The head of consumer payments platform Zilch has committed to introducing something unprecedented to public markets as the fintech IPO landscape gains momentum. Philip Belamant remarked to City AM that Klarna’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange, where the stock rose by 15%, was a promising sign for fintech’s future prospects.
“If the industry at large is doing better, everyone’s doing better,” he added.
Zilch is considered a prime IPO candidate for the City, particularly after Belamant mentioned at an Innovate Finance conference a year ago that listing in the City would be “fantastic” and “the right thing.”
“We are excited that the fintech market seems to be heating up,” Belamant stated. “The public market wants to see more of these companies and we think we can bring them something they’ve never quite seen before.”
While the fintech leader remained reserved about immediate listing plans, he welcomed the recent surge of IPOs on the London Stock Exchange. This comes as the London-based firm expands its product range with the introduction of its one-click checkout service, ‘Zilch Pay,’ and a new AI-powered data platform for retailers.
Belamant noted that while some neobanks struggle financially, being “slow or quite bad” at lending despite having good technology, Zilch is rapidly expanding its service offerings. “With Zilch, the bedrock of our business is lending,” he said. “So we’re great at the ‘fin’ side…but the tech is also just evolving so rapidly.”
Zilch’s new Intelligent Commerce platform leverages high-frequency customer spending data to enable retailers to automatically target customers with personalised offers, aiming to significantly boost return on ad spend. The platform analyses spending data to understand customers’ shopping habits and allows retailers to see precisely which ads lead to purchases. It employs AI to automatically target customers with personalised ads and offers, aiming to “dramatically” increase retailers’ ad spend returns.
Belamant explained, “Finance companies are really renting the audience of the merchant – they are basically saying to that merchant: ‘can I be on your checkout page so you give me access to your audience?’”
Despite broadening its offerings, Belamant stated there are no plans to pivot into the digital banking space, unlike some fintech rivals. “We’re a bit confused by some of these other companies’ messaging. We don’t understand exactly what they are or what they think they are, but again, we’re not in those companies. For us, you know, we really are a consumer payments platform.”
