“Can a restaurant POS become the full financial operating system for hospitality?”
Toast began as a restaurant POS system in 2011 and has evolved into the vertical operating system for restaurants — bundling hardware, software, payments, payroll, lending (Toast Capital), and insurance. It IPO'd in 2021 and now facilitates over $215B in gross payment volume across ~180,000 locations. Its embedded finance strategy layers Toast-branded financial products (Capital, Payroll, Pay Card, Insurance) on top of a self-operated payments facilitator business, with Adyen selected as the strategic global processing partner.
Toast discloses Thread Bank as its banking provider, with WebBank as its sponsor bank, according to the Embedded Finance Index 2026.
Toast does not disclose a bank charter of its own; its banking services are provided through WebBank.
Toast processes payments through Toast Payments (self-operated), Adyen and Fifth Third Bank.
Toast's cards run on Mastercard.
Toast uses Persona for KYC and identity verification.
Toast's lending and capital products are provided by WebBank and Toast Capital (in-house).
Toast connects to bank accounts through Plaid.
Toast's payroll is powered by Toast Payroll (in-house).
Toast's embedded insurance is provided by NEXT Insurance.
Toast integrates with QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage Intacct, Zoho Books and NetSuite.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 11 layers in Toast's stack: Payments / PSP (Toast Payments (self-operated), Adyen and Fifth Third Bank); Banking / BaaS (Thread Bank); Card network (Mastercard); Lending (WebBank, Toast Capital (in-house) and Toast Capital Loan); Payroll (Toast Payroll (in-house)); Insurance (NEXT Insurance); Open banking (Plaid); Unified APIs (Finch); KYC (Persona); Sponsor bank (WebBank and Thread Bank); Accounting (QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage Intacct, Zoho Books and 1 other).
Toast was founded by Steve Fredette, Aman Narang and Jonathan Grimm and is founded in 2011, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Toast's acquisitions include xtraCHEF (2021).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Toast and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.