Did you know that software providers have seen a 40% increase in revenue from embedding financial services into their SaaS platforms? That’s exactly what the 2023 Embedded Finance Survey reports. 

Managing finances is a crucial aspect of business management. Solutions for budgeting, payments, and revenue forecasting are therefore always in demand. With fintech integration, businesses won’t require third-party software — they can streamline their operations with an all-in-one SaaS solution.

This applies to vertical SaaS (software tailored for niches like real estate, healthcare, banking services, or restaurants) as well. While these solutions can address industry-specific needs, financial operations are vital across the board. This makes fintech integration just as essential for vertical SaaS providers.

While fintech integration can boost revenue and provide value-added services for customers, getting it up and running can be challenging. In this article, we’ll discuss the essential steps for integrating payments and fintech into your vertical SaaS offering—along with milestones that show your progress toward a fully integrated, revenue-generating platform.

Milestone 1: Seamless FinTech Integration

A key milestone in SaaS fintech integration is achieving full system compatibility and operational efficiency. You know you’ve reached this when financial technologies are fully integrated into your platform, and users experience a seamless operation without disruptions or downtime.

Not quite there yet? To ensure seamless fintech integration with your vertical SaaS application, you need a solid technical foundation. And remember that while developing a technologically sound solution is crucial, so is delivering a product that is intuitive and streamlined for end users. 

Technical integration

The first step in embedding fintech into your SaaS platform is integrating the various financial technologies properly. You must ensure all new technologies are compatible with your existing tech stack. Fully compatible systems will reduce the chances of disruptions and improve the overall user experience. 

A well-planned and executed integration with appropriate testing prevents services from going offline during and after rollout. The need for adequate testing and risk mitigation plans cannot be emphasized enough. Any issues in platform functionality should be caught and fixed during the testing stage to prevent them from going live and hampering the fintech integration rollout.

User experience

As far as the user experience is concerned, the aim should be to make financial transactions (e.g., credit card or digital wallet payment processing, mobile banking, open banking, etc.) as frictionless as possible. So, how do you ensure this? Beta testing. 

Gather as much feedback as possible from your beta testers and initial users. This will help improve the tool and help us understand the customer experience. With this feedback, you can refine your tool so that it is near perfect by full-scale launch. 

Milestone 2: Compliance and Security Measures in Place

You could have the latest, most sophisticated tech in your platform with excellent user experience but adoption rates will be near zero if it isn’t compliant with the necessary regulations.

That's why it’s important to implement rigorous compliance checks and obtain relevant certifications. You know you’ve hit this milestone when your platform is certified by key regulatory bodies, and customer trust in your compliance standards is high. 

With that said, compliance is just the beginning—ongoing security and regular efforts are essential to maintaining your reputation and avoiding costly fines.

Regulatory compliance

Financial services and software are governed by strict regulations that you must adhere to when you offer an integrated SaaS platform. 

Every financial services provider across the country needs to follow Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) guidelines. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is another well-known set of regulations that apply to fintech companies operating in the European Union. There are other state and financial institution-related guidelines that you must also comply with. 

Possessing the right certifications will signal to new customers that your platform meets the highest standards of regulatory compliance — which is always good for boosting acceptance rates.

Security Protocols

Apart from following the necessary regulations and guidelines, you must have robust security protocols in place, internally, to safeguard sensitive customer and financial data. Secure access controls, advanced data encryption, tokenization, artificial intelligence, and regular assessments need to be included in your security protocols. 

Protecting customer and financial information and fraud detection should be your top priorities to prevent data leaks or security breaches, thereby saving you a lot of trouble. Try to automate the process as real-time monitoring can identify risks and threats early on before they wreak havoc. 

Milestone 3: Customer Adoption and Engagement

Once your fintech solutions have been integrated and tested, it’s time to start working on boosting customer adoption. Reaching this fintech milestone means achieving a critical mass of engaged users who regularly utilize your fintech features. 

It typically involves the following.

Initial customer onboarding

In the testing phase, the valuable feedback from your beta testers will give you ideas to improve your SaaS platform. Vertical SaaS tools have particular uses, so you should ensure that your beta testers and initial users are aware of them. 

Next, you need to convey the advantages of your platform to users. Create an onboarding process that’s simple and easy to understand. Make sure that instructions are clear and customer support is comprehensive. 

