Banks Risk Losing Commercial Spend Relationships as Finance Shifts Toward Embedded Workflows

Australian fintech Inlogik has appointed Charles Crane as its new CEO, signaling a strategic focus on helping traditional banks retain customer relationships amidst the rise of embedded finance. As software platforms and fintechs increasingly control the workflows around commercial spend and decision-making, banks face the risk of being relegated to mere infrastructure providers. This shift highlights a critical need for commercial banking institutions to integrate their services directly into the everyday systems businesses use for financial management.

Inlogik, an Australian fintech with a 30-year history of partnering with banks and enterprises, has appointed Charles Crane as its new Chief Executive Officer. Crane succeeds Richard Eskell, the company's long-time leader who will now serve as Founder and Board Director. This transition marks a strategic pivot for Inlogik as it scales its Spend Platform into a connected commercial finance ecosystem. The company's goal is to enable banks to provide modern, fintech-quality customer experiences—including B2B payments and expense management—while maintaining their existing core infrastructure and regulatory standards.

The leadership change highlights a growing challenge in the commercial banking sector, where the battleground is shifting from transaction processing to the ownership of the customer experience. Crane notes that while banks still control the underlying financial infrastructure, they risk losing the broader relationship if they fail to embed their services into the workflows businesses use for approvals, controls, and data analysis. To counter this, Inlogik is focusing on helping banks leverage their inherent strengths, such as capital and treasury expertise, by integrating them into more intelligent and autonomous financial systems.

Looking toward the future, the firm anticipates that artificial intelligence will play a pivotal role in reducing operational friction and enhancing compliance within commercial finance. Crane suggests that the industry is moving toward trusted autonomous decisioning, where AI assists in making financial choices under human oversight and strict policy controls. For commercial banks, the ability to deliver these connected financial experiences is viewed as vital for maintaining relevance as business finance moves beyond traditional, siloed banking products toward embedded, workflow-native solutions.