Zeller aims to shake up small business banking with transaction accounts and bank cards

Small business banking is facing a shake-up after payments operator Zeller launched transaction accounts and bank cards for its thousands of business customers.

Zeller chief executive Ben Pfisterer is pushing to pinch business from the banks with his fintech’s new transaction accounts and monitoring dashboard.

Small business banking is facing a shake-up after payments operator Zeller launched transaction accounts and bank cards for its thousands of business customers.

Zeller announced it would be supplementing the new transaction offering with an app and dashboard allowing companies to track transactions and issue ­invoices across accounts and points of sale.

The Melbourne-based fintech, which launched its payment terminals into the market in May 2021, said the move would double its addressable market.

Zeller chief executive and co-founder Ben Pfisterer helped bring Square to Australia before breaking off with fellow former Square executive Dominic Yap in January 2020.

Mr Pfisterer said the business was bringing in the new transaction accounts and card options after “phenomenal feedback” from Zeller’s launch.

“If you look around the banking landscape the banking apps haven’t evolved much at all,” he said. “We’re really excited to have a full end-to-end ecosystem in our app.”

Zeller has been trialling the added services and apps for several weeks, but has yet to push the functionality out to more customers.

Mr Pfisterer said Zeller was looking to see how the new functionality performed before looking at adding new systems.

“Lending is not part of our ecosystems at the moment. One option is to partner. We’ve had some discussions. The other is to do it ourselves, which we’re not planning at the moment.”

Zeller, which attained unicorn status in March last year after raising $100m in a series B funding round putting its indicative value at $1bn, has been pushing to pinch the small business market off big payment incumbents Square and the banks.

The company has received backing from Square Peg, Apex Capital Partners, Addition, Spark Capital, Headline and Hostplus.

While the broader tech landscape has been in retreat, Zeller has made several steps to increase its footprint, including opening a Sydney office.

Mr Pfisterer said Zeller was well capitalised after its recent funding round to bankroll its expansion, but had pulled back from international expansion to focus on core markets. “Accelerating global expansion, that’s something we are going slow on to make sure we get it right in the Australian market first,” he said.

“We launched into massive headwinds of Covid and lockdowns and business restrictions. We grew in spite of that.”

Mr Pfisterer said Zeller was profitable from a transaction perspective, but was not aiming to push profitability as the company was aiming to “build long-term business”.