Zilch
“Can a direct-to-consumer BNPL network — bypassing merchant checkout — become the primary consumer payments and financial OS by subsidising costs through advertising rather than interest charges?”
Founded in 2018, Zilch disrupted BNPL by going direct-to-consumer rather than embedding at merchant checkout — consumers receive a virtual card (powered by Marqeta) usable anywhere Mastercard/Visa is accepted. The company pioneered an ad-subsidised payments network (ASPN) model, monetising advertising to reduce consumer borrowing costs to zero. By 2024–2025 it evolved from a pure BNPL product into a broader consumer payments platform, adding open banking repayments (Plaid), AI-powered commerce intelligence, and a forthcoming Zilch Pay wallet — signalling ambition to become a full consumer financial OS rather than a single-product BNPL lender.