Overwhelming majority of consumers insist on carrying credit and debit cards, despite soaring popularity of mobile digital wallets
Gen Zers among those refusing to rely on phone payments alone
Zilch debuts first physical card as the firm surpasses 5 million customers in UK
London, 3 June 2025 – British shoppers refuse to be parted from physical payments cards, despite the huge popularity of digital services like Apple Pay and Google Pay, new figures from ad enabled payments company Zilch reveal today.
The findings from a Zilch poll come as Zilch launches its first physical card, offering benefits for customers however they choose to pay.
Two thirds (66%) of consumers insist on carrying physical cards every day, rather than relying on their phones to make payments. A mere 1% say they never carry a credit or debit card.
The risk of being left with no way to pay if a phone’s battery runs flat or a device is lost or stolen, means even the youngest shoppers are relying on credit and debit cards. More than half (52%) of Gen Z consumers carry physical cards – which were first used in the UK in the 1960s – every day. Almost two thirds of them (63%) refuse to rely on digital payments alone, thinking it’s very important to have either cards or cash as a backup.
Older shoppers are even more committed to cards, with more than three quarters of baby boomers (77%) carrying physical cards every day.
Zilch has announced that it will launch its first-ever physical payments card as part of a wider strategic multi-year partnership with Visa, a global leader in digital payments. The new physical card will function just like Zilch’s virtual payment card, allowing customers to earn rewards and enjoy flexible repayment options with just a tap at the checkout. It will be available in different shades of the brand’s distinctive bright green.
One in seven UK working adults are already Zilch customers, with a virtual payment card stored in the Zilch app or their mobile wallets. To date, Zilch has processed over £4 billion of purchases – both online and in-store.
Joe Zender, Chief Product Officer at Zilch, commented: “Digital payments have been transformational for shoppers, but consumers of every generation are holding onto their physical cards. People still love to know they can buy what they need even if their phone’s battery runs flat. That’s why we’re giving people the option of having a new physical card, so they can get the full benefit of using Zilch whichever way they pay.”
Zilch’s new physical card will be available to existing customers from September 2025. The card will work securely and seamlessly across Visa’s extensive global network that reaches over 150 million merchant locations in 200+ countries and territories, providing trust, resilience and innovation to global money movement.
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About Zilch.
Zilch is a London-based, ad-enabled payments technology company with a vision of eliminating the high cost of consumer credit – for good. Established in 2018 and launched in 2020 in the UK, Zilch was created on first principles to rewire the economics of credit, advertising and merchant-consumer engagement. Zilch is the creator of the world’s first direct-to-consumer, ad-subsidised payments network (ASPN). It combines the benefits of debit, credit, and savings in a single, intelligent platform, connecting people (buyers) in real time with the world’s retailers (sellers). Powered by a proprietary first-party data engine, Zilch delivers unmatched value to both consumers and marketers – while generating profitable revenue through its vertically integrated model. With over 5 million registered customers and growing, Zilch gives people the freedom to pay anywhere – online or offline – and earn up to 5% cashback on ‘Pay Now’ debit purchases or spread payments interest-free over six weeks or three months. It also helps them build their credit profiles with the major agencies, all under the protection of FCA regulation. In under five years, Zilch has saved its customers over £750 million in fees and interest.
Founded by Philip Belamant, Sean O’Connor, and Serge Belamant, Zilch is transforming the multi-trillion-pound worlds of advertising, data, and payments. Just 14 months after its public launch, Zilch reached a valuation of $2 billion in 2021 – making it Europe’s fastest fintech to reach double-unicorn status at the time. By 2025, Zilch was named the fastest revenue-growing tech unicorn in the UK and EMEA (Deloitte, Financial Times, The Sunday Times), with a £145 million annual revenue run rate and more than £4 billion in retail sales to date. Backed by a total securitised debt facility of £400m – led in 2024 by Deutsche Bank and two of the world’s largest funds – Zilch can unlock £10bn in annual merchant commerce. From becoming FCA-regulated pre-launch, to pioneering a new credit-reporting model across the UK’s leading credit reference agencies, to launching its proprietary Financial Media Network (FMN) with AI technologies, finance and infrastructure from AWS, Deutsche Bank, and Visa, Zilch is defining a new global category – Ad-Enabled Payments: a next-generation consumer platform built to help accelerate and transform the lives of hundreds of millions of people seamlessly and securely ‘spend with benefits’ every time they pay anywhere in the world.
Learn more at: www.zilch.com