VILNIUS, Lithuania, Sept. 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SDK.finance, a provider of ready-made software foundations for modern wallets and payments, today announced the strategic expansion of its core platform availability to specifically target non-financial consumer brands. The company is positioning its infrastructure to empower retailers, marketplaces, and telecom operators to build native financial products, projecting that established consumer brands will drive the next wave of financial innovation.
“Retailers, marketplaces, and telecom operators already have the customers. Now they can bring payments and wallets into the same experience using our infrastructure,” said Pavlo Sidelov, CEO at SDK.finance. “A customer returns a jacket and is offered a choice: wait for the money to go back to the card they paid with, or take it as a balance inside the retailer’s own app and spend it on the next order. None of these companies set out to be a bank, but all of them are moving money. That is the prediction worth taking seriously, and the strategic rationale behind our expanded focus: the next wave of consumer financial products may come less from new fintech startups than from businesses that already have the customers, the transactions, and a practical reason to sit closer to the flow of money.”
A Familiar Screen, an Unfamiliar System
As noted in the company’s platform documentation, a branded wallet looks like one more screen in an app people already use. Behind it sits something most businesses have never had to run: software that tracks every customer’s balance, processes payments and transfers as they happen, and gives support staff a way to investigate when a payment goes wrong. It also has to work with the company’s existing checkout or billing systems and with whichever bank or payment provider moves the funds.
Building all of that from scratch is a substantial engineering undertaking in a field the business does not otherwise work in. Providers such as SDK.finance supply ready-made software foundations for modern wallets and payments, helping businesses adapt an existing foundation to their own brand and business model. The platform offers over 650 APIs for connecting to existing systems. Companies can use it as SaaS or license the source code for greater control over customization and deployment. The point is to choose a practical starting position, not to avoid the work. Integration, testing, and daily operations still have to be done, but a retailer’s advantage is rarely in the ledger.
Three Industries Driving the Transition
To illustrate the market demand driving SDK.finance’s strategic focus, the company highlighted publicly available data from three distinct industries where non-financial businesses have successfully integrated financial products:
● Retail: For a retailer, a wallet is mostly about refunds, gift balances, and a quicker checkout. Starbucks sells coffee, yet customers have become comfortable prepaying for future purchases through its stored-value cards and app. The company’s fiscal 2025 annual report shows roughly $1.84 billion on the combined balance-sheet line for stored-value card liability and the current portion of deferred revenue.
● Marketplaces: For a marketplace or commerce platform, the financial product is the seller’s money: what they earned, what was deducted, and when it lands. Shopify is a commerce platform that also offers financial products to its merchants. Its fourth-quarter 2025 results reported 37% growth in gross payments volume for the year. Bringing sales, fees, and payouts into the platform gives merchants a clearer view of how money moves through their business.
● Telecom: For a telecom operator, the wallet can become the account. In the year to March 31, 2025, M-PESA accounted for 44.2% of Safaricom’s service revenue in Kenya. M-PESA was built up over many years, serving as a useful corrective to anyone imagining a wallet as a single quarter’s roadmap item.
These public examples demonstrate broader market trends and the viability of the model SDK.finance’s software is built to support. The next question is how many other businesses can follow without spending years developing the software behind them. Ready-made platforms and arrangements with licensed financial partners provide another route.
Software Is Not Permission
The SDK.finance release also issues a firm reminder regarding regulatory compliance. Buying software does not authorize a company to provide regulated financial services. Depending on the jurisdiction, functionality, and business model, holding customer funds, issuing electronic money, or executing payments may require the company’s own license, an arrangement with a licensed financial institution, or both. A closed-loop gift balance and an account that sends money to third parties are not the same regulatory object.
A licensed partnership does not make regulatory responsibilities disappear. The company and its financial partners must establish who is responsible for safeguarding funds, compliance, complaints, and operational controls under the applicable rules. SDK.finance, like other vendors in this category, supplies software. It is not a bank, a licensed payment institution, or a source of regulatory approval.
Financial Products Grow Where the Relationship Already Exists
“The useful question for a retailer, marketplace, or operator is not whether to become a fintech. It is narrower than that,” added Sidelov. “Money already moves through the business in the form of refunds, payouts, top-ups, and settlements. Whether it is worth bringing part of that inside is a judgment about the customer relationship first and the technology second. For plenty of companies, the honest answer will be no. But where the answer is yes, the opportunity belongs to companies that already own the customer relationship, which is exactly who our software is built to serve.”
If the prediction holds, the next generation of financial products will not arrive announcing themselves as financial products. They will show up as a balance inside an app that somebody already had a reason to open, powered by backend software providers like SDK.finance.
Media Contact
Name: Pavlo Sidelov
Company: SDK.finance
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://sdk.finance/
SOURCE SDK.finance
