Mercury

Mercury is a banking stack for eCommerce* designed for use by merchants and tech startups. Today, we're here to talk about the merchant-focused aspects of their platform.

Let's start by saying that everything is free: accounts, domestic wires, USD, international wires and more. $250K in deposits will unlock access to their top tier "Tea Room" account, which comes with additional phone support, access to their closed beta Treasury scheme (and yes, free tea.)

In terms of benefits, Mercury's platform makes it very easy to achieve financial order, spinning out various sub-accounts from your main account. For example, if you wanted "Operations and Payroll" to be separate from "Accounts Receivable" and "Vendor Expenses", it's simple to branch these and move money between accounts.

The realities of conducting modern business have been factored in: Mercury has native apps for both iOS and Android, meaning you can do your banking from your phone - safe and secure, no matter your location.

Mercury also enables users to instantly create virtual debit cards, which is great for separating out various expenditures. Personally, I have a virtual card dedicated for all of my SaaS spend, so that I can easily see that total in one place. We have a separate one for marketing costs, and you could also consider creating specific cards to help manage and track your advertising spend, Facebook ads and more.

Mercury places a strong focus on utility and ease of function. It's simple to set up recurring payments to vendors or contractors. Additionally, they can send money in most foreign currencies, removing the need to go to another provider for foreign currency exchange.

Another particularly helpful feature is user access control. This means that employees or contractors receive their own login credentials, with their access to various accounts or cards being easily limited and controlled. Access is easily adjusted, so if you need to change an individual's ability to send or receive money, it's quick to implement.

Mercury offers a capital guide with a few select partners, allowing users to efficiently analyze various financing options and choose the best solution, whether it's on a daily payout, revenue based, recurring-revenue, or even equity-based financing, AKA fundraising.

Mercury is not a bank. Like a few other companies in this space, they are a financial technology company. All banking services are provided by Evolve Bank & Trust; Member FDIC. They've built the technology layer that you interact with when banking.

Their most unique component is the API access, which comes with every account and enables you to set automated rules. From populating your own custom financial dashboards through to reconciling transactions and automatically transferring money between your accounts, your business can keep running without any input on your part - a valuable timesaver.

Mercury can save C-suite and financing teams a lot of time by organizing recurring payments more efficiently, breaking down the company into sub-accounts and by leveraging the endless potential for automated rules.

Mercury also has the potential to improve cash flow, via access to their financing options/partners. Margins can also be increased, as they save you transaction fees with foreign exchange payments and reduce the risk of overspending by employees, with easily controlled capped credit cards - both virtual and physical.

Typically C-suite will be involved in making any decision to move banks. The Chief Financial Officer, finance agency or accountant are likely to recommend moving platforms or prove to be crucial decision-makers in deciding your best-fit banking stack platform.

With Mercury, you can apply and get approved the same day. You may keep your "old" banking platform or bank account open as transactions move over to Mercury, and can even keep that old account active for something like cash deposits.

Mercury is a great fit for fast-growing DTC brands who need to scale working capital as quickly as possible. The platform is also well-suited to finance teams that want to break down and track multiple expenditures, keeping accounts in one place and cleaning up their finances. Want to break down accounts by department and spin up multiple cards by each channel or vendor? Mercury will handle this perfectly - making it easy to manage money across multiple accounts.

There are some caveats. Accounts are only available to those operating as a US-based legal entity. Mercury's platform isn't a fit for retailers who need to process cash deposits. Additionally, the platform isn't accessible to certain high-risk industries.