Opportunity
Agicap discovered through user research that people would love to pay their bills and invoices in the same place they analyze their cash flow, thereby eliminating endless back-and-forths with banking apps.
Solution
Agicap now lets users initiate payments directly from their cash flow tool. This is done using embedded bank accounts, natively integrated into Agicap’s software.
Impact
Agicap’s UX now offers a unified branding experience from a-z. Embedded finance lets them cover more cash management needs, and paves the way for even more improvements to money movement processes in the future. Agicap is now even closer to fulfilling its mission to become the #1 cash management solution for businesses.
Agicap’s real-time monitoring and forecasting functions make cash flow management easy.
In an uncertain economic environment, Agicap gives companies improved cash flow visibility to anticipate the future and helps companies make decisions based on reliable data.
Companies in sectors such as manufacturing, catering, fashion, construction, real estate, retail, and media, use Agicap’s all-in-one tool.
Here’s some of what it allows to do:
🏦 Synchronise all bank accounts in one place for a global view
📈 Reliable cash flow forecasts and analysis
🧾 Pay all invoices from 1 place (👋 this is where Swan comes in)
💶 Optimise working capital requirements
For payments, Agicap chose Swan over Open Banking— better user experience, quicker setup.
During ongoing user research, Agicap realized that isolating cash flow management from the payment of invoices was a real user pain. That’s where they first got the idea to embed banking features into their product. Maël Ezzabdi, Agicap CPO, explains:
"Businesses desire one, central solution to handle their cash flow. It’s the only way for them to have a truly global view of their financial status – providing this transparency with reliable forecasting and monitoring is our mission at Agicap. Intrinsically linked to that is payments. When should I pay? Agicap not only helps you decide when to pay but lets you automize and schedule those payments. It was only natural to embed banking so we could make this happen."
Agicap already had account aggregation features, so they were familiar with existing open banking solutions. But, when it came to using these solutions to initiate payments, they realized these PSD2 solutions still lacked maturity:
"The lack of bulk payments is a fundamental disadvantage of PSD2 solutions. Re-authentication every 90 days; that would not have lived up to the standards of our user experience. We needed to find another solution."
Initially, Agicap considered Ebics, a payment solution developed in the 80s. But they quickly realised what felt like a quick-win was too much a of a legacy solution. They needed more flexibility to build something up to standard.
"It seemed like we would have to take the long and painful road of working with a BaaS provider which to us back then meant obtaining regulation, building out a small banking team, and a project lasting 12-18 months. References from existing BaaS company partners only confirmed that gloomy outlook – we weren’t so excited."
– Maël Ezzabdi, Agicap CPO
While exploring other options, Maël was put into touch with younger BaaS company Swan, who happened to be leaving stealth. This timing proved to be fortunate for both sides. According to Maël:
"Swan’s approach was fundamentally different: no regulation needed, no setup costs or long-duration contracts, and the best APIs we had seen on the market. We couldn’t ignore it."
BaaS integration so smooth they could focus on what counts: the user
Agicap is hyper-focused on the user, and has a clear understanding of what they really want. Swift and smooth integration with Swan, meant they wouldn’t get bogged down by technicalities that and could thus keep users’ needs front of mind.
"Swan is the best actor to ideate and experiment with embedded finance. Its unique combination of regulatory setup, API quality, and business model really make it feasible for any company to integrate banking features."
With Payments enabled by Swan, Agicap’s cash management tool delivers strategic value
Cash flow is key for every business owner, to make sure they don’t run into cash deficiencies. Agicap is delivering exactly where there’s a need for every single company. Looking ahead, they plan to double down on their mission of becoming the central business solution for cash management. At Swan, we are excited to be a part of this journey and help improve Agicap’s user experience by providing many other features down the road.
Ready to embed banking services into your own product? Have a chat with our team to explore what you could build.
