lastminute.com
“Can a 25-year-old European OTA become the embedded-finance distribution layer for travel—owning the payment, lending, and supplier-payout stack while white-labelling its inventory to fintechs like Zilch?”
Founded in 1998 as a consumer-facing last-minute travel marketplace, lastminute.com grew into a broad online travel agency (OTA) after merging with Bravofly Rumbo Group in 2015. Over the past decade the lm Group has evolved its payments infrastructure significantly—moving from commodity payment processing to a multi-layered embedded finance stack involving open banking (TrueLayer), modern acquiring (Checkout.com), BNPL for high-value holiday bookings, and B2B virtual card issuing (Adyen) for supplier payouts. The Zilch Travel white-label partnership in 2025 marks a clear pivot toward distributing lastminute.com inventory through fintech platforms, making embedded finance a deliberate revenue diversification channel rather than a back-office necessity.