Episode 6: James Armijo, CEO of Inktavo

Greg Myers: Hi, James, and welcome to this episode of the Leaders in Payments Podcast where we’re going to be doing a deep dive on embedded finance. So welcome to the show.

James Armijo: Thanks for having me, Greg.

Greg Myers: Absolutely. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about your current role at Inktavo? And a little personal and career background about how you got there?

James Armijo: Yeah, absolutely. So, I am CEO at Inktavo. I’ve been with the company a little over a year now, prior to this, I worked in a number of roles. I actually started my career in finance pivoted out of finance, when I realized that spending 16 hours a day in a spreadsheet probably wasn’t going to be the thing that brought me a lot of career satisfaction. So spun out of that role and went down a career path that was focused largely on marketing, sales and customer success at a variety of SaaS businesses that served primarily small business customers. So early in my early days, I was at a company called Eight by Eight, which provided hosted phone solutions to small businesses then was a company called Carrier which provided software to doctors’ offices, then to a company called PatientPop, which had a similar business model to carry out and then on to a company called SmartCare, which provided software to daycare centers, and of course, now Inktavo, and along the way I got exposed to payments. So I’ve kind of seen the transition over the last 15 years of how embedded payments works at a variety of different SaaS businesses serving a variety of different end customers and had the opportunity to come to Inktava which serves apparel decorators of small businesses, using a SaaS solution to make their businesses better. Very much in line with things that I’ve done in the past and feel very passionate about. It also has an embedded payments opportunity. And so, it was very excited to have the opportunity to join the company.

Greg Myers: Okay, well, let’s talk about the company a little more. So tell us exactly what Inktavo does.

James Armijo: Yeah, absolutely. Our main customer are what we call apparel decorators, oftentimes called screen printers. These are businesses that serve generally the other small businesses and community organizations and their community like churches and schools. And they provide decorated apparel, which, to a large extent means t-shirts with something on that t-shirt. So, you take a blank t-shirt, you put an image on it, it is obviously more expansive than that, and includes a variety of types of apparel and other goods. And of course, the way in which you do that decoration can be embroidery, can be printing, there’s a whole variety of technologies, but at the core that’s the customers that we serve. Our goal is to be the all in one software solution for those customers. So, they have some unique needs, that are unique to the industry, that software is best able to solve, that includes being able to come up with designs for all those images that their customers want, creating web stores that allow them to sell products on behalf of their customers in ways that are very unique to how the industry works. And then ultimately to track those orders through the production process. So, scheduling them on pieces of equipment, getting them put in boxes, getting them shipped, or delivered to the right location. And we serve all three of those verticals with our integrated software solution.

Greg Myers: Okay, and what would you say differentiates you in the marketplace today?

James Armijo: Yeah, absolutely. We, if you look at our industry, say two years ago, what you would have seen if you remember, I described those kind of three vertical solutions that all of our customers need, you would have seen were companies that were really good at one of the three but not at all three, our vision was to become the all in one platform. And we did that by merging Inktavo and Inksoft. And graphics flow into a single organization, each one of them specialized in one of those three things. So, we are now differentiated insofar as we are the all in one platform, we have all the features that the customer might need. But I think what’s also really great about our story is that we’ve stayed very true to our understanding of who our customers are. And the founder led focus that all three of those companies had. So, all of our founders are still part of the business, still very much involved in how we do product development, customer outreach, and education. And we’ve built on that by also building a really strong thought leadership program. So not only do we provide you this all in one software solution that’s unique to your needs. But we’re also going to help you, as a customer understand other aspects of the business outside of just our individual software application that will help you be a more successful business owner.

Greg Myers: Okay, just curious. And it may have been a little before your time, but how did the pandemic I mean, was that good for the industry, bad for the industry or really saw no effect?

