or invests in a SaaS company, one of the biggest things they're going to want to see is okay, how quickly can I make a return on my investment? Looking at somebody that has either an existing book of payments that they can monetize or even better, potentially a customer base that they aren't monetizing, that's probably one of the quickest ways for a PE firm to start turning over and making money on their investment. I think one of the other parts, and again, this is more if you look at it from a developer non-revenue focused side of things, if I'm a passionate technologist and I build a software platform, I want to own and I want to control as much of the experience as I possibly can. So outside the revenue, if I can actually work with a platform that allows me to control everything, it allows me to control the experience, allows me to customize or white label, that allows me to deliver on that vision or on that dream that I have as a technologist. That's really a big piece of embedded payments.
Why Payments Comes First
SPEAKER_00Why do you think embedded payments tends to always be the first financial product that these software companies add?
SPEAKER_01It's probably the least daunting, I would think, because both the people designing and building these SaaS companies or scaling SaaS companies and their end customers, they use embedded payments or integrated payments on a daily basis throughout their life, whether that's at their phone, at a point of sale, like my kiosk. I think it's one of the embedded finance tools that people are just most familiar with. There's also a ton of different options and it's really mature space. So it's very easy, especially with AI, to throw in your hopes and dreams and then it will come back with a few partners that make sense. And then once you get in there, again, it goes back to that developer experience. Most modern platforms like ours, we aim to make it as easy as possible to actually integrate and get you up and running as quickly as possible. That can be now in days instead of hours and weeks. So again, I think that's it. And then also with software companies, it's expensive. So it's expensive to build a platform, it's expensive to maintain a platform. If you can integrate payments quickly and start to monetize from day one, that means you've got some revenue coming in. It also allows you maybe to undercut. So if you have SaaS fees, you do not charge those SaaS fees. You know you're going to make up the rest on the payments processing side. And again, it becomes that valuable revenue stream pretty quick.
SPEAKER_00I've read research, I'm sure you have as well, that 75-80% of vertical SaaS companies have already embedded payments in some way, shape, or
Signals You’re Ready To Embed
SPEAKER_00form. So that still leaves a big segment of the market that hasn't. So what signals tell a software company that they're ready to embed payments?
SPEAKER_01It's a really good question. And maybe I'm a bit biased, but my feeling is if you have payments volume or if you have volume that could be payments volume, or if you have a client base that could allow you to monetize payments, any of those people should be integrating payments as soon as possible. And again, I think embedded payments or integrated payments, at this stage, there's so many different flavors to that. A simple referral integration. So you integrate your fur leads across to your partner. You don't need to become a payments expert to do that, and you can start generating revenue straight away. So I think for me it really is something where no matter what stage of the business you're at, whether you're a startup or you've been doing this for 15 years and just haven't done it yet, I would honestly think that everybody should be looking at this. And if it was me, it would take a very, very good reason to not look at integrated payments or embedded payments of some flavor.
SPEAKER_00So I know you're out there having conversations every day with these vertical SaaS companies.
Building Strategy And Picking Partners
SPEAKER_00Can you walk us through how a software company's payment strategy typically evolves over time?
SPEAKER_01It's one of these things where sometimes people can overthink it and they may try to get too aggressive from the start and take on too much. And again, that becomes the juice is not worth the squeeze. I think for me, the most successful integrated partners that we see, these are the ones that really think about it and they actually plan for the future. So whether they're a small startup that's looking five years ahead, it's kind of a growth phase ISV that's got some kind of experience and they're really looking to nail it over the next few years. The most successful partners are the ones that look at where they're at, they look at where their customers are at, and they try to plan for the future and they try to build with the partner that will be able to help them as they expand.
SPEAKER_00What do you think that vertical SaaS companies should look for in an embedded payments partner? I know you mentioned that as one of the three important things is kind of who and how you partner. So, what should they be looking for in a good embedded payments partner?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think going back to some of those things, it's the overall experience to actually integrate with the platform, but it's also that partnership approach and transparency. So I just mentioned there that the most successful partners are the ones that understand where they are at today, where they need to go, and also where their payments partners and any fintech partner, honestly, where they are today and what their roadmap looks like. So trying to think beyond, oh wow, these guys promised me a rate that looks absolutely amazing. That's not the be-all and end all. Rates are important. If you're trying to monetize, that's that's great. But you do need to think about those other components. And again, not just for today. Don't get short-sighted by, okay, I just need this today. You need to think about what you need today, but ultimately it's what you need in the next two, three years and how a partner can actually meet those needs. That's what actually makes an integrated payments or an embedded payments process an effective and successful.
