Galileo Instant Takes Aim at Growing 1099 Payment Landscape

New solution speeds time to market for digital payment solutions

Galileo today announced the full launch of Galileo Instant, a frictionless solution for gig-economy, marketplace, ecommerce, fintech and other businesses that want the speed and convenience of creating debit cards through a single point of contact—Galileo. Using Instant, qualified businesses can launch their debit card programs as early as 14 days—start to finish.

While all types of businesses can use Instant to create branded debit cards issued by a financial institution, the Instant solution is particularly useful for the U.S. businesses paying millions of 1099 workers. By working with banks to standardize the debit card issuing process, Instant reduces the cost of entry and time to market compared to traditional solutions. This makes it fast and affordable for businesses that need a card and digital banking solution—but don’t want to be in the payment business—to have one.

“In time and dollars, the barriers to entry in digital payments have been prohibitively high, even as the need for solutions has grown,” explained Galileo Instant Managing Director Cole Wilkes. “Fast growing companies—like streaming and gig platforms, for example—need to pay their content creators and gig workers quickly and easily, but there hasn’t been an easy way to do that. With Instant, we’ve created a solution that enables businesses to easily create branded debit cards and accounts for these individuals and pay them instantly, ending the cost of cutting checks or making ACH payments.”

In November 2019, Instant launched in beta mode. Just prior to this month’s full launch, Instant had a waiting list of over 100 businesses.

Early adopters of Instant looking to achieve cost saving and new revenue opportunities through Instant’s interchange revenue sharing plan represent a variety of use cases, including:

• Content Creation Platforms—Create physical debit cards to instantly pay revenue share or subscription fees.

• Gig Employees and Contractors—Create physical debit cards to instantly pay employees on a per gig basis.

• Startup Fintechs—Create bank accounts and live debit cards to demonstrate digital banking account features to investors.

The implementation process begins with the Instant Dashboard, a portal where businesses can find everything they need to launch and scale a debit card programs and access the Instant API.

“In a live demo, we went from idea to issued card to completed transaction in less than an hour,” Wilkes noted. “Like all banking services, of course, Instant is backed by a regulated financial institution and requires compliance and validation steps, but we’re still estimating that most businesses can launch their programs as early as 14 days, and we plan to shave that down over time."