James Armijo: Yeah, it’s interesting in that, I think, on that it was good. It definitely had an effect, though. What happened was, so if you think about our industry kind of diving just a little bit deeper, there are a number of core purchasing workflows that exist one of them and one of the most common is around schools and athletic education or education in athletic programs. And then the old days, you know, think I’ll use a very basic example kids going to be on the football team. You know, he’s a freshman and so the summer between the eighth grade and freshman year gets an order form and it says, Okay, you gotta buy all this stuff for football. And oh, by the way, do you also want to buy some sweatshirts from the booster program and maybe, you know, send Grandma a t-shirt to all you’d have this paper order for him, he’d go home. Well during COVID, that that no longer existed. And so, there’s this massive disruption to figure out how to digitize all of those types of purchasing. And that was generally pretty good for the industry. Now, the downside was all of the production workflows were built around getting those paper order forms in, right. And now you’ve got digital orders coming in, in a variety of different ways. And you also have different fulfillment methodology. So, in the past, we’d have a big pep rally and all the boxes of all the stuff that people ordered over the summer, we get delivered, and people will pick them up. But now we got to figure out how to ship them. And that also just created a lot more complexity. So now you have an online order form. And maybe in the old days, if you just came home with a paper order form, you didn’t buy grandma t-shirt. But now if there’s an online form, and you send it to grandma, and grandpa definitely wants a t-shirt with your grandson’s picture and as you know, football jerseys on it. So now she’s gonna buy it. But now that means grandma’s definitely not going to pick it up at the pep rally, even though the pep rally has come back. So now you have to ship something out to grandma. And so, it created this just, you know, much more complex, I sort of joke, we went from playing checkers, chess and as an industry. Overall, I think that’s good. But of course, in the short run, that creates a lot of angst and challenges and in transition and kind of growth challenges for for many of our customers and for our software platform as well.

Greg Myers: Yeah. It’s interesting, you don’t think about that industry as beings so challenging or so complex, but you just explained it very well, it certainly can be sure. So, we’re going to talk a little bit about embedded payments and embedded finance, which you know, just for the audience, embedded finance, meaning broader than just embedded payments obviously, a huge part of what software companies are doing and have been doing for several years now. So maybe start if you don’t mind, let’s talk about the embedded payments part, because as you mentioned you’ve done that a few times in your career. So maybe talk about that, I think Inktavo first, and then we’ll jump to maybe the bigger picture. So, what does Inktavo do around embedded payments?

James Armijo: Sure. So today, we offer embedded payments in a variety of different touch points. But if you think about our core offering, as I mentioned, one of the things we do is we stand up all of these ecommerce solutions, our customers use our platform to create a variety of ecommerce solutions for their customers. And so embedded in all of those workflows are of course transactions that happen and we capture those. And so that happens, the other primary workflow around payments is we do have a lot of business-to-business transactions. So very simple example, the local restaurant needs to buy uniforms for all of their employees, they go to one of our customers, that transaction typically happens via an electronic invoice. And there’s a different payment workflow that’s built around that. So, all of those workflows, we’re supporting the embedded payments component, as those transactions are happening over time.

Greg Myers: Okay, and I’m assuming you’re monetizing those transactions.

James Armijo: Yeah, absolutely. I think back to my Cario experience, we were an ISO, SmartCare, we were a payfac, I’ve seen all the different models. And of course, they have morphed over time, we’ve gotten to a point where, my perspective on embedded payments, specifically maybe as a subset within embedded finance, and I think you did a great job of differentiating what those two mean, even though sometimes they get a little confused. What I think of embedded payments, I think of it a lot is like, the utility coming into your house, you know, our customers don’t, if I think about my house, I just want to turn on the light switch and have the lights come on, I really don’t want to know what turbine is being used and what gauge wire is on the transmission and all these other things, right? I need somebody else to kind of handle that for me. And I think customers think about payments in very much the same way. Now, what’s key is that it should be cost effective, and it should be really easy to use. And so, what we’re really focusing on is what is our customers experience payments, can they get a merchant account up and running quickly without having to leave the platform and go fill out a bunch of unnecessary paperwork, once they get that merchant account provisioned are their customer is able to use all the different payment methods that they might want to use. And once they receive a payment is that reconciliation, remittance process, really straightforward, easy to reconcile to their accounting system to their bank account. And so that’s the focus that we’ve really taken. And then behind the scenes, we have a great network of partners that are fulfilling a lot, some of which we do in house and much which we do through partners to make sure that that customer experience is as positive as it can be.

Greg Myers: And I think where this has headed with a lot of software companies, payments seem to be first for whatever reason, maybe because it’s almost to your point of utility companies have to have it. But beyond that, it seems like software companies have so much data on their customers and their customers customers that then creating other financial products is starting to make more sense. So, things like checking accounts and insurance and lending. So maybe let’s step up a level to the embedded finance, like, how do you view embedded finance in your world?