SPEAKER_00I'm going to use an analogy here, it might be a bad one, but let's say the vertical SAS company and the software partner, they have this marriage, they're now together, the integration has happened, the marriage has happened. What makes that relationship strong after the integration is already complete?
SPEAKER_01I think what makes it strongest is that it's still there after. So if you integrate a platform, the partner you work with is they're all over you through that initial process, they meet your needs. Maybe the developer experience is great, the whole go-to-market is great. But if that's it, if they leave you to your own devices with their platform and let you go and just do whatever it is in terms of your strategy, I think that's kind of a pain point that we see from some of the integrated partners we work with. It's one of these things where it's actually bearable for quite a while, but it gets to a point there where you actually need something specific from a partner and they're either non-existent or you're not even a blip on their radar. I think having a partner that understands your needs and understands really the verticals that you're operating in. And again, that's something we spend a lot of time focusing on, the verticals where our platform makes sense and where we can actually cater to partners. So understanding am I the only player in this space? Are my needs completely different to this payments partner? As their roadmap changes, as their solution set changes, does it suit me? All of these things are going to lead to a more successful partnership. And I think one of the things that Payrock really focuses on, and this is across our ISO channel, our agent channel, direct channels, integrated channels, that partnership piece. I just can't state enough. The amount of times we've had partners where they just say, you don't know how good it is to be able to speak to somebody at the end of the phone when I need you. That human touch, that access to humans when needed. We don't think you always need to speak to a human. Most people don't want to speak to a human. That's what COVID taught us. But if you do need a human, there is a human there. You know who that person is and you can reach out to them as an escalation point or just in your general day-to-day. They're the key things for me, honestly, Greg.
SPEAKER_00We've been talking about the ecosystem at a larger kind
Where Payrock Fits For SaaS
SPEAKER_00of view. Let's dive into what PayRock does specifically. So, where does payrock fit within the embedded payments ecosystem specifically as we think about vertical SaaS?
SPEAKER_01So I think for vertical SaaS, it's something that we really specialize in and it's something that we've absolutely targeted over the last few years. So we tend to match our solutions with certain verticals where we know we can be successful and where we know that the tooling that we have and the systems we have can be effective. And then once we've kind of proven a model, we'll tend to look at complementary verticals and kind of move that way. So I think by doing that, it allows us to just be really focused in terms of building out the platform and making sure that we're meeting the needs of our partners. It's not to say that you can't just come to PayRock from some random vertical we don't specialize in, but I think the deeper we go into these very focused verticals from better payments, the more the platform grows and tends to have knock on for others. I think specifically in terms of where we win or where we see ourselves being strongest, we do have solutions that cater towards kind of smaller startup software platforms or platforms where we're seeing a lot of AI developed tools that are coming to the market at crazy, crazy speeds. We've got solutions that can cater towards that. We've got a developer experience that is going to be fully automated and cater towards those partners and allow them to get through the process really quickly. But I think where we actually really focus and where we add the most benefit, it's those guys that are established, they've got an existing customer book, they may have outgrown the partner they're with today, or they may just be looking for a more flexible partnership structure or monetization structure. Those guys that are looking to take advantage of what they have today and then grow into the future. Maybe they've taken on a funding round and they're getting ready for some massive growth and they want to restructure, make sure they've a partner that they can kind of set and forget for the next few years. That's really where we're going to be stronger. So we've got a lot of solutions for very complex partners. My engineers hate when I say this, but the more complex a partner, the more suitable payrock platform can be. And in some cases, I think we've got kind of different solution sets or different packages that we can offer to partners of all shapes and sizes. But I think the more advanced our platform gets, the further up market we're going. And honestly, I think the better we are able to cater towards those kind of mid-tier and growing partners.
SPEAKER_00Well, once one of these software companies has successfully embedded payments and define that how you want is successfully, but once they've embedded payments, what do you think are the next financial products that are sort of that natural next
After Payments Lending And Banking
SPEAKER_00product?
