Unit

Unit provides financial infrastructure for technology companies embedding banking, covering accounts and wallets, money movement across ACH, wire, cheque and real-time payments, branded prepaid, debit and credit cards, and capital products including merchant cash advances and lines of credit.

Including capital alongside accounts and cards is the distinguishing scope and it changes what a platform can build. A vertical software company serving contractors or restaurants sees its customers' revenue and expenses in detail, which is better underwriting data than any lender has, and being able to extend a line of credit against it turns that visibility into a business rather than a feature.

Real-time payments being listed alongside ACH and wire matters more each year. ACH takes days, wires are expensive and business-hours bound, and the newer instant rails settle in seconds at any hour, which for a platform paying out to workers or merchants is the difference between a product people like and one they tolerate.

Cheque handling is the unglamorous inclusion and it reflects the reality of the United States, where a large share of business-to-business payment still arrives on paper. A platform serving small businesses that cannot accept a cheque has a gap its customers will notice immediately. Unit publishes developer documentation and an API reference openly. Rates are not published.