London, 13 January 2022 | Zilch, the London-based unicorn Fintech announced today that it has expanded its partnership with Mastercard to bring Zilch’s popular over-the-top buy now, pay later (BNPL) digital card offering to Europe and enable deferred purchases across the EU. Zilch’s digital card is currently available in the UK and has already reached over 1.7 million customers in less than 15 months – record time within the BNPL industry.
Today’s announcement will see Zilch accelerate its international growth across Europe. Enabling Mastercard payments Europe-wide supports Zilch’s mission to empower customers to shop anywhere, anytime using its unique BNPL solution with no hidden costs, interest or fees.
Zilch has partnered with Mastercard since its beta launch in August 2019 to deliver its unique and retailer-agnostic BNPL payment solution. The Fintech is the first truly over-the-top (OTT) BNPL product which is independent of the checkout page and allows its customers to shop wherever Mastercard is accepted and spread their payment over six weeks for zero interest and zero fees.
This direct-to-consumer model allows Zilch to build direct relationships with its customers – Zilch is now the best-rated product of its kind on Trustpilot with over 33,649 reviews – and scale significantly faster than its competitors as its “social deployment” strategy is not restricted by borders or merchant acquisition and integration.
Philip Belamant, Zilch founder and CEO, said, “Zilch’s absolute focus is the customer and ensuring that their experience is best in class. With our partner, Mastercard we remove acceptance as a barrier and ensure our customers can pay over time anywhere, instantly. We empower our customers to buy what they want, when they want it, without being limited by temporary cash shortages – that’s priceless. We are excited to continue our work with a partner that shares our values and is committed to addressing the needs of our customers at home and abroad as we gear up to launch Zilch in the USA and EU.”
Jason Lane, EVP Market Development Europe at Mastercard said, “We are excited to further our relationship with Zilch in their ongoing efforts to scale globally, expanding their offering across Europe and offering consumers even more choice on how and when they want to pay.”
Zilch is built upon responsibility, offers transparency and is the only player in the industry that uses Open Banking technology combined with soft credit checks to gain a real-time view and understanding of the consumer’s affordability profile and make an accurate recommendation of what they can afford, preventing problem debt. The Fintech is one of the UK’s first BNPL Fintech to be granted a consumer credit licence by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The move marked a landmark moment for the UK Fintech industry and is a testament to Zilch’s unique approach of placing consumer financial wellness and protection at the heart of its operations.
For more information, visit: https://www.zilch.com/uk/
ABOUT ZILCH
Zilch is Europe’s fastest-ever company to go from Series A to unicorn status in just 14 months. Zilch is on a mission to revolutionise the credit payment industry, ‘buy now, pay later’ 2.0 with innovative products for customers to manage their cashflow responsibly. As one of the UK’s first BNPL providers to be granted a consumer credit licence by the FCA, Zilch’s transparent and customer-centric credit alternative was designed with regulators to ensure consumer protection and financial wellness from the start. Utilising sophisticated Open Banking Technology and soft credit checks, Zilch uses its real-time view and understanding of consumers’ affordability to give accurate recommendations of what they can afford to borrow. The company is growing at lightning speed with more than 185,000 new customers registering per month, making it one of the fastest-growing BNPL providers in the world.
Zilch’s merchant agnostic proposition offers its users unrestricted access to the entire retail space, so they can shop wherever they choose. Wanna buy it? Zilch it!
ABOUT MASTERCARD
About Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.
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