Volume, a fintech startup founded by former WorldRemit, Mastercard and HSBC employees, Simone Martinelli and Chris Tarnawski, has launched an account-to-account one-click payments product for online merchants.
The startup says its Trasnparent Checkout will allow merchants to save up to 75% in fees by cutting out many of the costs associated with payments by card, such as gateway fees, transaction processing charges and interchange costs.
Co-founder Martinelli says the existence of Open Banking renders fees imposed by card networks completely unnecessary
“What Transferwise did for currency exchange, we are doing for ecommerce payments, and more," he says. "Online transaction fees can go as high as 4% when using Fast, PayPal, or other e-wallets. This results in merchants being forced to raise prices, essentially creating hidden fees for online shoppers."
Volume will charges a small percentage fee with no additional per-transaction fee, he says, making it about ten times cheaper than PayPal and four times cheaper than cards. Its closest competitor, Fast, recently launched in the UK and charges merchants approximately 3% + 30p for each transaction.
“We are already looking at new business models to help drive payment costs down as close to zero as possible," says Martinelli. "And we are also thinking of going beyond ecommerce payments, to make log-in and authentication more seamless across the internet.”
He says the firm is close to sealing a "seven-digit" GBP pre-seed round before expanding to Europe and the US in 2022.