Australian fintech unicorn Zeller has launched in the UK, introducing its payments and financial platform to the country’s 5.7 million SMEs.

The move comes as UK businesses face rising operating costs and continued expectations from customers for smooth checkout experiences.

Research from Foresight Factory, commissioned by Zeller, found that poor checkout experiences lead to nearly half of customers abandoning purchases, putting around £272bn in payments at risk.

Zeller Terminal, the company’s payment hardware, is being introduced in the UK alongside its integrated platform, which combines payments, point-of-sale, invoicing, accounts, cards, and expense management in a single system.

The company said the aim is to reduce the need for merchants to use multiple disconnected providers.

Zeller said UK merchants could reduce payment processing costs by up to 35% annually compared with fintech and legacy providers, equivalent to as much as £5.2bn across the market.

It also noted that its digital onboarding process takes under six minutes, compared with an industry average of around five days, with many providers still requiring in-person verification or paper-based applications.

Early uptake in the UK includes more than 100 businesses during the pre-launch phase.

“The UK is one of the world’s most advanced fintech markets and home to millions of small businesses that are vital to the economy. But despite progress being made, payments is dominated by legacy providers offering unreliable, outdated, and costly payments hardware, paired with lengthy and time-consuming onboarding processes. UK merchants have been underserved for too long,”

said Ben Pfisterer, co-founder and CEO of Zeller.

Zeller, which supports more than 100,000 businesses in Australia, counts merchants including Domino’s Pizza, Baskin Robbins, The Cheesecake Shop, and SSP among its users.

Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by Frolopiaton Palm via Freepik