Speculation that Zilch will list in London is growing after the fast-growth FinTech was invited to open trading on the capital鈥檚 Stock Exchange.
The traditional ringing of the bell on Thursday was nominally in celebration of the company鈥檚 third birthday as it celebrates reaching the 3.5 million-customer milestone.
However the significance is obvious for a London-based Buy Now Pay Later company with $460m in debt and equity funding behind it and which last year became Europe鈥檚 fastest ever FinTech double-unicorn.
Zilch launched a base in Miami last year as it targets rapid growth in the US. Co-founder and CEO Philip Belamant told Bloomberg TV yesterday: 鈥淲e have to do what鈥檚 best for our stakeholders.聽
鈥淭he question between the US and the UK is something we鈥檙e taking very seriously and talking about a lot.鈥澛�
The number of tech IPOs in London has dropped rapidly following a series of high-profile falls from grace, with New York being seen as an attractive alternative to scaling companies. The LSE and government have worked to relax rules and simplify the burden of firms listing in London amid criticism from the likes of THG founder Matt Moulding.
鈥淚 will say, we are encouraged by what we鈥檙e seeing from [CEO] Julia Hoggett and LSE, as well as the government,鈥� continued Belemant. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e really leaning in to say how do we support firms, not just post-IPO, but leading into IPO and beyond.聽
鈥淪o that鈥檚 encouraging to see and we鈥檙e excited by that.鈥�
Belamant told 老九品茶Cloud last year that “the secret sauce for UK FinTech companies is…. they benefit from access to the City of London and the UK鈥檚 sophisticated financial services industry”.
However he warned that a perfect storm of rising interest rates, inflationary pressures and falling public company valuations 鈥� most notably in the tech sector 鈥� had triggered a reset in thinking which meant that FinTechs needed to pivot to address investors’ new priorities.
In three years, Zilch has generated a total of 拢300m in rewards and savings for users. Its sign-ups have been equivalent to 3,000 a day since launch. With a reward-earning 鈥楶ay Now鈥� debit product and zero-interest 鈥楶ay in 4 over 6 weeks鈥� credit product, it claims to have consumer interest at heart and says it has consistently maintained one of the highest Trustpilot ratings of any financial product.
鈥淚鈥檓 enormously proud of how far we鈥檝e come in just three years鈥� in just 36 months, almost 10% of the UK adult working population is now a registered customer,鈥� added Belamant.聽
鈥淢any customers are using Zilch daily with our average customer using the product 100 times a year. Zilch has already driven over 拢1.5 billion in commerce to retailers and put over 拢300m of savings and rewards back into the pockets of customers. And this is just the beginning.
鈥淲hilst we remain acutely aware of the many challenges that lie ahead, I am very encouraged by the fact our margins are currently at their highest, credit losses at record lows and revenues the strongest we鈥檝e ever seen. Exceptional growth in fundamental unit economics with substantial gross profit margins holds Zilch on a clear course to profitability and beyond. We are also currently on track to process more sales in the next 12 months than we have in Zilch鈥檚 history to date.鈥�
Sean O鈥機onnor, co-founder, added: 鈥淲e are pleased that the strength with which our counter-cyclical business model has performed during this challenging macro market environment, together with the scale of its societal impact and growth potential, is increasingly being noted in institutional capital markets.聽
鈥淎s such, we are delighted to be invited by the CEO of the London Stock Exchange to open what is one of the world鈥檚 major stock markets.鈥