“Can a modern AI-native DMS become the financial operating system for automotive dealerships by embedding payments, payroll, and consumer financing into every workflow?”
Tekion is an AI-native automotive retail SaaS platform (Automotive Retail Cloud) for dealerships covering DMS, CRM, service, parts, F&I, payments, and payroll. Embedded finance is now a core wedge: Tekion Pay grew from a simple payment link in 2020 to $10B+ in volume by 2025, powered by Stripe. The company is layering BNPL/POS-financing on top via Klarna and Sunbit to capture service-lane revenue, and has launched embedded Tekion Payroll inside ARC.
Tekion discloses Increase as its banking provider, with Core Bank as its sponsor bank, according to the Embedded Finance Index 2026.
Tekion does not disclose a bank charter of its own; its banking services are provided through Core Bank.
Tekion processes payments through Stripe Connect and Tekion Pay (self-operated).
Tekion's payroll is powered by Tekion Payroll (in-house).
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 6 layers in Tekion's stack: Payments / PSP (Stripe Connect and Tekion Pay (self-operated)); Banking / BaaS (Increase); Lending (Klarna Pay in Full, Klarna Pay in 4, Klarna longer-term financing, Sunbit point-of-sale lending (service now, pay-over-time) and 1 other); Payroll (Tekion Payroll (in-house)); Sponsor bank (Core Bank); Spend / AP (Brex).
Tekion is headquartered in Pleasanton, California, United States.
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