Zilch and Rezolve Ai link rewards network to UK flexible payments

Zilch has partnered with Rezolve Ai to bring more UK retailers into its flexible payments offering, giving customers access to fee-free payment options in stores and online, according to a company announcement. The tie-up connects Rezolve Ai’s Reward platform with Zilch’s Intelligent Commerce system, extending retailer reach into Zilch’s customer base and adding another commerce channel for brands.

Zilch describes itself as an intelligent payments platform. Rezolve Ai describes its business as AI-powered commerce and customer engagement, with Reward operating as a platform that links retailers to audiences through financial and payments channels.

Under the arrangement, retailers on the Reward platform can be made available through Zilch’s payments environment. Zilch said this will widen the range of merchants where its customers can use subsidised credit across both physical and digital shopping journeys.

The commercial logic rests on combining payments access with retailer-funded engagement. In practice, a payments provider can place merchant offers or payment choices at the point where consumers are deciding how to buy, while retailers use data and attribution tools to assess whether those offers led to visits, purchases or repeat spending.

Zilch said its Intelligent Commerce platform uses first-party spending data to give retailers current information on consumer behaviour across thousands of merchants. The company said that data supports targeted marketing and attribution across online and in-store transactions.

According to Zilch, brands using Intelligent Commerce have reported return on ad spend increases of 20% to 50%, alongside sales growth since the platform launched. Those figures were presented by the company and were not independently verified in the announcement.

Andreas Andreou, Zilch’s chief revenue officer, said the partnership expands customer access to retailers offering subsidised credit through Zilch and brings more brands into Intelligent Commerce. He said Zilch aims to give customers greater value from everyday spending and to help brands reach its customer base more effectively.

Daniel M. Wagner, chief executive and chairman of Rezolve Ai, said the agreement shows how Reward can operate inside a payments platform. He said the companies are seeking to connect consumers, merchants and payment providers through personalised retailer offers embedded in the payments process.

James House, chief executive of Reward, said the deal forms part of the company’s work on its Finance Media Network, which gives brands access to customers through financial services channels. He said connecting Reward to Zilch extends the retailer network into a new payments audience and gives brands another way to generate measurable sales.

The partnership sits within a broader shift in retail finance, where payments companies, rewards networks and merchants are competing to influence consumer choice before and during checkout. For retailers, the appeal is a potentially more attributable marketing channel. For payments firms, rewards and merchant subsidies can add value to their consumer proposition without relying solely on transaction processing economics.

The companies did not disclose financial terms, implementation timelines or the number of retailers that will become available to Zilch customers through the partnership.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.