“Credit cards haven’t kept up with how people live today. We started Yonder to rebuild the credit experience from scratch‍—‌fairer, more transparent, and built around real-life adventures. Working with Griffin means we can go beyond the old limits, literally. This is the infrastructure that helps us unlock bigger moments for our members and bring our vision of a modern financial membership to life.”

The vision: Rebuilding credit cards from the ground up

When Tim Chong walked a dusty road in rural Kenya in 2016, he saw something that would shape his vision for the future of financial services. Buyers and sellers were paying for goods digitally using M-Pesa‍—‌the mobile banking system that had transformed Kenya's economy and brought financial services to millions.

This experience, combined with his front-row seat to the consumer credit industry at ClearScore, led Tim to a stark realisation: credit cards had not evolved since the 1960s. Despite being a very big deal when they launched, credit cards had now become "a game of deception between consumers and banks" with hidden fees, confusing terms, and business models built to encourage debt.

At Yonder, Tim and his team are rebuilding the modern credit card from the ground up. Their vision is simple: create a financial membership that's truly a key to the city, with beautiful experiences that do not compromise on fairness. Instead of making money by encouraging customers to carry debt, Yonder would charge a transparent membership fee and focus on rewards that celebrate life's adventures.

The challenge: Scaling beyond credit limits

As Yonder's customer base grew, they faced operational challenges that threatened to limit their members' experiences. Two problems stood out:

• Limited spending power for large purchases: Customers who could afford bigger purchases couldn’t do this via their Yonder credit cards due to credit limits. This prevented them from fully enjoying the rewards and experiences Yonder offered.

• Complex reconciliation processes: Behind the scenes, managing customer repayments into a single collections account was creating growing operational complexity. As Yonder scaled, manual reconciliation was becoming unsustainable and error-prone. Traditional banking partners couldn't solve these problems without forcing Yonder back into legacy infrastructure that would undermine their customer experience and operational efficiency.

The solution: Griffin's embedded bank accounts unlock new possibilities

Griffin's embedded bank accounts provided the perfect foundation for Yonder to solve both challenges while staying true to their mission of empowering members' financial lives.

Top-ups boost spending power

Yonder launched Top-ups to give each customer a unique bank account powered by Griffin, which they can fund to increase their spending limit for large purchases. This means members can enjoy bigger adventures while still earning all the rewards and protections that come with credit.

The seamless integration means customers simply transfer money into their unique account, automatically increasing their available spending power without the traditional constraints of credit limits.

Streamlined operations

Griffin's embedded bank accounts transformed Yonder's back-office operations. Instead of managing a complex pooled collections account, customer repayments now flow into their individual Griffin-powered accounts, making it possible to automate reconciliation across Yonder's entire customer base. This operational improvement frees up Yonder's team to focus on what matters most: creating amazing experiences for their members.

Data-driven credit decisions

The individual accounts provide Yonder with valuable insights that support smarter credit decisions, including the ability to increase customer credit limits based on a more complete picture of their financial behaviour.

“Adding Griffin’s embedded accounts was a no-brainer. It solved some really painful operational challenges and unlocked new ways for our members to spend, top up, and manage money‍—‌all without the friction of legacy systems. It’s the kind of change that feels invisible to customers but completely transforms what we can build for them.”

From one product to an entire suite: how the right infrastructure unlocks scale

This partnership has enabled Yonder to expand beyond credit cards entirely. Building on the same embedded bank account infrastructure, in June 2025, they launched Yonder Debit Cards‍—‌the UK's first rewards debit card that works just like their credit offering.

Griffin's embedded bank accounts didn't just solve Yonder's immediate operational challenges, it created a foundation that now supports entirely new products and revenue streams, allowing Yonder to scale their vision of reimagining financial services for modern explorers.

"Sometimes the stars align and you get to collaborate in a way that takes a product to the next level in multiple ways at once. Griffin's work with Yonder is one of those‍—‌it helps make the customer experience that much better in ways big and small."