What fintech platforms can learn from ecommerce: the future is wallet-driven

Andy Van Susteren, VP of Sales at Mangopay, explores three lessons fintech platforms can take from e-commerce about the strategic role of wallets: managing complex money flows, increasing user engagement, and creating new revenue opportunities.

As ecommerce and fintech become increasingly interconnected, wallets are evolving beyond their traditional role of holding and moving funds. Drawing on examples from platform businesses and findings from Mangopay’s research on multi-party payment flows, the article examines how wallet infrastructures help platforms manage complex money movement, reduce operational fragmentation, increase user engagement by keeping value circulating within the ecosystem, and unlock new revenue opportunities.

The article also argues that what began as a regulatory and operational requirement for many ecommerce platforms has become a foundation for growth, enabling platforms to automate financial workflows, support new business models, and build more connected user experiences. As financial services become further embedded into digital ecosystems, wallet-driven infrastructures are emerging as a key component of the next phase of platform growth.

Ecommerce and fintech are becoming more intertwined. Ecommerce apps now offer financial products such as credit, savings, or merchant financing. Fintech apps are also becoming more platform-like, adding offers from retailers, travel providers, or mobility services. Purchasing experiences, payments, and embedded financial services are now part of the same user journey.

Ecommerce platforms were pushed toward wallet-based models by the need to hold and distribute funds between multiple parties in a regulated way. At the same time, fintechs developed financial products first, and getting the licences required to deliver those services naturally became the priority, making the wallet a secondary consideration. But today, wallets are the infrastructure that helps platforms automate large transaction volumes, increase user engagement, and create new monetisation opportunities. So, wallets are now a strategic growth enabler for both ecommerce and fintech ecosystems.

The article explores three areas where fintech platforms can take inspiration from ecommerce when it comes to: 

• managing multi-party payment flows;
• increasing user engagement through wallet experiences;
• using programmable wallets to support new business models.

Lesson #1: Managing complex multi-party payment flows without fragmentation

At the platform level, a single purchase can involve multiple parties: sellers, service providers, and partners, each with a financial stake in the transaction. Overall, there is still a lot of fragmentation and manual processing when it comes to fund allocation and fee collection. According to our report The operational challenges behind multi-party payment flows, 21% of enterprise platforms rely on manual allocation when distributing funds between multiple parties, and 23% rely on manual invoicing to collect fees and commissions.

Take a booking platform as an example. When a customer pays, the funds are automatically allocated among the property owner, the property manager, and the platform fee according to predefined logic. For fintech platforms, the same complexity exists, just in a different form. Instead of splitting a booking payment, they may need to:

• allocate funds across multiple accounts;
• distribute balances into savings, investments, or spending bucket;
• route funds to multiple recipients based on user actions or predefined rules.

A wallet infrastructure works as a ledger through which platforms can manage the entire lifecycle of funds, from collection and allocation to distribution and revenue capture, reducing fragmentation at the payments operations level.

Lesson #2: Keeping money in the ecosystem to drive engagement

Ecommerce platforms learned early on that instead of pushing funds out after every transaction, using wallet balances would allow money to stay within the platform and create a spending and loyalty loop. 
Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, and other companies alike apply this model in different ways. Earnings, refunds, or credits are available within the platform, encouraging users to re-spend rather than exit. The platform becomes an environment where value circulates. Based on our own data, around 20% of processed volumes over a one-year period circulated back into platform ecosystems through re-spending activity.

For fintech platforms, the same principle applies. Wallet balances can be used for:

• reinvestments in stocks, ETFs, or other digital assets;
• transfers between users through peer-to-peer payments;
• subscriptions or other recurring expenses.

User engagement comes from how often funds move within the ecosystem and how many use cases those funds can support once they are there. For fintech platforms, the next opportunity is to manage financial workflows in a smarter way. Programmable wallets enable funds to circulate inside the ecosystem, supporting multi-party money flows, while creating more ways for users to stay active.

Lesson #3: Monetising flows and adding new revenue streams

Ecommerce platforms did not stop at enabling transactions. Over time, they expanded into loyalty programmes, pay-later services, in-app wallets, cashback models, or premium seller features, building additional revenue streams.

The same evolution is now happening in fintech. Wallet infrastructures are becoming the foundation for new services tied to how users hold, move, spend, or reuse money inside the platform. Add-ons such as premium services, instant payouts, FX margins, and automated balance top-ups can be enabled via platform-native wallets, while also creating monetisation opportunities. Based on our experience with platforms, premium partner services and monetised seller experiences can each contribute to an additional 2–3% in revenue per year.

What’s more, a wallet infrastructure gives platforms the flexibility to launch and scale new business models without having to redesign their payment stack. Once in place, platforms move from optimizing flows to using payments as a tool for expansion.  

The role of programmable wallets

These wallets have brought several growth opportunities for ecommerce, and they’ll keep doing so for fintech too. At the same time, they can also meet several challenges. When transaction volumes grow, platforms need to bring their operations more under control. After reaching an initial growth milestone, more volume starts to increase the workload around tracking, allocating, and managing funds.

According to the same report cited above, 50% of enterprise platforms still struggle with manual reconciliation, while 40% have limited flexibility in how funds can be managed. So, in this digital transformation era, challenges are still there.  

A wallet infrastructure is designed to support both the front-end payment experience and the back-end financial operations. On the front end, platforms keep full ownership of the payment experience, allowing them to control user journeys and monetisation. On the back end, the focus shifts to managing settlements, simplifying reconciliation, and reducing manual work for finance teams.

The bottom line

Wallets are the answer to what platforms do once money enters the ecosystem. How funds circulate between users, how financial actions connect with commerce, investments, rewards, and how many interactions can happen without forcing users to move money out of the platform environment. This is also why the lines between fintech, ecommerce, and platform businesses are becoming harder to separate. Financial services are now part of the product experience.  

In the same way ecommerce platforms evolved from simple checkout experiences into ecosystems with wallets, embedded financial services, and multi-party payments, fintech platforms are moving toward more multifunctional environments too. Unified experiences are becoming the new standard, and with them, the market will consolidate around platforms that can deliver the full stack, not just payments, but engagement, automation, and monetisation inside a wallet-driven ecosystem. With this direction, fintech will likely keep going up.

About the author

Andy van Susteren is a seasoned leader in commercial strategies, with a background at global companies such as Google and Oracle. He has a strong track record of driving strategic growth for platforms by shaping their go-to-market strategies and unlocking new revenue opportunities. As an industry expert in multi-party payments, Andy focuses on consultancy and partnership over purely transactional approaches. He guides stakeholders in reaching their goals while positioning himself as a trusted advisor for platforms tackling complex challenges. Beyond his expertise, Andy is passionate about coaching individuals to advance their careers and building authentic relationships with people from various backgrounds.

 

About Mangopay

Mangopay is the wallet-first infrastructure for multi-party payment flows, designed to give platforms the control, scalability, and revenue opportunities they need to thrive. Mangopay offers programmable wallets, enabling platforms to hold, split, and move funds across buyers, sellers, and partners, while unlocking new monetisation streams. With over EUR 150 billion processed, 700 million wallets created, and 350 million users onboarded, Mangopay has demonstrated scale and reliability. Leading platforms like Vinted, Wallapop, Mirakl, Storfund, Debenhams, and many more use Mangopay to power complex flows, double transaction volumes, and streamline global operations.