Zūm Rails will now enable companies to embed credit card acceptance directly into its all-in-one payment ecosystem, empowering businesses to create custom checkout experiences across the United States and Canada.
The final piece of Zūm Rails’ payments ecosystem was contingent upon the fintech becoming an official payments facilitator. This milestone has now been completed through its work with global payments and financial services technology provider, Fiserv.
Early adopters of the new capability include the brokerage platform Questrade, which uses the platform to accept credit card payments for educational content, and Canadian real estate company Zolo, which uses it for property transactions.
Bypassing the rigid processor model
Credit cards remain the most popular payment method in North America. According to the announcement, they currently account for 23 per cent of transactions in the United States and 33 per cent in Canada.
However, for businesses, accepting credit cards has traditionally meant relying on third-party processors. These legacy models often feature rigid, redirect-based checkout flows that can disrupt the customer journey and increase the likelihood of cart abandonment, while simultaneously charging higher fees.
Zūm Rails’ approach bypasses these prebuilt checkout flows. Instead, it enables companies to introduce fully customised payment experiences that are embedded directly within their own platforms and integrated with the broader payments operations they already rely upon. The solution accepts all major payment methods, offers lower transaction costs, and unifies acceptance across both the US and Canada.
Simplifying cross-border complexity
The new capability provides companies with a flexible alternative to building custom payment infrastructure from scratch—a process that typically requires establishing direct banking relationships and managing up to a dozen different providers. For businesses operating across both North American markets, this complexity is further compounded by the need to navigate separate regulatory requirements, vendors, and payment relationships in each country.
By becoming a payment facilitator through Fiserv, Zūm Rails has simplified this process. This marks the final piece in the company’s mission to give clients a single platform for managing their bank rails (Interac, EFT, ACH, RTP, FedNow), Visa/Mastercard Debit, and open banking data aggregation across Canada and the US.
Key benefits for businesses
According to Zūm Rails, companies utilising the new platform can now:
- Design fully embedded checkout experiences: Businesses can build credit card acceptance directly into their existing interfaces. Companies retain control over every element of the checkout process, from button placement to error messaging, creating seamless experiences designed to increase conversion.
- Retain more revenue: As a payments facilitator, Zūm Rails states it provides more competitive transaction costs without the high setup fees common with traditional payments providers.
- Launch across borders in days: With a single integration and streamlined onboarding, businesses can accept credit card payments in both the US and Canada without coordinating with separate relationships and vendors in each jurisdiction.
- Unify payment operations: Instead of managing separate workflows and dashboards for credit cards, ACH, real-time payments, debit payments, and cross-border transactions, businesses gain a single view of their entire payment ecosystem.
Miles Schwartz, CEO at Zūm Rails, commented on the launch: “For too long, businesses have been forced to choose between rigid checkout experiences or slow custom payment builds with full control. By eliminating this trade-off, companies can now embed fully customized checkout into their platforms in days, not months–with lower costs and unified access to both US and Canadian markets.”
This latest development builds on Zūm Rails’ recent partnership with Mastercard, which enabled businesses to issue their own debit and credit cards. As a result, companies can now extend credit to customers and accept credit card payments within a single, unified platform.
