Zilch wins place in UK's exclusive Scale-Up Unit for fast-growing fintechs

Zilch, the London-based buy-now-pay-later platform, has secured a place in the UK financial regulator's Scale-Up Unit, joining four other consumer fintechs that it alone supervises. The selection, announced in August 2026, grants Zilch access to dedicated regulatory support designed to ease product development and manage the challenges of rapid expansion.

The Scale-Up Unit provides selected firms with a dedicated regulatory contact and assistance navigating policy changes, bringing new products to market and engaging with their sector. The programme is part of the UK regulator's commitment to ensuring that rapid growth does not compromise governance, risk management and control frameworks. For Zilch, this arrives as the company pushes ahead with European expansion and building new tools for its customer base of nearly six million users.

The acceptance reflects both the scale Zilch has reached and the regulatory maturity it has developed. The company is not entering this support structure for the first time: it previously participated in the FCA's Regulatory Sandbox, an earlier programme designed to allow startups to test new business models with lighter regulatory oversight. CEO Philip Belamant said the company had "never shied away from engaging with regulation" and found that "leaning into it has been to our benefit".

A milestone in the FCA's fintech strategy

The Scale-Up Unit itself represents a broader push by UK regulators to remain competitive for fintech investment. The FCA launched the programme earlier in 2026 with a pilot cohort of six firms under dual supervision by both the FCA and the Prudential Regulation Authority. The August selection marked the first time the regulator welcomed firms under its sole jurisdiction, choosing five companies spanning payments, consumer credit, credit intelligence and insurance technology.

Zilch shares the Scale-Up Unit cohort with ClearScore, Modulr, Teya and Urban Jungle. All five are listed as members of the Unicorn Council for UK FinTech, an association of UK fintech founders whose valuations have reached at least £1 billion. The FCA has set a second application window for solo-regulated firms, signalling plans to expand the programme further.

The UK hosts roughly 25 fintech unicorns with combined valuations exceeding £121 billion, according to the FCA. Only the United States attracts more fintech investment globally. Programmes like the Scale-Up Unit aim to help those companies grow sustainably whilst maintaining the regulatory standards that have earned the UK financial services its global standing.

What Zilch is building

For Zilch, admission to the Scale-Up Unit comes at a moment of significant expansion. The company raised $175 million in a Series D round and secured a payments services licence from the FCA. It launched Intelligent Commerce, an AI-powered platform that connects retailers with its highly engaged customer base, and acquired Fjord Bank in Lithuania to support expansion across continental Europe.

The company operates a flexible payment model: customers can spread purchases over six weeks without interest, or take longer periods of three, six or twelve months. Earnings come through a combination of merchant fees and advertising on its platform. This business model has resonated with both retailers and consumers across the European market, helping Zilch establish itself as one of the continent's fastest-growing fintech businesses.

The regulatory support on offer through the Scale-Up Unit—assistance with product development and policy navigation—is designed to remove friction from the growth process. That may prove valuable as Zilch pursues its European ambitions. Regulatory frameworks differ across the continent, and a company scaling from one market to another must adapt to local requirements. The dedicated regulatory contact provided through the Scale-Up Unit offers a resource within the FCA that can help anticipate and solve these challenges.

An FCA assessment of rapidly growing firms published on the same day as the Scale-Up Unit announcement found that companies which invested early in governance and risk controls were better positioned to handle the pressures of scale. Zilch's journey from Regulatory Sandbox participant to Scale-Up Unit member suggests the company has taken that lesson seriously, building compliance infrastructure that has kept pace with its expansion.