Don’t forget to include tool demonstrations for your customers. End users need to understand platform functionalities easily and you must provide continuous support during onboarding. 

By achieving initial user adoption goals, you’ll be able to set the tone for your future growth and engagement goals. So, take extra care during the initial customer onboarding phase to ensure effective onboarding.

Customer feedback and satisfaction

After the initial onboarding phase, you’ll receive even more feedback from customers. The key is to gather and analyze all this feedback and implement changes and refinements to your platform. 

During this stage, you will also be able to understand better how customers feel about your platform and the level of customer satisfaction. If customer satisfaction is low, you can expect high customer churn in the long term. 

So use this time before a full-scale launch to enhance your vertical SaaS platform. Improving the platform should be an iterative process based on customer feedback to ensure the continued success of your fintech integration.

Milestone 4: Revenue Growth and Profitability

With seamless integration and initial customer onboarding completed, the next milestone is experiencing revenue growth.

Revenue benchmarks

Compare your revenue with the benchmarks you had set earlier to check how well your platform is doing. Meeting or exceeding initial revenue projections from payment services is a strong indicator of success. If this is not the case, you’ll have to dive deep and identify problem areas. 

Here are a few metrics you must track — transaction volume, average transaction value, and revenue per customer. Tracking these will give you a good overall picture of how your SaaS platform is performing and identify future areas of expansion.

Cost management

A good way to increase profits is to manage costs. This is something many companies tend to overlook. 

Apart from tracking growth metrics, you must track costs related to your operations and software development. Keep an eye on transaction fees and costs related to compliance and security maintenance.

Check where your costs are exceeding expectations and identify better, more cost-effective alternatives. Balancing revenue generation with cost control will help you achieve your business goals in the long run.

Milestone 5: Scaling and Expanding Services

Meeting your revenue goals from the initial set of fintech integrations is a huge milestone to reach. Once your company has done that, you can think about introducing new financial products. 

Introducing new financial products

As an example, if you’ve started with payment integration, you can think about rolling out services for loans and cash advances. The fintech SaaS market is projected to cross $940 billion by the year 2028 so don’t think about slowing down your fintech SaaS expansion goals. 

SaaS allows for adaptable, customizable, and resilient services which every modern company needs. In fact, in 2023, more than half of all fintech deals involved B2B SaaS solutions.

Geographic or market expansion

With new products come new markets. When you’ve built a wide range of fintech products that can be integrated into your vertical SaaS platform, it’s time to expand into new regions. 

To reach this milestone, you’ll have to deal with new regulatory and operational challenges. You might also need to adapt your services to match customer requirements in this new market. Expanding into new markets will take your business to new heights; careful planning and mindful execution will help you navigate this complex stage.

Milestone 6: Strong Partnerships and Ecosystem Integration

Having well-developed and strong partnerships with the broader fintech ecosystem is another essential milestone. Here’s what that entails.

Building strategic partnerships

For subscription-based services such as SaaS offerings, creating and maintaining partnerships is crucial. Partnerships with payment providers and fintech providers will give you access to new technologies, additional APIs, and better quality of service. 

Integration with the broader ecosystem

Even if you start off with a few fintech integrations on your SaaS platform, you can add more financial features to expand your overall list of offerings. Think about all the features that you can add to create a comprehensive financial ecosystem. Adding complementary services will make your platform more attractive to users, enhancing its overall functionality. 

Milestone 7: Continuous Innovation and Adaptation

Innovation and adaptation will help your business stay ahead of the curve and compete in a crowded marketplace. Reaching this milestone means your platform consistently evolves with industry trends, staying relevant and ahead of competitors.

Staying ahead of industry trends

Invest in R&D to keep your payment and financial services up-to-date with finance industry trends. Regular updates and enhancements will ensure your offerings stay competitive.

Adapting to customer needs and market changes

You must respond swiftly to customer feedback and market shifts. Maintain agility to adjust and expand your services as needed to meet evolving demands and opportunities.

Final Words

Achieving the milestones mentioned above is crucial for flourishing in the vertical SaaS industry. Another benefit of tracking these milestones is understanding your progress in the fintech space and expanding your integrated fintech services. 

Learn how Preczn can assist you in reaching your goals and driving success.