James Armijo: Yeah, great question. You know, I would say it was interesting. A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go to a CEO conference for our investor group, and probably about 70 other businesses there. And we all have, we’re all software companies generally all do payments, but we all serve a variety of different needs. And so, you know, we were sort of talking to similar question. And the observation I had, which probably isn’t unique to me, but it certainly was obvious. Talking to some peers of this group was that there are there is this large menu, right, it’s a buffet of options you can have around embedded finance. And ultimately, companies, I think, that are most successful, figure out what is relevant to their customers in their industry. And so, if I think about our industry, specifically, the the core workflow that our customers do is they buy equipment, they buy blank goods, so in our industry, that means blank t-shirts, and ink and all the other things that go into making a decorative shirt. And they have to pay for labor. And three, these three things have to come together before really in many cases, they’re even collecting revenue or the majority of their revenue. But their biggest one time expense is really usually around equipment. And so, for us, lending is incredibly important. And I’m no macroeconomic or banking industry expert, I’m sure everybody hears the same headlines I do. What I know is that it’s very hard for small businesses to get capital these days. And because we have data because we know they have a reliable source of income, we’ve been able to provide embedded lending as part of our platform. And we’ve seen a very strong uptake among our customers who need access to capital who have real business opportunities, right, if they can go buy another t-shirt press, they’re able to produce more t-shirts, and they have the demand. But because the banking system is what it is, or because they don’t have access to data, or all the other barriers to traditional bank lending, that is that that’s not an available source of credit to them. Ours is and they’re using it to great effect that we see this anecdotally and across, you know, sort of in data across the board that people are using lending. You know, on the other hand, I’ve talked to other CEOs and other industries where insurance is a is a big issue, right? Like construction is one of these industries that comes to mind. And so having the ability to have an embedded insurance product is really important. In our industry, there’s not a lot of risk in producing a t-shirt so insurance isn’t nearly as important. And it’s not you know, as focal is it could be maybe in other places. But yeah, I think all of those options are interesting, and really solving the needs of your customers is what’s most important.

Greg Myers: So, you’ve already embedded a lending product into your platform correct?

James Armijo: So lending is outside of payments is our largest kind of embedded finance solution. As I mentioned, I started talking, we don’t really see insurance as being a big need, most of our customers have easy access to they need limited insurance anyway. And they have easy access to it through existing markets. So, I’m not sure that we would add a tremendous amount of value there. We haven’t really gone down the path of integrated checking either. And the main reason I would say is that, again, most of our customers have access to a local bank that will provide a checking account, or do they really run into problems as around the credit and lending component of the business? It may be something we do because it does facilitate a lot of these transactions if you have banking as sort of an integrated process. But it isn’t necessarily a massive, massive pain point, if you will, for our existing customers today.

Greg Myers: Okay, you’ve done payments, you’ve done lending, and you mentioned the banking part, do you kind of have a roadmap and you don’t have to share what it is, but is, is embedded finance something that kind of keeps you up at night? And you think strategically about it a lot?

James Armijo
Yeah, I do. Because I think that they’re, you know, it’s interesting, I sort of see the evolution, both from my historical career experience, but also, you know, vantage point of thinking about the business going forward, is going through three big phases. And phase one was payments. So, and I think that’s why payments and finance get confused, often or used incorrectly. But synonymously. We’re, that’s to your point that’s behind us. Everybody knows they should do payments, and there’s a variety of options. Phase two was sort of like let’s do the basic, I would consider what are the things that a banking branch should do, but because maybe banks aren’t technologically advanced, or because you need data to make better decisions and things don’t have access to that data, that software companies would be better off checking, credit cards, lending insurance, I think all fall in that category. And we’re still very much in that sort of phase two category. And I you know as I just mentioned, I don’t think the adoption will be universal. It’ll be customer specific, but those will get implemented in There are solutions that are out there. I do think, though, that there’s this kind of interesting, phase three that’s on the horizon. And this is the one that keeps me up at night. But more so in the context of being exciting than being scary, where there are a number of other solutions that are, that feel a lot like embedded finance, the one that’s most obvious in our industry, and again, I think it’ll be very much industry specific, is payroll. So, our customers tend to employ an hourly workforce that have fluctuations in the number of hours that are worked. So, they come in, they have the big back to school football order, okay, great, we’re working too much overtime. But you know, maybe there’s a slow time. And the hours aren’t, you know, there aren’t as many hours being worked during that time period. And what we see is their ability to attract labor is really critical. And I look at what’s happening in some of the payroll companies that we’re doing embedded finance things, and it’s really interesting, they’re their payroll companies that are offering the ability to do off cycle payrolls, right employees could get paid every day or to get paid a the equivalent of a payday advance loan through a payroll, much more attractive way rates than you would get in a traditional payday lending facility. And so, you know, certainly our customers aren’t the only software users in the world that have employees, I do think that that whole area around payroll is going to be a really interesting one that probably gets engulfed into the embedded finance world in the future. And then likewise, you know, there’s been a sort of a standalone around AP and AR, and they obviously, you’re very successful, build great companies that kind of focus on our platform. But that is also something that I think how you factor those receivables, how you timeout those payments, is really, really critical, and will be something that will probably become more of a utility rather than a standalone feature as the industry progresses.

