BaaS and PaaS FAQ

Zenus Bank is a US digital bank that is striving to create a world of banking beyond borders. On one hand, we do this by facilitating access to the US financial system for non-US residents/citizens and non-US registered companies. On the other hand, we enable organizations to seamlessly embed financial services into their product offering by leveraging our banking infrastructure under a Banking-as-a-Service model.

Yes, we are a fully licensed US bank, operating under a full-reserve model. 

Yes, both your customers’ and your money are safe with Zenus Bank. We are a US bank, with a full banking charter, and we operate in strict adherence to all rules and regulations within the US banking system, ensuring rigorous compliance in our operations. For example, as per OCIF Account & Records requirements, we segregate all retail client funds from our own funds by holding clients’ money in a separate account away from any accounts used to hold money belonging to the firm. The purpose of this separation is to always prevent the use of client money by the firm for its own account.

Moreover, Zenus Bank operates a full-reserve banking model, which means we do not lend out or invest customers’ money, and we do not offer credit or extend any overdraft facilities. Lastly, Zenus prioritizes the safety of the bank and its clients’ deposits by maintaining comprehensive insurance policies with reputable global insurers. It does not get much safer than this.

Zenus Bank combines state-of-the-art fraud detection technology, robust authentication solutions and a mature Fraud and Anti-Money Laundering framework to safeguard customers’ accounts and cards against unauthorized or fraudulent activity.

Payments-as-a-Service (PaaS) is a business model where a third-party provider offers comprehensive payment processing solutions, including payment gateway integration, transaction processing, fraud detection, and security, allowing businesses to outsource the complexities of payment acceptance and focus on their core operations.

An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate and interact with each other.

An API platform is a software service that can be accessed and utilized through an API. Our BaaS/PaaS platform is an example of an API platform.

Zenus Bank will ask you for some personal information and details about your business. You’ll need to have the following documents at hand: passport/IDs of account users, owners and directors; utility bills of account users, owners and directors.

Filling in the details for the application only takes a few minutes, as long as you have all the required documents at hand. Upon submitting your application, we aim to get back to you within 5-10 business days.

The specific information required to become a Zenus BaaS/PaaS customer can vary depending on the particular product or service you need. To ensure a smooth onboarding process, your dedicated sales representative will guide you through the process and provide you with clear instructions on what information and documents you need to provide.

Please email clientservices@zenus.com and explain the difficulties you are experiencing with your application.

Your sales representative will guide you through the process.

At Zenus, we prioritize effective communication throughout your journey with us. We will assign a sales representative to guide you during the initial stages. Once the contract is signed, an implementation manager will assist you with a seamless transition. For ongoing support, you will have a dedicated client success manager who will provide access to documentation, FAQ, and assist you with any needs. Our call center is also available to support you as required.

Yes, you can contact your dedicated account manager.

Zenus Bank takes great pride in offering exceptional support to our clients, so you can expect us to be there for you whenever you need us. Also, here is an overview of our implementation process to give you a clear idea of what to expect while working on your BaaS project:

Before signing the contract, you can explore our developer sandbox and familiarize yourself with our BaaS platform. You can create keys and start experimenting with our APIs, building and tailoring solutions to fit your specific needs. The sandbox is open to any organization interested in working with us, without any obligations. This allows your developers to access the necessary resources and begin work as soon as they are ready.

Once you sign the contract with Zenus, we will assign you a dedicated client success manager to ensure that you can always reach someone who can address your urgent needs. To facilitate efficient communication, we will also schedule weekly meetings with you to address any technical or integration questions your team may have. Next, we will collaborate with you to create a comprehensive project plan and timeline, covering all the necessary steps before the launch. This includes legal and compliance processes such as KYC and due diligence, as well as the development of all required functionality.

Moving forward, our client success team will guide you through all the requirements to start opening real accounts, issuing cards, and everything else that your project might entail. Finally, when the time comes to launch your product, we will be right there to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Yes, Zenus Bank offers would-be BaaS customers the opportunity to trial and test our platform in a staging environment for customizing, testing and training. We want you to feel comfortable and confident with our platform, so we make sure you can experiment and try out new things in order to come up with the best solutions for your needs.

At Zenus Bank, we offer flexible pricing models tailored to meet the diverse needs of our customers. To get detailed information about our pricing options and to find the best fit for your needs, please contact us directly.

You can view your fees within your online Zenus BaaS platform. If you do not have access to your account, please contact our Customer Services.

Zenus Bank offers the following services:

Account Opening: Zenus empowers you to open various account types including personal, business, corporate and institutional accounts.

Debit cards: With Zenus, you can issue debit cards – physical and virtual – and enable debit card payments.

