Amlok
The idea in brief.
Embedded finance brings a financing decision close to the activity that creates the need. That proximity is valuable, but platform activity is still only part of the borrower’s financial picture. This guide connects commerce, payment, settlement, accounting and bank evidence so an Amlok-supported assessment can explain cash generation without counting the same sale repeatedly. It keeps the financing contract and institution’s decision separate from the platform experience.
- A sale, processor settlement and bank receipt can represent one economic event.
- Explain fees, refunds, reserves and timing differences before interpreting a shortfall.
- Evaluate financial outcomes by actual credit product and platform cohort.
A practical implementation guide grounded in Amlok’s documented product scope and segment research. Market figures retain their original population and period. Worked examples are invented, reproducible scenarios. They do not represent customer results, underwriting cutoffs or claims of validated model performance.
The market and the decision.
Payments Canada’s annual summaries report nominal payment value of CAD 11.9 trillion in 2023, CAD 12.2 trillion in 2024 and CAD 12.9 trillion in 2025. These national payment totals describe the underlying activity landscape, not embedded-finance lending volume. [1]
At merchant level, the same activity can appear as an order, captured payment, settlement batch and deposit. Adding those records as independent revenue inflates capacity. The implementation challenge is connecting their meaning while preserving differences such as refunds, fees and reserve movements.
A growing financial-activity landscape
View figure data
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| 2023 | CAD 11.9T |
| 2024 | CAD 12.2T |
| 2025 | CAD 12.9T |
What Amlok brings to the workflow.
Insights can combine authorized platform and financial evidence within an agreed underwriting workflow. The application identifies the borrower and product; the input manifest fixes which records are ready for assessment. Supported reconciliation and calculations can then inform a risk snapshot whose sources remain inspectable. [2] [3]
For a platform and financing partner, the benefit is a more explicit bridge from activity to capacity: which sales settled, which amounts were withheld or reversed, and which obligations must be serviced. Amlok does not convert platform access into unrestricted rights to financial data. Signal can follow supported changes after approval, while the institution retains lending decisions and intervention.
Connect the evidence that matters.
Agree the evidence perimeter before asking for an assessment. Each record needs a subject, source, observation date, currency where applicable, and coverage window. Resolve conflicting statements explicitly; the most recently uploaded file is not necessarily the most recent financial position. [3]
| Evidence | What it supports | Review requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Commerce orders and adjustments | Activity, cancellations, refunds and sales timing | Distinguish orders from completed or collected sales. |
| Processor payments and disputes | Captured value, reversals, fees and chargebacks | Retain gross and net amounts with event identifiers. |
| Settlement batches and reserves | How processor activity becomes payable cash | Explain fees, holds and release timing. |
| Bank and accounting records | Receipt confirmation and the wider financial picture | Do not add a deposit to the sale that generated it. |
| Financing contract and lender ledger | Installment or receipt-linked remittance obligations | Use the actual contract rather than assuming a standard loan schedule. |
Measures your team can review.
Use the definitions below as an assessment specification. Your institution selects policy thresholds and permitted adjustments. These measures are useful only when their inputs, time periods and contractual meanings align. [4]
- Reconciliation coverage: eligible activity linked through settlement and receipt, by count and value.
- Net receipt quality: gross supported sales less documented refunds, fees and reserve changes.
- Channel concentration: verified activity dependent on one platform relative to the same total.
- Repayment burden: contractual obligations divided by the correctly defined receipt or income measure.
- Source freshness: event time, provider availability and observation time kept separate.
Worked example: explain the deposit before using it.
Assume CAD 100,000 of captured merchant payments, CAD 5,000 of refunds, CAD 3,000 of processor fees and CAD 2,000 withheld into a reserve. The expected settlement is CAD 90,000. If the bank records CAD 90,000 for the matched batch, the difference from captured value is explained.
If the financing contract remits 10% of captured payments after refunds, the illustrative remittance is CAD 9,500, not CAD 9,000. That distinction depends entirely on the supplied agreement. The example does not recommend a remittance basis; it shows why contract terms and cash reconciliation must be read together.
| Entry | Amount | Financial meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Captured payments | 100,000 | Starting processor activity |
| Refunds | −5,000 | Reversed customer activity |
| Processor fees | −3,000 | Settlement deduction |
| Reserve increase | −2,000 | Withheld cash, not necessarily expense |
| Expected settlement | 90,000 | Matched to bank receipt |
| Assumed remittance basis | 95,000 | Captured less refunds only |
| 10% contractual remittance | 9,500 | Different from 10% of net deposit |
Keep the original decision in view.
