As the cashless revolution picks up steam, financial companies are not hesitating to try to reinvent how they manage transactions. New entrants are pressuring established players to work together to create faster, more creative, and more transparent payment options. This has disrupted the traditional payments ecosystem while upending the dynamic payments market. As impactful as that is, one cannot ignore the challenges of this brave new digital-first world: fraud, data inaccuracy, and the gaps between typical issues and solutions.
To solve this payment puzzle, the market needs a leader – who understands the prevalent gaps and uses knowledge and expertise to streamline the entire payment process. Marc Milewski, a veteran of the payments industry, is constantly breaking new ground in this arena. Through his innovative venture, Zūm Rails, Marc is exploring the convergence of open banking and instant payments. Since its inception in 2019, it has emerged as an error-free and cutting-edge payment solution that neatly combines a client’s financial transactions with payments.
Marc started his exceptional career in the payments sector at VersaPay in 2010, where he played a key role in setting up, promotion, and management of the country’s first EFT gateway. He carried out multiple deployments with the company over the ensuing seven years, ensuring expansion into various industries and developing an in-depth awareness of the gaps in the market. He departed VersaPay in 2017 in order to pursue his budding entrepreneurial spirit and travelled to The Maritimes. As he started his career as a consultant, destiny connected him with Miles Schwartz, a master of data aggregation at Flinks.
The two became close friends and recognized the areas in which their specialties overlapped. A few years later, Marc approached Miles about combining their individual areas of expertise to streamline payment processes and build a top-notch open banking software. And thus, the concept of Zūm Rails was born.
Starting from Miles’ parent’s house, they built the prototype model of the platform, which combines payment processing with the added value and security of data aggregation. But that was only the starting point of possible innovations. In the following years, Zūm Rails evolved into an all-in-one payment gateway that supports its customers’ entire payment journey, from customer onboarding to advanced data aggregation and KYC tools. It has finished filing its SOC2 Type II report, obtained PCI DSS Level 2 service provider status, and is a Visa-validated service provider.
As Canada’s leading instant payments gateway, Zūm Rails provides users with the features and benefits of a centralized hub, lowering risks and improving the payment experience for their clients. It offers a single, user-friendly interface that seamlessly blends the speed and security of instant payments with the smarts and efficacy of open banking. Users can connect their accounts through data aggregation right from the onboarding process. Marc explains the relevance of it by saying, “From the outset, our goal is to offer a streamlined experience, giving businesses all the information they need to make underwriting decisions and gather KYC data.”
Upon establishing the connection, the platform performs penny testing and name verification to reduce the possibility of fraud and illegal access. Users enjoy total control over their accounts and may use any payment method they choose to move and manage money—either manually or through tools like invoicing and subscriptions. According to Marc, users can do all this through their portal or integrated into a business’s pre-existing platforms and workflows. To get a better understanding of their finances and customers, users can also access insightful statistics.
By bringing all under one roof, Zūm Rails provides a sophisticated yet straightforward payment experience. It offers a single intelligent digital gateway for all facets of the payment process, from data gathering and KYC collection to subscription automation and invoicing with fraud and risk mitigation tools. This makes it easier to manage vendors more smoothly, enhances the business-customer payment journey, and delivers the best possible payment experience.
Zūm Rails has carved out a unique niche in the industry by being the first to offer features like open banking, instant payment channels, API options, and robust, legally compliant security mechanisms. Compared to conventional multi-day waiting periods, the payment platform’s RTP feature enables instantaneous, round-the-clock payment processing. This promotes a friendly atmosphere for open banking while fostering customer convenience and business cash flow management. It also helps to pinpoint and remove problems with its users’ payment journeys. Marc says, “This gives us even more opportunity to innovate and enhance not just our product but also the industry standard for how money is moved.” The platform’s built-in capabilities can also examine a user’s purchasing patterns and transaction speeds. Utilizing this data, the user and business may enhance the entire payment experience.
The company is dedicated to enhancing the user experience beyond financial transactions, offering businesses and individuals alike a secure, comprehensive, and adaptable payment solution. Rather than competing with rivals, they spend their time in in-depth R&D to expand the capabilities of their product and constantly strive for excellence. This further establishes the company as a reliable name for safer and more intelligent decisions based on payment options tailored to individual needs as an omni-rail provider.
“Starting a company is not sufficient to recognize you as CEO. Try to merit the title instead. I have never felt entitled to this title since I am one of the founders; instead, I have worked to earn it,” says Marc. Being at the coalface has allowed him to have intimate knowledge of the payments sector. This assisted him in refining the concept of Zūm Rails and seeing how useful and successful it could be in reinventing the conventional payment ecosystem. Under the direction of him and Miles, Zūm Rails has expanded from two people working at a kitchen table to a team of more than forty people who share the same goal of transforming payments into “Financial interaction.”
His approach to overcoming challenges for his company also demonstrates his leadership. For instance, since they were bootstrapped for the past four years with a young team, meeting payroll has proven difficult. “We were very tight to the line a few times, but it was because we had to put everything into building the product while also helping our clients be more profitable,” Marc adds, looking back on those moments. It was difficult to maintain capital growth while staying afloat, but they prevailed. This, according to Marc, is the ability to strike a balance between pragmatism and humanity. As a CEO, he envisions possibilities constantly, thinking about how he could change the course of events when called for. It keeps the company operating and on a steady growth trajectory.
Marc is an astute leader, but he is also extremely lucky to have a team of people who are driven, proactive, and accountable for the company’s goals. The company can operate as one cohesive unit because of their proactive nature and optimistic outlook on work, which they exhibit without coercion. Marc explains, “We are always looking for self-starters and people determined to grow and evolve.” This is the kind of person they like to work with. Even with new hires, he enjoys coaching them. A small percentage of teammates even own stock, so their performance is tied to the expansion of the business, and they take responsibility for it.
Zūm Rails was created to upgrade the prevalent payment system as needed. And as that vision came to pass, it also accomplished other firsts. The business raised $10.5 million CAD in its Series A fundraising round and successfully entered the US market. Additionally, Wealth & Finance International named it “Canada’s Most User-Friendly Payment Software Developer of 2023.” Zūm Rails is included in Global Business Leaders Magazines’ selection of the “Top 30 Innovative Companies Which Everyone Should Know in 2023.” As a finalist for the 2023 BAI Global Innovation Awards, it is also listed among the top fintech and financial services companies.
However, having a strong family that is there for him no matter what is his biggest achievement. His business is an extension of his personal identity. He says, “The company is the most important thing I have done, aside from my son, and we treat it as such every single day.”
Marc and his group have made a lot of bold moves to make Zūm Rails a huge success. He hopes to stay on this prosperous road and make bigger waves in an overwhelmed market. Marc says, “Unlike most companies, we actually invest in sales and the product. That’s our secret sauce.” He is prepared to face the titan if necessary because he is resolute in his pursuit of championing this sector. His goal is to continue reframing the payments market by combining risk management, open banking, and KYC into a single interface.
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Business Talk is a digital business magazine that caters to CEOs, Entrepreneurs, VC, and Corporates. While working with entrepreneurs and business executives, we focus not only on their achievements. Our mission is to shed light on business entities, including their innovations, technological benchmarks, USPs, and milestones/accolades.
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