Highlights:

  • Last year, Zeta received a USD 250 million investment from SoftBank Group Corp. and Sodexho SA, making it a Unicorn.
  • Zeta provides the backbone cloud technology for core banking operations, credit transactions, mobile banking, and personal financial management.

Zeta Services Inc., a banking and credit card technology Unicorn, has raised USD 30 million from financiers, including Mastercard Inc. The two companies have agreed to a five-year partnership to assist consumers with the rollout of credit card services.

Zeta will receive a total of around USD 280 million with the current round of funding, bringing its worth to USD 1.5 billion, according to Bhavin Turakhia, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Last year, Zeta had received a USD 250 million investment from SoftBank Group Corp. and Sodexho SA, which made it a unicorn.

As banks across the world shift online and move away from running physical branches, the firm has added two of the top 25 US banks to its client list and is in talks with another bank. Zeta provides the backbone cloud technology for core banking operations, credit transactions, mobile banking, and personal financial management.

Experts’ view

“Covid has made brick-and-mortar branches irrelevant,” Turakhia said. “Customers want instant service with a tap of their mobile phones.”

Turakhia added, “Such digitization is difficult on legacy banking technologies, but newer startups like Zeta have hastened internet banking and credit card services.”

Mastercard will provide support in areas such as fraud detection, risk and loyalty solutions. At the same time, Zeta will help customers make card issuance faster and more flexible with its loan-processing and credit technology solutions. The two aim to help customers create and launch credit cards within a day, condensing the months-long timeline for such offerings, Turakhia said.

“Mastercard and Zeta are together targeting issuance of cards that will lead to USD 60 billion in purchase volume over the next five years,” he said.

“Mastercard is partnering with Zeta to provide issuing banks and fintech innovators with modern credit card processing capabilities at scale that will maximize the safety, security, and convenience of e-commerce, online banking, and contactless transactions,” the payments company’s Executive Vice President Sandeep Malhotra said.