Customers sign up to Zilch and once approved, receive a virtual payment card with a personalised credit balance. They can use this balance to make purchases at retailers that accept MasterCard and spread the cost across 6 weeks. The customer pays 25% of the cost of the purchase immediately and then the remaining balance is divided into 3 equal parts – each part payable every 2 weeks. This is known as “Pay in Four”. This is a very different repayment mechanism to a traditional interest-bearing credit card where customers can opt to pay only a minimum payment and balances can take up to years to pay off.
A customer can also use their virtual Zilch card to pay for the entire purchase in one go and earn 2% cashback in Zilch Rewards which can be used to discount future purchases – this is called “Pay in One”. The virtual Zilch card is accepted at retailers where Mastercard is accepted – currently more than 37 million worldwide.