Greg Myers: Yeah, I think that’s a lot of good insight right there as far as the future and other types of products that might get embedded in the future. I know one of the challenges that a lot of software companies have had when they’ve embedded payments was getting adoption by their customers. So maybe, maybe talk about that in the lens of payments and lending. Did you do specific programs to get people on board? Or was it like, hey, you have to switch over to us or you can’t be on our platform, maybe talk about how that adoption by your customers went?

James Armijo: Yeah, great, great question. So, we are approaching about a 90% adoption rate. And we’ll certainly be there by the end of the year which is something that I’m really proud of our team for having accomplished for all the reasons that you said, I kind of have seen it, again, somewhat unscientific. But just observations of my point I’ve seen, I’ve seen a few things that work and that don’t work. The overarching guide I would give or observation I would make is that if you start from the premise of I’m trying to solve a customer pain point, and it happens, that payment functionality solves that pain point. Invariably, I think that that approach and perspective will lead to better adoption, if you start from the perspective of I need to generate X amount of revenue per customer by monetizing Y amount of payments at Z net gain. You’ve inherently set yourself up to be really challenged, I think. And it’s sort of counterintuitive, that not focusing on how you’re monetizing it actually leads to better monetization. But I do think it’s because if you take one approach or the other, it leads you to different results. And I’ll give you a great example. We know today that one of the biggest pain points before we launched our embedded payment solution, one of the biggest pain points that our customers had was refunds, it was really a pain in the butt to do refunds, but they actually do a lot of refunds. And the reason is, is you know, go back to my grandma example, Grandma orders the shirt. But she you know, now she she wants to send it back because it wasn’t the right color. She didn’t really know how to order it the right way. You know, whatever it might be. And so, because of that refunds is a big problem. So, we focus, one of the first payments features we launched was the ability to do embedded refunds. And we made it really easy. In order to do a simple one click, you could refund it to the same card, you can partial, you could do all this stuff that was really important. No refunds wasn’t a great way to monetize payments, we make a small transaction fee, but we don’t make a lot of money on a refund. And it seems kind of counterintuitive. That’s something you’d want to do. But because we had this feature, people were like, Oh man, I would love to solve this pain point I have around doing refunds. And if that means I gotta take all my payments to the platform. Okay, great. You know, I’ll do it. And so we got, I think a lot more adoption by solving the customer pain point than had we just said you need to do all your payments. And oh, by the way, we’ll sell refunds later because you don’t even have it today. And we’re not going to monetize a lot by doing that. So, I think that perspective is really important. The second thing I would point out is I do think that making an opt out versus opt in is critical. Every business I’ve ever seen that says you have to sign up something extra for payments, is going to have a look at adoption. Some of that is just basic psychology, right? People don’t like friction, but also because it forces people to then consider their options. Think about I go back to my electricity in my house, if I bought my house, and then all of a sudden you said, Oh, now you need to go select your electricity company, well, I’m gonna go shop for the best electric rates, right? Or maybe I’ll put in solar, because it’s a better option. But if instead I buy my house, and I just, here’s the flyer that says, okay, activate your electricity, well, I’m gonna let you activate my electricity, because I sure as heck don’t want, you know, the family yelling at me that the refrigerator doesn’t work. And so, you know, that approach, I think is really critical and gets lost on people. And then the last thing I would just mention is, is my concept of round smart pricing, I would I would say is that I think there is a narrative, one that I’ve heard, and that academically I don’t disagree with, which is that because I’ve embedded payments in my software platform, I should be able to charge more than what a non-integrated non-embedded payments options, there’s more value to the customer rates integrated in their experience. And so I see people price payments, higher than sort of generic competition in the market. And I think that leads to suboptimal outcomes. Because while that, while the academic argument isn’t true, you are also giving your customers a reason not to use your right. Whereas if you just price it equivalent to or maybe even a little bit less than what the some kind of third party offer would be, you’ve completely eliminated reason not to use it. And again, each one of those reasons, it doesn’t mean 100% of customers decide not to use it, but it means maybe one out of 10. And if you have three reasons that one out of 10 customers aren’t gonna use it. And they’re mutually exclusive for the sake of the argument, you know, now, you’ve already excluded 30% of your customers? And the answer is you probably exclude a lot more than that.