Payments: Zenus’ payment platform empowers BaaS customers to access a wide range of payment options and channels such as ACH transfers, wire/SWIFT transfers, Zenus Transfers (between Zenus accounts), bill payments, Card to Card payments (C2C) via Visa Direct and Mastercard Send.

Service accounts: Zenus allows your customers to activate essential account features, enabling them to fully utilize their accounts. Customers have the ability to:

• Check account balances
• Make payments and transfers
• View transaction history
• Manage cards
• Access bank statements

Admin tools: Developer dashboard and client portal.

Zenus’ PaaS platform is a leading-edge service that connects your business to the world’s most important payments rails through secure APIs. We provide fast, secure, and flexible payments infrastructure that streamlines your operations, facilitates global reach and ensures robust security measures. Benefits include:

• Seamless Payment Processes: Our platform simplifies your payment operations, making payments hassle-free and reducing the administrative burden.
• Faster Payments: Zenus expedites transaction processing times. Our advanced infrastructure enables timely transactions and improved cash flow.
• Exceptional Security and Fraud Protection: Zenus’ payments platform features robust security measures and encryption protocols to safeguard sensitive data. We virtually eliminate the risk of fraud and unauthorized access, ensuring peace of mind for your business and customers.
• Global Payment Capabilities: With access to global payments rails, as well as multi-currency support and advantageous foreign exchange services, Zenus helps you conduct international payments with ease.
• Scalability and Flexibility: Zenus’ Payments-as-a-Service model allows for high scalability, so we can accommodate the growth of your business. Moreover, our payments platform is built to handle varying transaction volumes, adapting to your company’s evolving needs.
• Comprehensive Reporting and Analytics: Zenus platform offers robust reporting and analytics features so you can enjoy complete clarity into your company’s payment activities.
• Lower Costs: Zenus helps you optimize costs associated with payment processing. We offer a competitive fee structure and streamlined operations, which reduces transaction costs and minimizes unnecessary expenses.

Payment automation streamlines financial operations by empowering your company with faster, more cost-effective, and secure payment processing. It also eliminates manual effort, minimizes errors, and grants you easy access to new markets, which drives growth and efficiency.

3DS is globally supported, but its inclusion in the system is determined by banks themselves, who are the card issuers.

KYC verification documents must be provided in English or Spanish. If a document is not available in one of these languages, an official translation in English or Spanish will be necessary.

At the start of each month, we will transfer the total revenue collected in the previous month after deducting Zenus’ fees.

The Zenus platform offers different environments to support your development process, from prototyping to production. These include:

• Public sandbox: A collaborative environment where you can explore the features of the Zenus platform. It allows you to experiment with functionalities that may not be available in your private sandbox or production environments. This environment operates using simulated funds and transactions.
• Private sandbox: A dedicated and private environment for your program’s development. Here, you can start building your program using simulated funds and transactions.
• Production: The live environment for your program, seamlessly integrated with the card networks.

Please remember not to share any sensitive or personally identifying information in the public sandbox environment, as any objects you create there will be visible to other users.

Yes, we are a fully cloud-based organization, which means we can deploy our solutions very rapidly.

Zenus’ APIs empower businesses to leverage seamless, scalable, and dependable payment solutions within their existing technology and software ecosystems. These digital-first payment capabilities align with the convenient and reliable payments that increasingly define the modern business landscape.

As a global bank, Zenus has formed strategic partnerships with various organizations to enhance its offering and provide a comprehensive range of financial services to its customers. These partnerships encompass a wide range of sectors, including core banking technology, payment processing, cybersecurity, and more. While providing an exhaustive list of all our partners would be unnecessary, some of our strategic partners include: Finxact, Microsoft, and Visa.

BaaS clients:

Zenus Bank offers exceptional value to organizations across a wide range of industries who are interested in incorporating embedded finance solutions into their own product offerings. By utilizing our BaaS platform, businesses of all types can leverage our expertise and infrastructure to rapidly develop and enhance their financial operations. This includes but is not limited to: fintechs, software platform providers, payroll companies, neo/digital banks, loan lenders, and many others. Our flexible and scalable solutions are designed to cater to the unique needs and goals of a diverse array of companies, ensuring that they can benefit from our services regardless of their industry or specialization.

PaaS clients:

Our Payments-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering provides tremendous value to companies seeking to enhance their payments capabilities. With our PaaS platform, businesses across various sectors can streamline payments, which can result in happier customers/employees, reduced admin burden, and a new revenue stream via revenue sharing. This includes but is not limited to: financial institutions/credit unions, services companies, insurers, platform providers, independent software vendors, and SaaS companies. Whether you are a financial institution looking to modernize your payment systems or a software vendor aiming to integrate seamless payment functionality into your product, our flexible and scalable PaaS solution caters to the diverse needs of companies across industries.

