LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zilch, the world’s first Commerce Card, today announces it has raced past the 3 million customer milestone – outpacing fintech heavyweights like Revolut, Starling Bank and N26. Zilch’s direct-to-consumer approach continues to outperform the market showing significantly stronger levels of customer engagement and unit economics. Zilch’s unique Ad-Subsidised-Payments-Network generates advertising revenue each time its customers spend, which it passes on to them in the form of free credit, savings, deals and discounts. This unique approach has resulted in record-breaking customer growth and a profitable product proposition.
The announcement comes a mere six months after Zilch galloped past the 2 million user figure, and is a testament to the business’s innovative approach – an approach that’s seen it double underlying sales and triple revenue in the last six months – with brands like Apple now moving to try and replicate this winning formula as Zilch surpasses 6% of the UK adult population using its product.
This news lands despite a worsening economic climate, downward pressures on valuations and reduced growth rates in global fintech markets. However, Zilch continues its progression. In April, a new partnership with Experian UK, the global information services company, was announced, and in May, Zilch launched its services into the US market. More recently the company raised an oversubscribed $50m top-up to its Series C funding round in June, maintaining its valuation.
Philip Belamant, Zilch’s CEO and co-founder said: “Everywhere you look there are high energy bills, rising inflation, and a general sense of tension gripping household finances. At Zilch we’re working flat out to bring people the most empowering way to pay for anything, anywhere – whether that be credit (pay in 4), debit (pay in 1) with instant cashback in rewards, or savings. It’s therefore highly pleasing to have hit 3 million customers and know that so many consumers are reaping the benefits of access to the best of debit, credit and savings through our product.
“Going from 0 to 3 million customers in just 24 months has been an unreal journey and this phenomenal trajectory is certainly a testament to the hard work of the Zilch team. We continue to remain focused on delivering value for our customers for whom we’ve already generated savings of over £75 million. We remain focused on providing a sustainable product in the most responsible way, with gross profit now behind us and a clear track to becoming a bottom-line profitable business.”
At present Zilch is achieving higher utilisation than any other peer in the space with mature customer cohorts making payments daily, and 40 per cent of daily sales now processed through Zilch’s Tap & Pay payment feature. The business, whose credit option was one of the first 'buy now, pay later' providers in the UK to be regulated and receive a consumer credit licence from the FCA, secured a lending licence in California earlier this year and has chalked up a TrustPilot score of 4.6 / 5 from more than 43,000 reviews.
The business has an impressive list of global investors, which includes Ventura Capital, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Gauss Ventures, DMG Ventures, M&F Fund and Limited Ventures. Zilch’s partners include some of the world's most advanced fintech enablers including Cross River, Checkout.com, Experian, FTA, GPS, Monavate, Marqeta, Mastercard, Onfido, Provenir, Socure and Yapily.
ABOUT ZILCH
Zilch, the world’s first Commerce Card is a UK-headquartered payments technology company. We offer our customers the best and most empowering way to pay, whenever and wherever they spend. Using Zilch’s virtual Mastercard that combines the best of debit, credit and savings, our customers can either earn rewards on debit payments in the form of cashback (‘Pay in 1’) or spread interest-free repayments over six weeks (‘Pay in 4’). This is made possible by the proprietary Ad-Subsidised Payment Network (ASPN) that Zilch has built, which in cookieless world enables retailers around the world to connect directly with the millions of Zilch customers they otherwise couldn’t reach and offer them savings, deals and discounts.
By partnering directly with consumers rather than merchants, Zilch allows customers to pay using either reward-earning debit or interest-free credit, both online and in-store, anywhere that Mastercard is accepted. To ensure that we are helping our customers to manage their cash flow responsibly when they make credit payments, we set dynamic borrowing limits using best-in-market data from credit reference agencies, open banking and behavioural data analysis. Together these generate a real-time, comprehensive, 360-degree view of a customer’s affordability profile, allowing us to set personalised borrowing limits accordingly. To further bolster our customer safeguards, we are fully regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, having obtained a consumer credit license prior to our launch.
Since launching as an FCA regulated business in the UK in September 2020 and in the US in May 2022, Zilch has amassed over 3 million customers. In that time, we have provided our customers with over £75 million in aggregate rewards and savings on fees and interest. Zilch is Europe’s fastest-ever company to go from Series A to double-unicorn status, in just 14 months, after raising capital at a $2bn valuation in November 2021 and maintaining that valuation in a subsequent funding round.
For more information, visit: www.zilch.com.
