Businesses needing payments, accounts and cards typically go to a traditional bank, stand in line, get three different application forms, fill those out and then hope to get approved for each of those things separately. Then, if the business gets all three, they often find that the pieces don’t work together seamlessly.
Seeing this, Australian FinTech Zeller developed a solution that offers payments, accounts and cards in an integrated solution that requires only one signup. On average, it takes a little over 5 minutes to sign up for Zeller and get the three products. There’s one processing fee and then, after that, the business only pays for the payments it processes.
“That, as common as it might sound, isn’t,” Ben Pfisterer, CEO and co-founder at Zeller, told PYMNTS. “The ability for a business to sign up quickly once and get those three integrated products is — well, I haven’t heard of it being done anywhere.”
Solving Businesses’ No. 1 Problem: Cash Flow
It’s an offering that has resonated with both customers and investors. During the first eight months after its launch in May 2021, Zeller signed up 10,000 Australian businesses. Then, on March 3, the company announced it closed a $100 million Series B funding round at a valuation of over $1 billion.
Pfisterer says this rapid growth has been driven by the fact that Zeller’s solution is faster, more integrated and simpler and has better functionality. The company’s terminals have full-width screens with more functionality, enabling the user to just push a button to connect a point-of-sale (POS) system, connect an accounting system or add or remove access for staff.
In addition, Pfisterer said, Zeller started with those three financial products every business needs — payments, accounts and cards — and focused on making those things happen quick in order to solve businesses’ No. 1 problem: cash flow.
“We started the business by saying, ‘What does everyone need?’” Pfisterer said. “And what everyone needs, in our view, was three products: to get money in, to store money somewhere and then to put it to work as fast as possible.”
Becoming Businesses’ Main Financial Institution
With its new capital, Zeller will push deeper into business banking. Its next-generation suite of products will include enhanced debit card propositions, corporate cards, expense management, invoicing and eCommerce payment processing. After that — later this year and early next year — the company will start looking at lending.
Pfisterer said the investors he speaks with say there is a vacuum in the business banking space, with no one offering a complete solution.
“Everybody is soft of biting off little bits around the edges. No one’s going in the middle and saying, ‘We want to be their main financial institution. We want to offer all the key products that they need,’” Pfisterer said. “So, I think when they saw that, the investors that like us resonate with that mission.”
In addition to adding financial products, Zeller expects to expand geographically as well. While offering the product and getting its brand known in Australia, the company is also getting ready to go global.
“We know this opportunity exists in other markets but, one, we want to make sure we do it well and get established in Australia and, two, that first foray into international, we want to make sure we do it carefully and cleverly as well,” Pfisterer said.