Zenus Bank is a US digital bank that is striving to create a world of banking beyond borders. On one hand, we do this by facilitating access to the US financial system for non-US residents/citizens and non-US registered companies. On the other hand, we enable organizations to seamlessly embed financial services into their product offering by leveraging our banking infrastructure under a Banking-as-a-Service model.

Yes, we are a fully licensed US bank, operating under a full-reserve model. 

Yes, both your customers’ and your money are safe with Zenus Bank. We are a US bank, with a full banking charter, and we operate in strict adherence to all rules and regulations within the US banking system, ensuring rigorous compliance in our operations. For example, as per OCIF Account & Records requirements, we segregate all retail client funds from our own funds by holding clients’ money in a separate account away from any accounts used to hold money belonging to the firm. The purpose of this separation is to always prevent the use of client money by the firm for its own account.

Moreover, Zenus Bank operates a full-reserve banking model, which means we do not lend out or invest customers’ money, and we do not offer credit or extend any overdraft facilities. Lastly, Zenus prioritizes the safety of the bank and its clients’ deposits by maintaining comprehensive insurance policies with reputable global insurers. It does not get much safer than this.

Zenus Bank combines state-of-the-art fraud detection technology, robust authentication solutions and a mature Fraud and Anti-Money Laundering framework to safeguard customers’ accounts and cards against unauthorized or fraudulent activity.

BaaS stands for Banking-as-a-Service, which is a model in which financial institutions, typically banks, provide their banking infrastructure and capabilities (banking license, compliance, payments, risk management etc.) to third-party companies or fintech firms. This enables non-bank organizations to offer banking services to their customers through APIs and third-party integration.

An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate and interact with each other.

An API platform is a software service that can be accessed and utilized through an API. Our BaaS/PaaS platform is an example of an API platform.

Zenus Bank was founded with a mission to give people and businesses everywhere access to the security, freedom and convenience of US banking. We’re doing this by offering our services both directly, as well as via a Banking-as-a-Service model. By developing our BaaS capabilities in-house, we eliminate any middleman. What this means for you is lower costs, more efficient communication, and the highest level of security and regulatory compliance.

Zenus Bank will ask you for some personal information and details about your business. You’ll need to have the following documents at hand: passport/IDs of account users, owners and directors; utility bills of account users, owners and directors.

Filling in the details for the application only takes a few minutes, as long as you have all the required documents at hand. Upon submitting your application, we aim to get back to you within 5-10 business days.

The specific information required to become a Zenus BaaS/PaaS customer can vary depending on the particular product or service you need. To ensure a smooth onboarding process, your dedicated sales representative will guide you through the process and provide you with clear instructions on what information and documents you need to provide.

Please email clientservices@zenus.com and explain the difficulties you are experiencing with your application.

Your sales representative will guide you through the process.

At Zenus, we prioritize effective communication throughout your journey with us. We will assign a sales representative to guide you during the initial stages. Once the contract is signed, an implementation manager will assist you with a seamless transition. For ongoing support, you will have a dedicated client success manager who will provide access to documentation, FAQ, and assist you with any needs. Our call center is also available to support you as required.

Yes, you can contact your dedicated account manager.

Zenus Bank takes great pride in offering exceptional support to our clients, so you can expect us to be there for you whenever you need us. Also, here is an overview of our implementation process to give you a clear idea of what to expect while working on your BaaS project:

Before signing the contract, you can explore our developer sandbox and familiarize yourself with our BaaS platform. You can create keys and start experimenting with our APIs, building and tailoring solutions to fit your specific needs. The sandbox is open to any organization interested in working with us, without any obligations. This allows your developers to access the necessary resources and begin work as soon as they are ready.

Once you sign the contract with Zenus, we will assign you a dedicated client success manager to ensure that you can always reach someone who can address your urgent needs. To facilitate efficient communication, we will also schedule weekly meetings with you to address any technical or integration questions your team may have. Next, we will collaborate with you to create a comprehensive project plan and timeline, covering all the necessary steps before the launch. This includes legal and compliance processes such as KYC and due diligence, as well as the development of all required functionality.

Moving forward, our client success team will guide you through all the requirements to start opening real accounts, issuing cards, and everything else that your project might entail. Finally, when the time comes to launch your product, we will be right there to make sure everything runs smoothly.

With Zenus, you can test, build, and launch your banking offering in weeks. Unlike other BaaS providers in the marketplace, Zenus is a fully licensed bank, which means you can avoid wasting time negotiating with a middleman and identifying which bank on their roster is best suited for your needs.

Yes, Zenus Bank offers would-be BaaS customers the opportunity to trial and test our platform in a staging environment for customizing, testing and training. We want you to feel comfortable and confident with our platform, so we make sure you can experiment and try out new things in order to come up with the best solutions for your needs.

At Zenus Bank, we offer flexible pricing models tailored to meet the diverse needs of our customers. To get detailed information about our pricing options and to find the best fit for your needs, please contact us directly.

