Why your next “bank” might be hiding in your favorite apps.
Imagine this.
You are an uber driver. It is 10 pm and you’ve just completed a long day through city traffic. Your gas tank is nearly empty and tomorrow’s grocery bill is approaching. In the old days, you’d have to wait until next week’s payout to see that money. But tonight? You tap a button in the uber app and bam, the cash is in your account before you’ve even taken your seatbelt off.
Illustration: created for this article
Welcome to banking without banks.
Banking… but Hiding in Plain Sight
The fancy term for what’s happening is embedded finance, slipping financial services into apps and platforms you already use every day. No clunky bank logins, no standing in queues, no “we’ll get back to you in three to five business days.”
It’s not just uber drivers getting this magic. Picture a Shopify seller in her kitchen, packaging candles for shipment. A notification pops up: “We’ve pre-approved you for a $5,000 business loan based on your recent sales.” She clicks accept, and the funds are ready to use that same afternoon
These companies aren’t banks. They don’t have marble floored branches or employees counting cash. But they’ve figured out a way to make money move faster, easier and more invisibly than most traditional banks can.
Note: Many apps/companies use this same embedded finance model. I have focused on uber and shopify here to keep the explanation simple and compact.
Uber’s Quiet Money Machine
For Uber, the story starts with solving a driver’s biggest pain: waiting.
Instant Pay :Instead of drivers twiddling their thumbs until payday, Uber lets them withdraw earnings instantly to a debit card or digital wallet.Uber Pro Card : A Mastercard powered debit card with cash back rewards on gas and other perks. It works like a mini bank account, but it lives entirely inside uber’s ecosystem.
The beauty here? Drivers stay loyal. If uber is where you drive and where you bank, leaving becomes a much harder decision.
Shopify’s Secret Weapon for Sellers
While Uber focuses on individuals, Shopify has quietly become a financial backbone for small businesses.
Shopify Payments means sellers can start accepting credit cards without a separate payment processor. Less setup, more sales.Shopify Capital gives loans or cash advances based on actual sales data. No scary bank interviews, just a quick offer that’s already tailored to your business.Shopify Balance acts like a business bank account right inside the dashboard, complete with a debit card.
For a small shop, this is game changing. It’s like your bank, payment processor and sales tracker all shook hands and decided to live in the same house.
Why This Works Without a Banking License
Here’s the clever bit: uber and shopify don’t need to become banks to pull this off. They partner with licensed financial institutions behind the scenes.
The banks handle compliance, regulations and the boring but important stuff. Uber and shopify focus on what they do best creating smooth, addictive user experiences.
The result?
Banks still exist, but they fade into the background.The app you use daily becomes your financial hub.
The Emotional Hook: Trust and Habit
Think about it: You already trust these platforms with your money in some form.
As a driver, uber already knows how much you’ve earned and where to send it.As a shopify merchant, the platform already tracks your every sale.
Because the relationship is continuous and data rich, these companies can offer financial services faster and with more context than your traditional bank, which may only see your account balance once a month.
The Future: Banking Everywhere
The Uber driver with instant pay. The Shopify seller getting same day funding. These aren’t isolated stories. They’re previews of a world where banking is everywhere, hidden in plain sight.
Soon, you might get a small loan offer inside your food delivery app or open a savings account while booking a vacation. The bank branch won’t disappear, it’ll just live quietly inside your apps, whispering instead of shouting.
Final Take
Uber and shopify are proof that the future of finance isn’t about becoming a bank it’s about making banking disappear into the background of your life.
For them, embedded finance means new revenue flows and customer loyalty. For you, it means less clicks, faster payments and services that feel like they were built just for you.
So next time you hit “cash out” on uber or accept a shopify loan in seconds, remember: you just used a bank without ever touching one.
💭 What app will be your bank in five years?
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How Uber and Shopify Are Revolutionizing Banking Without Being Banks: With Embedded Finance was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.