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For Highbeam, charge cards create new revenue streams while solving cash-flow problems for customers
Highbeam saw an opportunity to help their customers smooth uneven cash flow and better manage their business finances.
With embedded bank accounts and charge cards, Highbeam can provide real-time insights into finances, automate cash-flow management, and help customers access needed funds.
Embedded finance is when a tech company teams up with a financial institution to make banking and lending products (e.g., high-yield accounts, credit cards) available inside their app or website.
Highbeam is a platform that equips ecommerce businesses with the financial tools they need to scale.
For owners of ecommerce stores like Sabah and Still Here, managing company finances can be a formidable challenge. Payments arrive from a variety of sources (e.g., card processors, wires, ACH), each with its own timeline. To manage routine tasks like invoicing and payroll, many store owners rely on a patchwork of software tools—one that becomes increasingly unwieldy as the business grows.
“When it comes to their financial performance, many ecommerce owners are in the dark,” says Samir Shergill, CEO of Highbeam. “By surfacing financial insights in real time, we can help them figure out where they stand and what they need to do next.”
With embedded finance, Highbeam functions like Brex or Ramp for ecommerce businesses.
But for Highbeam, helping customers understand and manage their cash flow is just the first step. The next step is helping them access the funds they need to run their businesses and scale up.
“Access to working capital can be the difference between surviving a bad quarter and going out of business,” says Shergill. “But many legacy financial institutions don’t understand ecommerce or the needs of a scaling brand.”
To solve these pain points, Highbeam partners with Thread Bank to make embedded bank accounts and branded charge cards available to their customers. They rely on Unit to provide the technology that facilitates the relationship.
What Highbeam launched with Thread Bank* and Unit
*Highbeam is a financial technology company and is not a bank. Banking services are provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. The Highbeam Debit card is issued by Thread Bank, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be issued everywhere Visa cards are accepted. The Highbeam Card is issued by Thread Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be issued everywhere Visa charge cards are accepted.
For ecommerce businesses, Highbeam functions like Brex or Ramp; they help their customers understand cash flow, forecast revenue, and manage corporate spend.
Those functionalities are grounded in an organized system of bank accounts and debit cards. Now, ecommerce store owners can route all incoming and outgoing payments through a financial command center, one that offers competitive interest on deposits.
Customers manage corporate spend via debit cards that are highly programmable. For example, an ecommerce store owner can create a virtual debit card specifically to pay their monthly bill at a fulfillment center. They can program the card with a monthly spending limit or restrict charges to a single vendor. Transactions can also be tagged by card, account, project, and counterparty for easy bookkeeping.
To help launch these embedded financial products, Highbeam considered all major players in the space. They chose Unit and Thread Bank for three reasons:
“We appreciate Unit’s compliance-first approach,” says Shergill. “They help us understand and meet the needs of our bank partner.”
With embedded banking launched, Highbeam turned their attention to charge cards.
Accessing credit is difficult for ecommerce owners. That’s because many traditional lenders don’t understand ecommerce business models or the financing they need. Too often, ecommerce store owners must resort to short-term, predatory cash advances that ultimately erode financial health.
Fortunately, Highbeam is in a great position to help. Because they’re ecommerce experts and have visibility into their customers’ cash flow, they know how much credit store owners need—and how much they can afford to repay.
Charge cards have helped Highbeam increase their average revenue per user.
Say you're an online shoe brand who typically sees a large uptick in sales around the holidays. To kickstart demand, you might start placing ads on Google and Facebook in October, long before holiday gift sales have started to pick up. You’ll need access to a source of credit—like Highbeam’s embedded charge card.
“Charge cards have been transformative for our customers,” says Shergill. “They need credit to grow—and, in many cases, they haven’t been able to get it elsewhere.”
Through their partnership with Thread Bank, the Highbeam Card offers high limits and flexible benefits. Store owners can earn up to 1.5% cash back** on digital advertising spend, and they have up to 45 days to repay their balances.
Charge cards have also helped Highbeam increase their average revenue per user.
As Highbeam looks to the future, they’re expanding to meet the needs of more types of ecommerce brands.
For example, many ecommerce brands sell their products in bulk to retailers like Target and Dick’s Sporting Goods. These large transactions are typically conducted via invoices, which can take 30-90 days to get paid.
For these brands, invoice factoring could make those funds available right away. It’s a powerful way to increase working capital—and Highbeam is in a great position to offer it.
“Our partnership with Unit has been a foundational part of Highbeam’s success,” says Shergill. “They provide the technology we need to offer embedded financial products—so we can stay focused on our customers.”
*Highbeam is a financial technology company and is not a bank. Banking services are provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. The Highbeam Debit card is issued by Thread Bank, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be issued everywhere Visa cards are accepted. The Highbeam Card is issued by Thread Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be issued everywhere Visa charge cards are accepted.
**Cashback program subject to additional terms and conditions.
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