Greg Myers: Yeah, so obviously, you can think of payments and your customers adopting them, I think lending probably a different metric. So how do you think lending product is doing?

James Armijo
Yeah, lending is doing really well, I mean, definitely, the uptake is slower there, what we see is that, in general, people adopt a software solution, they adopt payments, same day, you know, there are some exceptions, but they’re very rare. You know, lending is kind of like more than like the 30 to 40%, we’ve only had lending those since the start of this calendar year. And what we’re seeing is that every month, the adoption is fairly consistent. And if you go back to why are people using lending our platform, the majority of people are using it to buy equipment, and so that you don’t buy in our industry, you don’t buy equipment every month, you buy equipment every couple of years. And so, I think what we’re seeing is that as those episodes occur across the customer bases, Okay, it’s time to buy new equipment, or I’ve signed up this new big client, you know, I need more equipment to fulfill their orders, whatever it might be, that’s causing the need for lending. And we’ve got the product there to support.

Greg Myers: Right, right. Okay. Well, we’ve talked about all the sort of positive things, what are the roadblocks that you think software companies have to embed, whether it’s payments or other financial products? What do you see as some of the roadblocks?

James Armijo: Yeah, I distinctly remember going to the Money 2020 conference in 2017 sitting down and we were looking for at this time, we were looking for payments providers was at a company called SmartCare, we did a variety of pitches with all the software teams, they all kind of gave us a pitch on why we should use their platform, and why it was gonna be easy. We had these pre canned questions in an RFP and responses. And at the last meeting, I was pretty burned out at the end of the day, and it was sort of like it was the same pitch, we’d heard, you know, five times before. And I said, I sort of feel like I’m a customer who has gone up to a bank. And I said, and I’ve been the customer is analogous to the software company, the bank is analogous to the to the payment provider. And I said, Look, here’s what I want, I want to be able to come to the outside of the bank, in my car, anytime a day, go up to a machine, put a card in it, tell you know, enter some information and have a give me money or be able to maybe make a deposit or check my balance. And in response, the bank says to me, that sounds like a great idea, Mr. Armijo but instead of that, why don’t we do this? How about you can only come from eight to five, you have to come in stand in line, talk to a human to get whatever you need. But don’t worry, we’re gonna provide you all the free pens and paper deposit slips and checks that you could ever want. And I sort of laughed and I was like, guys, that’s kind of what this feels like. Right? And today, I say that to say today, unfortunately, things have gotten better, but I don’t know that they’ve entirely changed the needs that a software company has or in an embedded payment solution. Just simply like it’s still a little bit like going to an old school bank. And so specifically, you know, there are a couple of things that I would point out. And I’ll admit I’m also not an expert in solving them. Maybe these are unsolvable problems, and that’s why the industry doesn’t exist, but certainly the process around applying for a merchant account and the KYC requirements that come along with that are big barrier. Here’s to both implementation and adoption. And so, I would love to see the industry come up with ways to make that process more seamless, more real time, especially for smaller customers, small businesses that, you know, aren’t fortune 500 companies with a lot of data available to them need to get moving quickly. The other big issue that I’ve seen is around funding timelines. You know, it is a painful day when you have to tell your customer how a NACHA file works and how ACH files gets settled every night and what the return period looks like and why that impacts when they can get their money. I think most of our customers today say like, we’re it’s in 2023, isn’t there a way where like, I could just say, hey, does this person have the money? And yes, they do. Okay, now moving from their account by account, right? And the answer is, yeah, there should be. But because we don’t live in that world. And we’ve created a lot of issues around that, that creates issues for customers, because customers say, Well, if it’s going to take me eight days to get my money, I’m hosed. We’ll just still take a paper check or take cash, but even better yet, right, go spend that cash tomorrow. So, I see that being a continued issue that hopefully the industry will really solve. And then lastly, you know, I would really point out this just the overall issue around Fraud Management. Clearly, there’s a big issue, it’s really hard. And this is somewhat embedded in the in the Know Your Customer and the new account. But this is really more so around transaction management. But having a better standard, a better way to resolve transaction disputes is certainly an ongoing barrier to increased adoption across the industry.