You can access reports on our client portal.

You can view your fees within your online Zenus BaaS platform. If you do not have access to your account, please contact our Customer Services.

By choosing Zenus as your Banking-as-a-Service supplier, you benefit from our extensive, unique expertise as both a bank and a BaaS provider. As a fully licensed US bank, Zenus possesses comprehensive knowledge, established processes, and advanced technology, making us well-equipped to ensure regulatory compliance and seamless banking operations, i.e. dealing with the intricacies of money transfers, complying with Know Your Customer/Business (KYC/KYB) protocols, mitigating risks, and preventing fraud. In fact, our background as a digital-only bank should further underscore our technical excellence in relation to delivering efficient and secure financial services.

Additionally, Zenus’ dual role as a BaaS provider means we have developed our APIs internally, enabling us to be experts in ensuring smooth deployment. By eliminating the need for a middleman, we offer direct access to our banking infrastructure and reduce complexities, enabling streamlined integration and faster time-to-market for your business. Choose Zenus to leverage our combined banking and BaaS expertise, ensuring a reliable, efficient financial solution tailored to your needs.

Zenus Bank offers the following services:

Account Opening: Zenus empowers you to open various account types including personal, business, corporate and institutional accounts.

Debit cards: With Zenus, you can issue debit cards – physical and virtual – and enable debit card payments.

Payments: Zenus’ payment platform empowers BaaS customers to access a wide range of payment options and channels such as ACH transfers, wire/SWIFT transfers, Zenus Transfers (between Zenus accounts), bill payments, Card to Card payments (C2C) via Visa Direct and Mastercard Send.

Service accounts: Zenus allows your customers to activate essential account features, enabling them to fully utilize their accounts. Customers have the ability to:

• Check account balances
• Make payments and transfers
• View transaction history
• Manage cards
• Access bank statements

Admin tools: Developer dashboard and client portal.

3DS is globally supported, but its inclusion in the system is determined by banks themselves, who are the card issuers.

UBO stands for Ultimate Beneficiary Owner and refers to individuals who own 25% or more of a company’s shares or voting rights. During the KYC process, which is part of anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing laws, UBOs must undergo verification. Additional documents, such as shareholder declarations, share certificates, or the latest annual report listing shareholders, may be required to validate a user’s KYC.

KYC verification documents must be provided in English or Spanish. If a document is not available in one of these languages, an official translation in English or Spanish will be necessary.

At the start of each month, we will transfer the total revenue collected in the previous month after deducting Zenus’ fees.

Updates to the Core API are typically backward compatible. Your Zenus sandbox environment receives planned API changes before your production environment, allowing you to conduct testing and ensure compatibility.

The Zenus platform offers different environments to support your development process, from prototyping to production. These include:

• Public sandbox: A collaborative environment where you can explore the features of the Zenus platform. It allows you to experiment with functionalities that may not be available in your private sandbox or production environments. This environment operates using simulated funds and transactions.
• Private sandbox: A dedicated and private environment for your program’s development. Here, you can start building your program using simulated funds and transactions.
• Production: The live environment for your program, seamlessly integrated with the card networks.

Please remember not to share any sensitive or personally identifying information in the public sandbox environment, as any objects you create there will be visible to other users.

Yes, we are a fully cloud-based organization, which means we can deploy our solutions very rapidly.

As a global bank, Zenus has formed strategic partnerships with various organizations to enhance its offering and provide a comprehensive range of financial services to its customers. These partnerships encompass a wide range of sectors, including core banking technology, payment processing, cybersecurity, and more. While providing an exhaustive list of all our partners would be unnecessary, some of our strategic partners include: Finxact, Microsoft, and Visa.

BaaS clients:

Zenus Bank offers exceptional value to organizations across a wide range of industries who are interested in incorporating embedded finance solutions into their own product offerings. By utilizing our BaaS platform, businesses of all types can leverage our expertise and infrastructure to rapidly develop and enhance their financial operations. This includes but is not limited to: fintechs, software platform providers, payroll companies, neo/digital banks, loan lenders, and many others. Our flexible and scalable solutions are designed to cater to the unique needs and goals of a diverse array of companies, ensuring that they can benefit from our services regardless of their industry or specialization.

PaaS clients:

Our Payments-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering provides tremendous value to companies seeking to enhance their payments capabilities. With our PaaS platform, businesses across various sectors can streamline payments, which can result in happier customers/employees, reduced admin burden, and a new revenue stream via revenue sharing. This includes but is not limited to: financial institutions/credit unions, services companies, insurers, platform providers, independent software vendors, and SaaS companies. Whether you are a financial institution looking to modernize your payment systems or a software vendor aiming to integrate seamless payment functionality into your product, our flexible and scalable PaaS solution caters to the diverse needs of companies across industries.