SPEAKER_01I told you just before I got onto this, I was on a budget call, so I can define what a success looks like to my boss anyway. I think honestly, from a payment standpoint, once you go past payments, I think the most logical next step that we're seeing, and again, it's something we will be supporting, lending seems to go hand in hand. The fact that if you were to work through payrock and payrock capital, we have access to the data for the merchants that have been boarded by a SaaS platform. So the ability for us to analyze that data and go, well, actually, yeah, you know what? 60% of your customer base could actually get a loan, and that loan could help them. Maybe it's buy more POS to expand their offering, or maybe it's more inventory, or maybe it's another location, whatever it may be. Because payment companies naturally have access to that data within their platform, lending is just that natural next step. And it takes out a lot of complexity if the provider has access to the information. You're not going out to a bank and trying to prove your case as to who you are. So I think lending for me is the one that we see as an obvious next step. And then once you get into the lending space, you're probably looking at that whole banking ecosystem. So you're talking about checking accounts, debit accounts, the ability to kind of route funding from Payrock Merchant Account, for example, to a payrock bank account and do that quicker with lower fees. So again, once you're in there, there's just a whole host of things that can kind of tack on. I think our goal and where we are right now with the first phases of our payrock capital program, we're pushing out the lending, we're going to push out some of the banking, and then it's also going to go into things like payroll and some of those add-on services. So for a POS provider, very quickly our ecosystem kind of takes a lot of those boxes, like I mentioned earlier, about scaling and future proofing. If you can see that a partner not only does the embedded payment speech really well, not only looks after you as a partner, but they can actually help you provide other services through one single point of contact to your own customer base, that's just hugely valuable. So that's where we're seeing it. Others in the market are doing it very similar. And so again, I'd expect that's what we're gonna see over the next couple of years.
What Separates Winners From Strugglers
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, what do you think will separate when we'll call them embedded finance winners from those that struggle over the next few years?
SPEAKER_01It's a good question. I think there's probably a couple of answers to this. I mentioned earlier that we're seeing a huge influx of AI developed software platforms. So I think just naturally with that, there's gonna be some winners and there's gonna be people that win really big because they can build a platform that competes with the monsters in any given vertical overnight, almost it feels like. And then there's gonna be losers. There's gonna be platforms where they get built, they look really good, they do all that's needed, but they just don't have that kind of expansion past a handful of locations or merchants. So we're gonna see a hell of a lot of that around the AI space. Outside of that, I don't want to keep getting back to it, but if you pick a partner that does not do what you need and you build a strategy around it, especially for kind of a scaling or a growing uh software platform, every hour or every minute that your engineering team spends on a payments setup or on a payments integration, that's time they're not spending on your software, they're not spending on your customers. So the cost of actually integrating and kind of putting your eggs in the basket of one partner and that partnership being wrong, that could be a make or break. That could really be the success or failure of a software platform. So again, those partners or those embedded platforms that can kind of set back, they can see very strategically where they want to be, and then they can pick the partner or partners, like there's lots of cases where you need multiple, pick those partners that help them grow and get them to the right position. They will, in my opinion, be the ones that are most successful.
Future Proofing And Final Takeaways
SPEAKER_00One final question before we wrap up the show. So, Con, as we look ahead to Embedify coming up in a couple of months, what is the one thing that you would want Vertical SAS leaders to understand about embedded payments and take away from this conversation we've had?
SPEAKER_01First up, Greg, we're delighted to be part of Embedify. We're really looking forward to that later on this year. It's probably going to be something similar to what I've said already, but don't underestimate the power that an embedded payments platform can make and the difference it can make. Like I said earlier with that EV charging example, you could have the most attractive looking EV charger, it could be the fastest charger on the market, you could have locations all over the country. But if the actual merchant experience or the cardholder experience does not live up to that, and if the payments experience in this case doesn't live up to that, you're not going to get repeat customers and your business is potentially going to fail because of it. So I think future-proofing, not underestimating embedded payments, how vital that can be, genuinely picking the right partner and making sure that you're really giving that partnership conversation the credit and time it deserves. That really is the biggest thing to me. And again, that stands for not just payments, any embedded fintech capabilities. It has to be where you need to be in three years, five years time, not just where you are today.
SPEAKER_00Okay, great. Khan, that's a great way to wrap up the show. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate your time. I know it's very valuable. So again, thank you so much for being on the show today.
SPEAKER_01No, great talking to you as always, Greg. Really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00And to learn more about Embedify and to register to attend the event, visit Embedify2026.com.