Buy now, pay later provider Sezzle is considering introducing a checking account as part of its efforts to move deeper into financial services. Ultimately, the company wants to build what CEO Charlie Youakim has dubbed a “super app.”
Like other financial technology players, including Block’s Cash App and Klarna Group, Sezzle is seeking to expand its financial ecosystem to lure more customers and fuel growth. Sezzle is also mulling how artificial intelligence could contribute to those plans.
“To make a super app, you (have) got to have a lot of features that help the customer,” Youakim, the company’s co-founder, said in an April 21 interview. The company wants to have “a more complete financial services platform” to help people save money, he said.
To reach new customers, Minneapolis-based Sezzle is plotting new services, including the checking account, a secured credit card and post-purchase split payments. Youakim alluded to the new services in a Feb. 25 earnings call without offering specifics.
The company doesn’t plan to offer paper checks with the account, a Sezzle spokesperson said. As far as a secured credit card, that typically requires a customer security deposit before its use.
Sezzle is also exploring an AI shopping assistant, according to an investor presentation the company posted last month.
The financial services push comes after Sezzle dipped into the mobile phone market earlier this year, with monthly plans ranging from $30 to $50.
The lower-cost phone plans are for Sezzle subscribers, an area the company has leaned heavily into since mid-2025 as subscribers tend to have higher monthly transactions and deeper engagement with the company, executives said during a November earnings call. Sezzle had 700,000 “active subscribers” at the end of 2025, according to its 10-K filing. Sezzle’s subscription and on-demand products allow consumers to use a BNPL option at merchants not integrated with Sezzle’s platform.
Financial products beyond BNPL increase customer attachment and retention “through more frequent touch points,” and attract “adjacent audiences” who may use Sezzle’s BNPL offerings, Youakim said in a Feb. 25 call to discuss quarterly earnings.
All of the new products would tie together within a Sezzle consumer mobile app.
“I want it to be like a super app for customers,” Youakim said in the telephone call last week. “Where you’re almost telling your friends, ‘What the hell are you doing – you don’t have the Sezzle app? You got to get the app. It’s going to save you money.’”
Youakim and a company spokesperson declined to comment further on the new deposit account or other products, citing a regulatory quiet period ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings release on May 6.
About 81% of Sezzle customers are Gen Z or Millennials, essentially those who are about 18-to-45 years old, according to Sezzle’s presentation. Some 15% of Sezzle’s customers have no credit history or score and the company believes it can help them build a credit profile, Youakim said.
In other news, Youakim said Sezzle remains interested in becoming an industrial loan company. To that end, Sezzle is likely to seek a bank charter from the state of Utah. BNPL rivals Affirm Holdings applied for an industrial bank charter in January from Nevada, one month after PayPal Holdings sought a similar license from Utah’s Department of Financial Institutions.
“It’s still something we believe in and still something we want to do in the long-term plans of the company,” he said. “We’d want to get significant progress done this year. I don’t think there's any chance we get anything approved this year.”
Becoming an industrial bank is a natural progression for Sezzle, Youakim said. The company observes its 10th anniversary this year.
“You enter the industry, learn, launch new products, and then as your products mature, you move them over into your own verticalized company,” he said. “You basically have your own banking-as-a-service company within the ecosystem.”
Youakim is Sezzle’s largest shareholder, with about 14.8 million shares, or 43%, a stake which has made him a billionaire, based on the company’s $78.70 stock price as of market close on Friday. The company’s share price has jumped about 59% over the past year.
