Two fintechs announced new products and services this week geared toward e-commerce sellers, pointing to gaps in offerings from banks and legacy card companies to provide seamless, affordable solutions for online-based businesses looking to scale up quickly or stock up for busier seasons.
Marketplace payments firm Payoneer’s Capital Advance service, now launched in the U.S., provides sellers with a way to scale their businesses with “just the click of a button.” Credit card startup Brex, in the meantime, is offering what it calls the first e-commerce card, allowing online businesses to streamline operations and take advantage of personalized rewards and perks other Brex cardholders receive.
Using machine learning technology, New York-based Payoneer will offer sellers instant but low-cost access to capital based on their historical sales data.
Iain McNicoll, U.S. country manager for Payoneer, told Bank Innovation that Capital Advance fills a void for the seller who is doing regular business and looking to stock up for a busy season or the holidays.
The new service expands on Payoneer’s Early Payments product, launched in 2017, through which sellers can receive early payout for items they’ve already sold.
McNicoll said Walmart sellers and others use Payoneer for their flow anyway, so the company already has an accurate picture of how much they’re making on a monthly basis. He said Amazon sellers, for instance, can also link up their U.S. store to Payoneer’s platform and, in doing so, connect to its Store Manager product, which allows Payoneer to receive past data from Amazon as well.
“We use that to assess an amount to put forward, as far as the capital advance, and the seller gets to choose the exact amount they want to accept, whether that’s all or a portion, or they can decline,” he said.
The initial product in the U.S. is a 30-day advance, although repayment terms can be extended out to as many as 90 days. McNicoll said e-commerce sellers are traditionally paid in two monthly cycles, so after one cycle is completed, sellers will get offers that are basically equivalent to what they make in a single cycle. Then, two cycles later, Payoneer would collect whatever amount is accepted, plus interest.
He said the interest rate for the Capital Advance product is around 1.5%, well below what banks have traditionally been able to offer. “It’s meant to be an affordable rate so there’s real incentive to take the funds,” McNicoll added.
“The ‘click of the button’ part is, once you’re set up for it, the offers will appear in the Payoneer platform on a regular basis, after each payout cycle,” McNicoll said. “‘Here’s the amount, here’s the fee, do you want to accept it?’”
Brex’s e-commerce card
San Francisco-based unicorn Brex said its new corporate card for e-commerce allows online brands and retailers to “bypass the problems of legacy banking systems” and delivers a product that is fast, functional and easy to manage.
The company said in an announcement that the product offers an open line of credit with 60-day payment terms and interest-free financing, “thereby providing the benefits of float typically associated with working capital loans, yet with the convenience of the Mastercard network and without foreign transaction fees.”
Brex e-commerce cardholders will have access to instant online underwriting without personal guarantees, transparent statements and expense management. There is also a rewards program that includes partnerships focused specifically on e-commerce tools and solutions.
The company said it worked over six months with e-commerce businesses including wholesale retailer Boxed.com to fine-tune its offering.
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