Zum Rails, Mastercard Bring Prepaid Cards to Canada

Zum Rails is launching a suite of Mastercard-powered prepaid card programs in Canada.

“These reloadable cards will enable businesses to offer seamless expense management, faster wage access, consumer rewards, and real-time disbursements and spending flexibility, empowering the business and their customers to control funds with speed, security, and precision,” the instant payments/embedded finance provider said in Thursday (Aug. 21) news release.

The collaboration — available in every province but British Columbia — is designed to help businesses manage expenses by providing employees with co-branded, reloadable prepaid cards to employees for corporate spending.

Companies can also offer faster access to earned wages or pay contractors instantly by loading funds onto prepaid cards, and launch reloadable prepaid cards with benefits or services like credit-building, to reach underserved customers, Zum Rails said in the release.

“At Zum Rails, we believe money should move at the speed of business, and we’re making it easier for businesses to embed smarter, faster payments into their operations,” Zum Rails CEO and Co-founder Miles Schwartz said in the release. “With our Mastercard powered prepaid card programs, companies could now offer branded, reloadable prepaid cards that move money in near real time without the complexity of traditional infrastructure.”

The offering comes at a time when many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are unhappy with their card options, as PYMNTS wrote earlier this week.

Recent research by PYMNTS Intelligence, found in the report “SMB Growth Monitor Report: How Firms Use and Choose Credit Cards,” shows a systemic disconnect between what credit cards offer and what many industry-specific SMBs actually need.

“Despite many credit card options, SMBs say they’d spend more if cards offered features tailored to their industry,” PYMNTS wrote.

“Construction firms want automation; salons want fraud protection; retailers want perks. Yet most card programs treat them the same. These are not businesses that lack credit, but businesses underserved by the blunt instruments of generalized financial products.”

The result is a financial services gap, where traditional credit card offerings cannot meet the nuanced, evolving demands of a dynamic segment of American business.

The research also found a blurring of the lines between business and personal finance, with 54% of SMBs saying they use both personal and business credit cards to finance their operations, a figure that rises to 61% among companies in large cities.

“For these SMBs, credit cards are not just financing tools but stopgap solutions in a financial system not yet optimized for their needs,” PYMNTS wrote. “While flexibility is valued, this hybrid credit usage reveals a market inefficiency: Traditional business credit offerings are simply not compelling or comprehensive enough to stand on their own.”

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