Signal should compare economically equivalent periods and source combinations. A newly connected sales channel can increase observed receipts without improving the merchant’s underlying performance. A delayed batch can temporarily lower bank receipts without reducing sales.
Keep reversals, disputes and reserve releases attached to their original activity where the evidence supports it. A persistent concentration or collection change deserves a different review from a one-day integration outage. The financing institution determines customer contact and any contractual response in its own systems. [3]
From evidence to a reviewable change
- 01Identify the merchant
Connect authorized borrower, platform and financial records.
- 02Reconcile the activity
Follow payment, settlement and bank receipt.
- 03Apply the agreement
Use the correct repayment basis and obligations.
- 04Review ongoing changes
Separate business movement from platform or source effects.
Build it into your operating model.
Start with one defined use case, your current decision policy and the output your reviewers need. Confirm which source connections, document types, calculations and verification stages are available within the agreed workflow. Create the subject and application, obtain the required authorization, synchronize permitted records and inspect the ready input manifest. Freeze that evidence window before launching an Insights underwriting run. [3]
Store the completed risk snapshot with the lender’s actual decision and its reasons. For ongoing monitoring, use a ready approved baseline from the completed assessment or the agreed existing-portfolio onboarding process. Signal compares newly available evidence with that baseline. Signed webhooks notify your systems; source cadence and consent determine freshness. A requested daily check does not guarantee daily source data. [3]
Design separate routes for a supported risk change, a source outage and an unresolved discrepancy. Retain source references and reviewer corrections. Borrower outreach, payments, limit changes, collections and insurance administration remain in your authorized systems. Verification and analytical investigation are included stages within an entitled Insights or Signal workflow, not independent Amlok products. [2]
Prove the fit before expanding.
Create reviewed event chains before evaluating credit outcomes. Measure false merges, missed links and duplicate revenue separately. Hold out merchants and later periods; include a held-out platform where data rights and sample sizes allow. [4]
Compare source combinations on the same eligible cohort so richer coverage is not mistaken for a better model on identical evidence. Test refunds after settlement, reserve releases and delayed deposits. Product-level repayment outcomes remain a separate evaluation from accurate payment reconciliation.
Agree success criteria before reviewing the test results. Compare the current process and the Amlok-supported process on the same permitted evidence, recording analyst time, corrections, unresolved cases and completed outputs. Report coverage alongside speed so incomplete files cannot make the workflow appear faster. Monitor quality by source availability and relevant customer cohorts, with uncertainty where samples are small.
Amlok’s public results currently document specific structured-loan and financial-evidence retrieval experiments. Those results are useful evidence about those tasks; they do not validate every product, institution or industry in this guide. A deployment claim needs a representative evaluation of your use case. [5]
- Scope: choose one product, one decision moment, required evidence and a clearly accountable reviewer.
- Replay: use dated historical snapshots with later outcomes kept out of the input evidence.
- Shadow: compare outputs alongside your existing process before relying on them operationally.
- Expand: review quality, data continuity and monitoring relevance before adding further cohorts or sources.
Sources & methodology.
Figures identify their population, period, and units. Scenarios marked illustrative are Amlok calculations using stated assumptions, not observed customer outcomes.
- 1Corporate reports: Canadian Payment Methods and TrendsPayments Canada
Published annual summaries report CAD 11.9 trillion for 2023, CAD 12.2 trillion for 2024 and CAD 12.9 trillion for 2025. Values are nominal national payment totals, not embedded-finance loan balances.
- 2Products and endpoint scopeAmlok
Documented ownership of Insights, Signal and included processing stages. Workflow availability and provider coverage depend on the agreed implementation.
- 3Integration workflowsAmlok
Frozen input manifests, immutable risk snapshots, approved monitoring baselines, source-dependent refresh and institution-owned intervention.
- 4Embedded Finance benchmark and evaluation definitionsAmlok
Segment-specific research definitions and proposed evaluation tasks. This is a research framework, not a claim of completed segment validation.
- 5Measured research resultsAmlok
Published SBA structured-loan and FinQA retrieval experiments have limited populations and tasks. They do not establish performance for this segment.
