Zilch Partners With Visa to Launch Physical Payments Card
London-based Zilch, an ad-enabled payments technology company that provides virtual payment cards to one in seven U.K. working adults, is set to launch its first physical payments card in September.
The launch of the physical card is enabled by Zilch’s new strategic multi-year partnership with Visa, which the companies announced in a Monday (June 2) press release emailed to PYMNTS.
The partnership will also enable Zilch to launch other new products, capture a greater share of customers’ spend and drive its continued growth, according to the release.
“This move will allow us to fully deploy our ad-enabled payments technology across both digital and physical retail, bringing measurable savings to consumers and margin efficiencies to merchants,” Zilch CEO and Co-founder Philip Belamant said in the release. “With nearly 80% of U.K. adults still not regularly using mobile wallets, the physical card is a strategic unlock to greater transaction volume.”
The U.K. has historically been a “PC-first” economy compared to others, where smartphones represented a “leapfrog” technology, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report, “2025 Global Digital Shopping Index: U.K. Edition.”
The “digital shopping days” metric, which measures engagement across seven digital browsing and purchasing activities online and in-store, shows U.K. shoppers engage in fewer mobile digital shopping days per month than the average of the eight countries surveyed, per the report.
Zilch’s new physical card will give greater flexibility to customers who prefer to use a physical card, according to the company’s press release.
It also enables Zilch to be used for home maintenance, hotel check-ins, car rentals and other key transactions, the release said.
Because the card will work seamlessly across Visa’s global network, it will allow Zilch customers to shop anywhere in the world that Visa is accepted, online or offline, while continuing to earn rewards and access flexible repayment options, per the release.
Mandy Lamb, managing director, U.K. and Ireland at Visa, said in the release: “FinTechs are shaping the future of commerce, and we’re proud to support U.K. unicorns such as Zilch with their growth ambitions as they provide innovative services to consumers and businesses, while driving financial inclusion through their core offering.”
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