UK payments startup Ryft wins FCA licence

Ryft’s platform processes marketplace payments and then automatically diverts funds to merchants and sub-merchants the next working day. The API-based package handles everything from accepting online payments, verifying and onboarding merchants, to splitting up the payments however a business wants.

Billing itself as “Stripe Connect without the high fees and lengthy payout wait times”, the authorisation of the licence opens up opportunities for Ryft to become a regulated payment facilitator with some of the world’s biggest acquirers.

The business was borne out of the previous experience of founders Sadra Hosseini and Alex Mackenzie, who built and sold a mobile ordering marketplace app for pubs and bars, and spotted a gap in the market for microtransactions and fast payouts.

With the licence in hand, Ryft is to expand its inhouse compliance team with the objective of facilitating more complex payments, enabling B2B digital and marketplace platforms to monetise payments across their technology as well as independently broker relationships with other organisations.

Says Hosseini: “We are both incredibly proud to have secured our FCA licence after a year and a half. This furthers our ability to provide support to marketplaces and merchants in the industry. Ryft was created to handle everything so your business doesn’t have to.”

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