Greg Myers: Okay, okay. Thanks for for sharing those. I think we always talk about all the great things, but there’s always some challenges. So yeah, I appreciate you bringing those up. So, when you step back and go up to the 50,000 foot level and think of the future maybe, you know, two to five years out? Where do you think or what do you think the future of embedded finance looks like?

James Armijo: Yeah, it’s great question I kind of touched on in when we were jamming earlier, when I started, you know, I see payroll as being a really big one and AP and AR being the other. I think those are both really interesting solutions that many, especially vertical software solutions, will eventually figure out how to integrate. The other big challenge that I’ve seen this, this is somewhat an answer to your last question, but more so a solution, I think as we go forward is that, you know, there’s so much behavior that is tied up in the idea of payment rewards, this is across the board, right? I have a credit card; it gives me some kind of rewards. And therefore, that change is how I do my behavior. It also is a barrier to changing. So, if I think of companies, like Brex, for example, that have done a really interesting job at coming up with corporate credit card solutions. I know one of their biggest challenges is customers lose all the rewards points if they go to them, right. And so, they’ve had to come up with their own reward solutions. I do think that there will be a lot of innovation around reward solutions. They’re there that is a barrier. And wherever there’s barriers, there’s generally innovation to reduce those barriers. I wish I knew what the answer was, I would probably go found a company to do it if I knew what the answer was. But I’m sure there’s some smart people out there who are way smarter than me that are coming up with a solution right now or will in the near future. And I’m really excited to see what those options are. Because I think that’ll open up a lot of different doors to how transactions happen and the types of accounts that people use for those transactions over time.

Greg Myers: Yeah, I agree. I wish I knew, too. We could we go found that company together. So, we’ve obviously covered a lot of ground. I mean, I think we’ve done a great job of understanding the software side. And it just by the way, this is the sixth in a six episode in a six-part series. And this is the first software company that we’ve talked to. So, it’s been very interesting to get your unique perspective. So, I really, really appreciate that. And we’ve covered ground about the company and about embedded finance and your views there. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we wrap up the show?

James Armijo: Yeah, I just one point and it’s an obvious one, but it’s, it’s one that for some reason, in the payments, industry gets lost more so than in many other kind of parts of the business that I am involved in, which is just focusing on the customer need, if you start with, I’m a customer and I want to do this, or I don’t want to do that and solve that need. The money will follow like the bips, the bips will be there, I’m sure of it. But if you don’t start there, and instead, you know, you say okay, well the government you know, for example, says these are the KYC requirements so we’re just going to tell people they have to do it, even though that that you know, a customer for perspective is I want to get up and running on your solution quickly. I think if you start with let’s go solve the customer requirements and knowing we got to comply with all these other things that we need to do, for sure, can’t ignore them. But we start with solving customer need, I think as an industry will be better. And that will lead to all of these other solutions. I think, you know, within payments very specifically, that’s a great opportunity, certainly within the current offerings in a broader embedded finance world, like around lending the example I used earlier, that’s what our customers needs. That’s what we lead with. And then as we get in this new frontier of other stuff, some of which I might know is happening, much of which I probably will be pleasantly surprised with, I think we can focus in on that the industry itself will do better around adoption will have faster innovation, and certainly all the players in it will be more successful. And so really excited to see everybody kind of take that perspective as time goes on. And lastly, I just wanted to thank you for your time. This has been a great conversation today and excited for the future the industry.

Greg Myers: Yeah, thanks, James. I know your time is very valuable. So, I want to be sensitive to that. But thank you so much for for sharing all your insights and all the great things that you guys have done there. So again, thank you so much for being on the show today.

James Armijo: Yeah, thank you, Greg. Have a great rest of your day.

Greg Myers: You too, and to all you listeners out there I thank you for your time as well. And until the next story.

00:02:36 – About James Armijo

00:03:57 – About Inktavo

00:05:15 – What Differentiates Inktavo

00:06:23 – How the Pandemic Affected Inktavo

00:11:23 - Definition of Embedded Finance

00:14:13 – Inktavo's Lending Product

00:18:04 – Challenges of Adoption of Payments

00:23:30 – Roadblocks for Adoption of Embedded Products

00:27:13 – Future of Embedded Finance

00:29:20 – Serving the Customer