Zūm Rails has completed its all-in-one payments ecosystem by becoming a payments facilitator through a collaboration with Fiserv.
Following this announcement, Canada-based Zūm Rails has announced it will enable companies to embed credit card acceptance directly into its payments platform, covering both the US and Canada. The strategy was contingent on the company obtaining payments facilitator status, which it has now achieved through its existing collaboration with Fiserv.
The development marks the completion of what Zūm Rails describes as a unified payments ecosystem — one that consolidates bank rails (Interac, EFT, ACH, RTP, FedNow), Visa/Mastercard debit, Open Banking data aggregation, and now credit card acceptance, under a single platform spanning both countries.
Addressing cross-border complexity
According to the official press release, credit cards remain the dominant consumer payment method across North America, accounting for 23% of transactions in the US and 33% in Canada. Despite this, credit card acceptance has traditionally required businesses to rely on third-party processors with limited customisation options, redirect-based checkout flows, and higher transaction fees. For companies operating across both countries, the challenge is compounded by the need to manage separate regulatory requirements, compliance frameworks, and vendor relationships in each jurisdiction.
Zūm Rails' approach as a payments facilitator is designed to address these friction points by allowing businesses to embed fully customised checkout experiences directly within their own platforms, rather than redirecting customers to hosted payment pages. According to the company, businesses will also have the possibility to control elements such as button placement, error messaging, and confirmation screens.
In addition, the platform consolidates payment operations across all rails and geographies into a single dashboard, covering credit cards, ACH, real-time payments, debit, and cross-border transactions. The company states that onboarding and integration can be completed within days, giving businesses simultaneous access to both the US and Canadian markets.
Early adopters include Questrade, a Canada-based brokerage platform using the solution to accept credit card payments for educational content, and Zolo, a Canada-based real estate company applying it to property transactions.
Strategic positioning
The announcement follows Zūm Rails' recent partnership with Mastercard that focused on the process of enabling businesses to issue their own debit and credit cards. With payments facilitator status now in place, the platform allows companies to both extend credit to customers and accept credit card payments within a single environment — a combination that broadens the scope of Embedded Finance use cases the platform can support.
The collaboration with Fiserv builds on an existing relationship in the US focused on Embedded Finance, with the payments facilitator arrangement representing an extension of that work into credit card acceptance.
For businesses that have historically faced a choice between rigid, pre-built checkout flows and lengthy custom infrastructure builds, the model positions a consolidated alternative that reduces the number of providers, banking relationships, and integration points required to operate across two distinct regulatory environments.
