Challenger bank Zopa has acquired online payments platform Rvvup and will make it a subsidiary in a bid to expand its retail finance offering.
Currently, Zopa offers point-of-sale lending on merchant checkouts. But through this acquisition, the bank will support even more payment options in a single, artificial intelligence-driven user experience.
To do this, Zopa will tap into Rvvup’s AI Payment Agent, which is designed to automate every step of the payment process for both merchants and their customers.
It can select the cheapest payment options to help increase sales, connect to third-party software like Xero and automate reconciliatory tasks, which retailers offering multiple payment options must undertake to compare multiple payment records and ensure they match.
Rvvup’s software is already used by the likes of Tile Giant, MP Moran, French Bedroom, Mole Valley Farmers, and Fireaway Pizza. And its team has worked for the likes of Braintree, PayPal, Fiserv, Depop, Ocado and Capital One.
By leveraging Rvvup’s technology and vast industry expertise, Zopa hopes to double its embedded finance business over the next two years. But its ambitions are even bigger for the next five years, as it’s eyeing up becoming a top-three retail finance provider.
Zopa isn’t just betting on Rvvup to achieve these ambitious goals, though. It already owns point-of-sale technology and lending platform DivideBuy, having bought the firm in 2023. According to the bank, such investments have played a vital role in tripling profits to £20.7m in the first half of 2025.
Describing the Rvvup acquisition as a “key milestone” in Zopa’s growth plans, Zopa Bank chief commercial officer Tim Waterman said it would help the online bank “deliver a seamless checkout experience for merchants and customers alike”.
Meanwhile, Rvvup CEO David Nunn suggested that Zopa’s takeover of his business would act as a growth catalyst for its products and internal capabilities.
He said: “By integrating Rvvup’s technology into Zopa, we will have a unique proposition in the market as the only platform to combine lending, banking, and multi-rail payments with AI embedded into the platform.”