When 82% of small businesses fail due to cash flow, not product, not marketing, but simple liquidity, it’s clear something in the financial system is broken. But rather than pointing fingers at banks or praising fintech disruption in vague terms, this Money20/20 Europe session offered something different: a detailed case study on how embedded finance, delivered inside the trusted platforms where entrepreneurs already operate, is quietly rewriting the rules of SME lending.
On stage: Cynthia Yoon, Global GM of eBay Seller Capital, and Rob Straathof, CEO of Liberis. Their message?
Embedded finance isn’t innovation for its own sake. It’s infrastructure for economic inclusion and a force multiplier for platform growth.
Why Traditional Lending Doesn't Fit Today’s Seller
The session opened with Yoon painting a vivid picture of the eBay seller. Many aren’t traditional business founders. They’re “accidental entrepreneurs”, people who started selling items from their closet or garage, only to discover demand, scale, and a business model they never set out to build.
This creates two structural mismatches:
Limited or no credit history: no FICO score, no collateral, no business tenure.
Irregular, opportunity-driven income: spikes when rare inventory becomes available, then plateaus.
Traditional lenders don’t underwrite that kind of business. “They require monthly income stability and years of operating history,” Yoon explained. “That’s not our seller base.”
Embedded Finance at the Moment of Need
Enter eBay Seller Capital, powered by Liberis.
Straathof, a founder himself, explained the frustration of seeing this mismatch persist for over two decades. His own experience building a business in the Netherlands in the early 2000s ended in the same kind of rejection today’s entrepreneurs still face.
The Liberis model flips the script:
Sellers are pre-approved based on real-time eBay transaction data
Offers are surfaced contextually within the eBay seller dashboard
Capital can be deployed in hours, not days or weeks
Repayment is linked to daily sales, not fixed monthly dues
“It’s not just access to capital,” Straathof said. “It’s the removal of rejection, of fear, and of unnecessary delay. You’re running your business and your funding shows up right there with you.”
A Repayment Model Designed for Real Life
One of the most critical design choices behind the program is its sales-linked repayment structure. Sellers repay only as they earn, a percentage deducted automatically from daily sales.
This turns finance from a source of stress into a background utility. No need to remember due dates. No penalties for low-volume periods. No tension between lender and seller.
“We don’t want sellers to adapt to banks. We want finance to adapt to them,” Yoon explained.
The result? A 2x improvement in conversion rates when embedded directly in the seller flow and critically, confidence.
The Confidence to Grow
The program’s success isn’t just in metrics. It’s in stories.
Yoon shared the example of Stephanie Cranbro, an eBay seller who pivoted from marketing to full-time ecommerce when the pandemic hit. With embedded capital from eBay Seller Capital:
She expanded from 200 to nearly 700 listings
Was able to purchase bulk inventory, lowering COGS
Increased her profit margin while offering better prices
Rented her first offsite storage unit to handle inventory growth
“She didn’t just receive capital. She received validation,” said Yoon. “It changed how she saw herself as a founder, a businesswoman, and a mother.”
More Than a Product. A Platform Strategy
The eBay-Liberis partnership isn’t a plug-in. It’s a strategic move grounded in what Yoon calls “relevant, magical, and scalable CX”, a company-wide principle for all product experiences.
She emphasized that:
Offers are only shown if approval is likely, avoiding frustration
Finance is packaged alongside other growth tools
Payout structures match seller realities, not lender expectations
Behind it, Liberis operates as a white-label enabler, staying in the background while platforms like eBay remain the face of the offer. Trust, in this model, is earned by proxy: “eBay selected us, and that’s who sellers trust,” said Straathof.
Economic Inclusion as Strategy not CSR
Straathof anchored the conversation in broader macroeconomics. Small businesses funded via Liberis grow 22–25% faster and survive longer than their unfunded peers.
But the real impact? Mobility.
By embedding finance where it’s needed most, platforms like eBay become accelerators of upward movement. “We help move entrepreneurs from the bottom quintile of income earners to the top. That’s the global dream,” he said.
The message was clear: inclusion isn’t an add-on. It’s a product strategy that pays off in platform growth, seller loyalty, and economic resilience.
What Others Can Learn
For marketplaces, ecommerce platforms, and B2B ecosystems, this session offered a quiet roadmap for how embedded capital can drive:
Seller growth and retention
Platform revenue and margin
Mission-aligned financial inclusion
It also made clear what not to do:
Don’t mimic banks
Don’t force rigid repayments
Don’t make the user hunt for help
Instead, build finance into the seller’s daily rhythm and make it feel like it was always meant to be there.
🎯 Want to see how embedded finance actually works?
Liberis is on the ground at #Money2020Europe this week. Book a meeting with the team to learn how they’re powering real growth for platforms and the sellers who rely on them.
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