Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
10 days ago
- #Payment Solutions
- #Open Source
- #Startup Challenges
- Zenobia Pay was developed as an open-source alternative to Visa/Mastercard, utilizing bank transfers for payments, inspired by FedNow.
- Despite initial excitement and development of a QR code-based payment system, adoption was limited to fraudulent users, leading to the decision to open source the project.
- Three target customer iterations were explored: SMBs, high-ticket items with fraud insurance, and luxury proof of purchase for resale, each with unique challenges.
- Key challenges included integration difficulties, high support needs, low merchant interest, and competition with credit card rewards.
- The final iteration focused on luxury goods, offering digital proof of purchase to tap into the resale market, but faced adoption barriers in Europe.
- The founders concluded that without the right connections in luxury markets and after significant fraud, they were not the right team to drive adoption, leading to the project's open sourcing.