Defacto has gone live on Mambu Payments with SEPA connectivity to support the payment flows of its receivable financing product for a France-based financial institution.
The deployment supports Defacto's work with an institutional banking partner described as one of France's financial institutions, and is designed to meet the operational and regulatory requirements associated with that relationship.
Technical approach and integration
Rather than building and maintaining direct bank integrations internally, Defacto has connected to SEPA payment rails through Mambu Payments via a REST API. The company has stated that this gives it real-time visibility across payment flows, alongside a reusable architecture that is currently being extended to a second institutional partner.
In addition, an important feature of the implementation is that Defacto continues to operate on top of its existing accounts held with its institutional banking partner, rather than opening new accounts with a third-party custodian bank, as is typically required under BaaS models. Instead of restructuring its banking setup, Defacto has kept its existing tier-one banking relationship in place and automated the payment operations layer above it.
Founded in 2021, Defacto has financed more than EUR 1.5 billion for over 25,000 SMEs across five European markets. The collaboration with Mambu progressed from initial product scoping in July 2025, through a beta launch in November 2025, to full production deployment in January 2026.
Jordane Giuly, CEO & Co-Founder, Defacto, said the company's institutional banking partnerships require payments infrastructure that is secure and reliable, and that working with Mambu Payments allowed engineering resources to be directed toward customer-facing development rather than bank connectivity. According to the official, the resulting infrastructure supports Defacto's current programmes and provides scope for further partner expansion.
Moreover, Victor Mithouard, VP Payments & Strategy, Mambu, said that as financial institutions adopt Embedded Finance, payment infrastructure is becoming a differentiating factor for fintechs. It was also added that Defacto's deployment shows how API-based infrastructure can support faster market entry and institutional partnership scaling without bespoke bank integration projects, and that the underlying automation provides the real-time connectivity needed for Defacto to run its lending programmes within its banking partner's infrastructure.
Market context
As Embedded Finance extends further into regulated financial services, payment infrastructure has become a component of bringing new lending products to market. For providers such as Defacto, connecting to existing banking relationships through standardised APIs, rather than through new custodian arrangements, is presented as an alternative to traditional BaaS deployment. The partnership also reflects continued activity by Mambu in the European payments infrastructure space, following its established position in cloud banking technology.
