• Shopify is launching a business credit card.
• The launch is among 100+ updates the company is making today as part of its summer release.
• The new Visa-branded credit card is powered by partnerships with Stripe, which is powering the infrastructure behind the card, and Celtic Bank, which serves as the bank partner.

Shopify released 100 updates today. Out of the updates, the most interesting was the launch of a Visa credit card aimed at U.S. businesses. The card is fueled by partnerships with Stripe, which powers the infrastructure, and Celtic Bank, which serves as the issuing bank.

The card does not charge fees or interest– it is a pay-in-full card that offers business owners up to 56 days to pay for their purchases. After that point, Shopify will automatically debit any outstanding balances from the user’s designated account.

The new credit card offers businesses up to 3% cashback on eligible purchases, which include business expenses in the company’s monthly top spend category— marketing, fulfillment, or wholesale. For all other purchases, cardholders receive 1% cashback. Businesses can receive up to $100,000 in cashback, which is earned as a statement credit.

Eligibility for the credit card is based on a business’ sales performance, not an individual’s credit score. This allows the cardholder’s credit limit to increase as their business scales up.

Shopify has been offering businesses access to working capital with its commercial lending platform, Shopify Capital, since 2016. Underwriting for the loans works in the same way that the company’s credit card underwriting works. The credit offers are based on a business’ sales. In fact, the company uses more than 70 data points about a business applicant to underwrite the loan. Since launch, Shopify has distributed more than $4.5 billion in loans to its business users.

Other financial tools that Shopify offers its business users include Shopify Balance, which is a business financial management tool, and Shopify Bill Pay, a tool to help merchants manage and pay vendors.

Canada-based Shopify has been bringing ecommerce websites and tools to retailers since 2004. In the years since, millions of businesses in 175 countries have used the company’s technology to make over $700 billion in sales. Tobias Lütke is CEO.

• Earnest and Nova Credit are partnering to launch International Private Student Loans.
• Earnest is tapping Nova Credit’s Credit Passport to leverage consumer-permissioned, cross-border credit data.
• The solution is currently available to international students from India, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea.

Student loan refinancing site Earnest has teamed up with Nova Credit to launch International Private Student Loans. The new tool enables select international students to access flexible loan options, competitive interest rates, and personalized repayment terms tailored to their needs.

Offered by Earnest, International Private Student Loans will leverage Nova Credit’s Credit Passport solution that taps into consumer-permissioned, cross-border credit data. With Credit Passport, borrowers can share their credit information from their home country when they apply for a loan. Nova Credit will share the borrower’s credit history with Earnest and offer a relevant score corresponding to that history.

“We believe that access to credit should be borderless, and financial barriers should never hinder someone’s pursuit of education or opportunity,” said Nova Credit CEO Misha Esipov. “The U.S. is home to nearly one million international students who not only fill our universities with the brightest minds from around the globe but also bring those lessons to accelerate our economy for generations. By partnering with Earnest, we can provide more students the financial access they need to arrive and thrive.”

International borrowers that are eligible will have access to Earnest’s loans without needing a cosigner on the loan. Currently, the International Private Student Loans product is available to international students from India, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea pursuing a Master in Business Administration, Master of Laws/Juris Doctorate, or Master of Science in Engineering program at select schools. The loans can be used for tuition, housing, living expenses, and other education-related costs.

Nova Credit was founded in 2016 with an aim to extend credit to an entirely new set of potential borrowers– immigrants. In addition to the company’s Credit Passport solution, Nova Credit offers Cash Atlas, a tool that analyzes bank transaction data to provide lenders with a Fair Credit Reporting Act consumer report and generates a borrower risk profile to assess their affordability and ability to pay.

Nova Credit also offers a direct-to-consumer tool that provides new-to-country borrowers access to a marketplace where they can browse and apply for credit cards, phone plans, and loans using their foreign credit history.

San Francisco-based Earnest was founded in 2013 and offers student loans, personal loans, student loan refinancing, and marketplaces for tuition insurance, student credit cards, and home equity lines of credit.

Today’s news isn’t the only development in the international student lending space this month. Last week, global payments platform Flywire announced it had teamed up with Tencent’s fintech arm, Tencent Financial Technology, to help Chinese students pay for education abroad.

Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash

• Corporate card startup Moss has selected GoCardless as its direct debit provider in the U.K.
• The partnership will help Germany-based Moss break further into the U.K. market and will help Moss clients automate their corporate card management.
• Since Moss does not charge late payments, GoCardless will also serve a key role in powering automatic collections of late payments.

U.K.-based direct bank payments company GoCardless has added a new client today. German corporate card startup Moss has selected GoCardless as its direct debit provider in the U.K.

Moss helps its 2,220 small business clients automate administrative tasks, including activities around corporate cards, invoices, approvals, budgeting, and accounting. Leveraging GoCardless’ direct debit technology will help Moss build momentum in the U.K., its third international market.

“Moss is a dynamic European start-up and we’re excited to play a pivotal role in its expansion plans,” said GoCardless VP and General Manager, EMEA Alexandra Chiaramonti.

Today’s partnership will also help Moss with automatic collections of late payments. Additionally, GoCardless’ technology will help Moss clients automate their corporate card management.

“At Moss, our mission is to automate spend management to make month end as seamless as possible for modern finance teams,” said Moss CEO Ante Spittler. “That’s why we’re excited to offer GoCardless for repayments. It removes one more point of friction for our customer, and helps fulfill our ethos of using automation to help SMBs save time and money.”

Moss was founded in 2019 and differentiates itself from other corporate card providers with two factors. First, it does not charge interest on late payments. Second, the company extends businesses a credit limit of up to £2.5 million per month, which is relatively high.

GoCardless, which won Best Enterprise Payments Solution at the 2021 Finovate Awards, was founded in 2011. The U.K.-based company’s technology helps merchants collect recurring and one-off payments from customers via ACH transfers. Businesses can integrate GoCardless’ API to automate payment collection and reconciliation billing for subscription and invoice payments. Among the company’s clients are DocuSign, Survey Monkey, and Klarna.

“By combining the best of bank payments to get paid on time, every time with a relentless focus on saving businesses time and money, GoCardless and Moss can help millions of SMBs across the continent and beyond,” said Chiaramonti.

Photo by Orhan Akbaba