The Albany Gazette - Candescent Brings Embedded Investing to Intelligent Banking Through Partnership with Eko Investments

ATLANTA, GA / ACCESS Newswire / October 8, 2026 / Candescent, defining the era of Intelligent Banking for banks and credit unions, today announced a partnership with Eko, the embedded investing platform built for financial institutions. Through the partnership, Candescent brings investing into the connected Intelligent Banking experience, giving its clients a native way to offer investment accounts inside their own digital banking apps. Investing becomes part of how Candescent helps institutions recognize what customers and members need, guide them toward the right next step and enable them to act, all without leaving their institution's brand.

The partnership reinforces Candescent's approach to Intelligent Banking: connecting data, capabilities, channels, and real-time intelligence so financial institutions can better understand context, guide what comes next and enable trusted action. Investing has long been one of the few parts of a consumer's financial life that lived outside the institution's digital experience. With Eko available through the Candescent platform, financial institutions can bring it into the relationship they already own.

Extending the Intelligent Banking Experience to Investing

Candescent's approach to Intelligent Banking is built around a clear premise: banking should move beyond digital access and transactions to become more personal, proactive, and valuable. Intelligent Banking works in three stages: anticipating what customers and members need, guiding them to the right decision and enabling them to act with confidence. By connecting experiences across the financial relationship, institutions can use context and intelligence to help customers and members understand what matters, know what to do next, and act with confidence.

"Intelligent Banking is about making the entire financial relationship more connected, relevant and actionable, including the parts that have historically lived outside the institution's digital experience," said David Ness, Head of Fintech Partnerships at Candescent. "Bringing Eko onto our platform gives banks and credit unions a native way to support investing within the experience they own, helping them deepen engagement and keep more of the relationship under their brand."

For many banks and credit unions, digital banking remains centered on transactions. Customers or members log in to check a balance or move money, then leave. Investing creates another meaningful reason to return. Bringing it into the institution's digital experience can make banking more useful in the moments that matter while supporting deeper, more valuable relationships over time.

Meeting Customers and Members Where They Already Bank

Eko integrates into the Candescent platform so institutions can launch investing without building it themselves or routing consumers to a third-party app. An investment account tile sits directly inside online and mobile banking, paired with AI-driven education that helps consumers get started with confidence. Funding is instant, from several sources: an external account, the customer's checking account at the institution, or an existing outside brokerage account moved over in full. Rather than watching balances leave for standalone fintech apps, institutions can bring those assets back into their own ecosystem.

"Customers and members are already investing. The only real question for a bank or credit union is whose app they open to do it," said Mart Vos, Chief Executive Officer of Eko. "Candescent reaches more than 1,300 institutions and tens of millions of people, and its platform is built for exactly this kind of capability. Together, we give those institutions a way to serve the investing side of their consumers' financial lives and keep that relationship where it started."

Because those balances become invested assets held under the institution's brand, the economics show up as non-interest income rather than feeding another fintech's balance sheet. Institutions earn on engagement and assets under management while giving customers and members a modern investing experience inside an app they already trust. Early results from Eko deployments point to the size of the opportunity: consumers who adopt investing log in about four times as often and attrition among those customers and members runs roughly six times lower when compared to a non-investing end-user.

Availability

Embedded investing from Eko is available to Candescent clients through the Candescent Marketplace as of September 2026. Financial institutions interested in offering investing to their customers and members can visit the Candescent Marketplace or contact their Candescent representative.

About Candescent

Candescent is defining the era of Intelligent Banking for banks and credit unions. Through its cloud-native Intelligent Banking Platform, Candescent enables institutions to unify data, channels and real-time intelligence to deliver differentiated experiences, accelerate growth and deepen customer and member relationships across account opening, consumer and business banking, and digital and branch experiences. Candescent serves more than 1,300 banks and credit unions representing more than 30 million registered users. For more information, visit www.candescent.com.

About Eko

Eko is the embedded investing platform built for banks and credit unions. Eko lets institutions offer investment accounts inside their own digital banking apps, under their own brand, with instant account funding, AI-driven customer education, and an experience designed to keep engagement and assets in the institution's Ekosystem*. Providing financial institutions a way to satisfy consumers' complete financial needs from their first checking account to retirement. Learn more at eko.investments.

Media Contact:
Ryleigh Bannister, Notably
[email protected]
205-913-1369

SOURCE: Candescent

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

(N.Miller--TAG)