EXCLUSIVE: “Simplifying Complexity in Global Money” – Nathan Best, Equals in ‘The Fintech Magazine’

Nathan Best is Chief Revenue Officer for money movement platform Equals. Here he explains how it’s addressing the gap between expectation and reality when it comes to embedding global payments

THE FINTECH MAGAZINE: For readers discovering Equals for the first time, how do you describe the company’s mission and the operational finance challenges it was built to solve for global businesses?
NATHAN BEST: We are a next-generation global money movement platform. Our mission is simple: solve operational complexity for exceptional businesses operating across multiple markets, currencies, and regulatory environments. We build and own the technology infrastructure that businesses use to power their payments, accounts, cards and FX, and to build and operate embedded payment services for their customers.

What differentiates us is that we combine our 18-plus years of trusted technology innovation with real operational expertise. Our customers are looking for more than the off-the-rack service model of the high-volume fintech players, but they are often too complex or small to be supported by banks, as discovered in our recently commissioned research with Visa Consulting & Analytics.

Equals solves payment challenges and reduces regulatory complexity for those clients. That’s especially important for businesses operating in sectors or geographies that require more flexibility, oversight or specialist servicing.

TFM: Businesses are increasingly looking to embed financial capabilities directly into their own platforms and operations. How is demand for embedded payments evolving?

NB: Many organisations still manage fragmented provider relationships that hinder the full potential of embedded payments. Revenue and profit can be compromised through inconsistent payment experiences, slow settlements, reconciliation challenges, and growing currency exposure.

We built Equals to solve these challenges through a single connection, combining international payments, accounts, cards and FX infrastructure. Our products are used by businesses in their own operations, as well as to deliver embedded payments services to their customers. We design from the customer’s perspective. Many clients begin with white-label services before evolving towards embedded APIs and fully integrated financial services as their business grows.

TFM: Are businesses facing any barriers to embedded finance adoption?

NB: Businesses are struggling to find the operational and compliance support they need from traditional banks, larger providers or smaller fintechs. The industry has focussed heavily on technology alone and neglected the operational capability needed to manage complexity and deliver embedded payments successfully. Clients want a strategic partnership from their technology providers. Our flexible technology and service model enable us to deliver tailored onboarding, compliance, and payment solutions.

Because we own and build the infrastructure ourselves, we can adapt services around each client’s operational requirements rather than forcing businesses into rigid provider frameworks.

TFM: Your customers are fast-growing digital businesses and large corporates with complex treasury and payments needs. Clients also deploy your technology to power embedded payments services to their own customers. What patterns do you see across different segments?

NB: Fast-growing businesses typically focus on automation, flexibility, and speed to market, while larger corporates prioritise governance, treasury visibility, and operational resilience. Security and compliance remain mission-critical at every stage. White-label services work well for our earlier stage fintech and banking clients, in particular, who can quickly launch fully branded financial products to their SME and consumer customers without building or operating the underlying infrastructure.

At the other end of the spectrum, our APIs give businesses full control to build and scale customised products, all within a regulated infrastructure that removes the complexity of licensing, operations and scale. Across all clients, there is growing demand for unified infrastructure. Businesses want embedded payments services to work together. They want stronger visibility, fewer manual processes, and better control across international operations.

TFM: Equals is a unified platform for accounts, payments, cards and FX. What does that consolidation unlock for businesses?

NB: The goal is to simplify complex payment operations while maintaining strong governance and resilience. A single platform improves visibility, efficiency, security and governance across our clients’ financial operations. It helps businesses manage liquidity and currency exposure while reducing the operational complexity that comes with international growth.

TFM: Regulatory expectations across Europe are tightening. How does Equals design compliance into its platform while still enabling businesses to move quickly?

NB: Compliance must be embedded directly into the infrastructure, not treated as a separate process. That includes proactive onboarding, AML controls, transaction monitoring, safeguarding and sanctions screening. Because we own and build our platform, we can integrate those controls directly into payment workflows while adapting quickly as regulations evolve. At the same time, we work closely with customers to understand the realities of their business model rather than applying rigid one-size-fits-all processes.

The goal for us is to reduce organisational friction while also maintaining strong governance and resilience.

TFM: Equals has invested heavily in secure infrastructure. How is technology evolving your approach to AML and fraud prevention?

NB: Technology is making compliance and fraud prevention far more proactive and intelligence-led. We use AI-enabled monitoring and automation to identify anomalies earlier across payment flows, freeing up our human compliance team to investigate any issues that require greater oversight.

We see technology as an enhancement to human expertise, rather than a replacement for it. Financial crime risk is increasingly sophisticated and international, so businesses need adaptive monitoring capabilities and experienced specialists who can apply operational judgement when complexity arises.

TFM: What does ‘next-generation corporate payments and treasury infrastructure’ look like over the next five years?

NB: The market is moving toward integrated, programmable financial infrastructure. We’ve rebuilt our platform over the last four years from the ground up to create a foundation for future innovation. We can support more intelligent payment routing, tokenised treasury models designed to improve speed, cost efficiency, capital optimisation and greater operational flexibility for international businesses.

In regulated industries like ours, security and compliance remain fundamental to innovation. As business complexity increases, service quality and partnership will be seen as just as important as the technology itself.

TFM: Can you tell us about the report you published at Money 20/20 Europe this year?

NB: The report was compiled with Visa Consulting & Analytics and advances the conversation beyond sizing the market opportunity to uncover the hidden realities for organisations delivering embedded finance and payments projects to market. We’ve identified a gap between the expectations of businesses adopting embedded finance, and the ability of suppliers to deliver the onboarding, operational and compliance support that they need to maximise its value.

There is growing recognition that infrastructure alone is not enough. Aligned to this, we’re watching how the market balances AI-driven efficiency with demand for genuine human expertise and accountability. We chose to launch it at M20/20 Europe because it’s a good forum to talk to our partners – Tier 1 banks, neobanks and fintechs, digital asset exchanges – about how the current economic environment is shaping their approach to embedded payments.

TFM: Finally, what’s next for Equals?

NB: We are focussed on helping more clients to access our breadth of embedded payments services, and we continue to invest in AI-enabled infrastructure, payment orchestration, compliance and security capabilities that help exceptional businesses to scale globally with greater control and operational clarity.

Ultimately, our focus is on being the trusted partner for businesses and their customers as global payments become more complex.

To download the report and learn more about Equals embedded finance and payments solutions, visit: www.equalsmoney.com/whitepaper-premium-service-research

This article was published in The Fintech Magazine Issue #38, Page 50-51

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