Chicago payment startup Braintree announced this week that it can now grant instant approval for companies looking to secure a merchant account. With the accelerated service, startups can now begin accepting online payments through Braintree within the same day of submitting an application, eliminating the waiting process that once spanned a few days. Braintree is targeting smaller companies that hope to grow out of a basic payment aggregator service like PayPal into a larger scale operation, providing a merchant account that scales appropriately alongside the company. “With Braintree’s instant application, merchants are approved and ready to accept payments immediately, with their own merchant account, but with the peace of mind that they have all the capabilities they need as their business grows. It’s the best of both worlds,” wrote Braintree marketing manager Kaitlin Simms in a blog post this week. The announcement of the Braintree’s accelerated sign up process comes less than two months after the Chicago company acquired Venmo for $26.2 million. Based out of Philadelphia, Venmo is a free-to-use mobile app that allows friends to share payments directly from their smartphone linked to either a bank account or debit card. Braintree is also introducing a new pricing plan and accelerated payments for merchant accounts this week. Formerly, the company required a monthly minimum from participating merchants, but is now offering a flat fee of 2.9 percent each month and $0.30 on individual transactions. Braintree guarantees to provide the merchant with the majority of their money within two business days of the transaction, with the rest to follow after two additional days. For now the instant application is only available to businesses within the United States, though Braintree has plans to offer the quick sign up to international companies in the future. Braintree was founded in 2007 and currently processes more than $4.5 billion in payments each year. The Chicago company is currently working with a number of rapidly growing startups, including Airbnb, Living Social, and Uber.
