Danish start-up Franklin launches Visa cards for e-commerce merchants
Danish fintech Franklin has debuted its latest card offering, serving the capital needs of e-commerce businesses, powered by its new banking partner.
Nikolaj Bomann Mertz, CEO of Franklin (Image: LinkedIn)
The Copenhagen-based company was founded last year by Nikolaj Bomann Mertz, Peter Klit and Johan Frølich – serving as CEO, CCO and CTO respectively.
Speaking with FinTech Futures, Bomann Mertz discusses Franklin’s e-commerce mission and its plans to expand to the UK.
The former LYS Technologies marketing executive states that “banks are simply not made for e-commerce business”, asserting that online start-ups are unable to obtain the capital required to fund their total marketing and software expenditure.
Franklin is seeking to remedy this issue with Visa cards that reward 0.5% cashback on marketing expenses, an offering it has achieved through its newfound partnership with B2B payments platform Nium, which is based in Singapore.
In addition, the card programme supports integrations with e-commerce platforms including Shopify, advertising channels like Google Ads and Meta Ads, and financial systems such as Dinero and Economic, as part of its effort to automate online businesses’ operations.
“We’re not the first to bring a payment card to the world, but we are some of the first to differentiate ourselves by solely focusing on e-commerce,” says Bomann Mertz.
The company, which is currently demoing the product following its decampment from stealth mode this week, says it is gearing up for a full launch soon, with the CEO claiming that Franklin has a list of 25 potential customers ready to be onboarded, with plans to do so in the next 30 days.
Although Franklin is currently focussed on establishing itself in the Danish market, the UK is in its sights to tackle next. For Bomann Mertz, the decision to take on the UK before expanding into the European market is a “no-brainer”, due largely to the lack of language barriers and its banking partner’s established infrastructure in the country.
To date, the start-up has raised €350,000 from various business angels, with Bomann Mertz explaining that once the fintech is generating revenue, it will look to have another fundraising round in potentially 12 to 16 months.
