Level
The Challenge
Zero Financial set out to build a debit card with meaningful rewards. The reason that is hard is the interchange economics: debit interchange is capped, so there is far less to fund a cashback program with than there is on credit.
They needed transaction infrastructure that could process payments in real-time, calculate rewards instantly, and maintain the security and compliance standards required for banking. The platform had to integrate with banking-as-a-service partners while delivering a consumer experience that felt native and immediate.
Technical Challenges
Banking-Grade Transaction Infrastructure
A debit card that pays rewards has to fund them out of interchange, and that constraint reaches into authorization, categorization, and the balance the user sees.
Real-Time Processing
Every swipe needed instant feedback: transaction amount, merchant info, rewards earned. The system processed transactions, calculated cashback, and pushed notifications within seconds of card authorization.
Banking Partner Integration
Level ran on a partner bank's rails rather than its own charter. We built the integration layer between the two, so a customer never had to think about where their account actually lived.
Rewards Economics Engine
Paying meaningful rewards on debit meant working against the interchange economics that make debit rewards hard to fund. The engine required transaction categorization, interchange optimization, and real-time balance calculation, generous enough to matter to users and sustainable enough for the business.
Platform Architecture
Modern Banking Infrastructure
Balances, transactions and rewards all read from the same live data, so what the user saw was what had actually happened.
Instant Transaction Visibility
Users saw transactions the moment they happened, rather than days later when the batch processed. Push notifications, map-based transaction history, and instant balance updates made money feel tangible and controllable.
Early Paycheck Access
Direct deposit detection let users access their paychecks ahead of the official settlement date. The system identified incoming ACH transfers, verified the source, and released funds early.
Card Control & Security
Lost card? Lock it instantly from the app. Found it? Unlock just as fast. Real-time fraud detection, instant card freezing, and granular transaction controls gave users security without friction.
Savings Integration
Savings sat inside the spending experience rather than in a separate account users had to remember. Automatic savings rules and goal tracking ran against the same real-time balance data as the rest of the platform.
Zero Financial was acquired by Avant.
We worked with Zero across two engagements. The first was the backend and the mobile app: the integration with the partner bank whose rails the accounts ran on, the rewards engine that had to fund cashback out of debit interchange, ACH detection that released direct deposits ahead of the settlement date, and instant card lock and unlock. The second was mobile.
Build Your FinTech Platform
If you are building something like this, tell us what you are trying to do.