How Mercury works
The next evolution of banking
Uncompromising stability, smoother payments, elevated banking security, and fine‑tuned user controls — your startup deserves it all. This is banking as it should be.
layer 1
Regulated partner banks provide a secure foundation
Mercury isn’t technically a bank — but you’d never know it.
Working with regulated partner banks allows us to unlock secure access to the U.S. banking system and focus on building innovative products for over 100K startups.
But like you, we’re thoughtful about who we do business with.
When selecting a partner bank, here’s what we look for:
- Institutions that are U.S.‑based and federally regulated
- Strong financial health — think robust capital ratios, stable assets, and a track record for profitability
- Diverse deposit sources and a wide range of customer industries
- A shared belief in our ambitious product goals and the determination to help us reach them
We primarily work with three partner banks:
- Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust provide banking services that include storing your checking and savings deposits via a sweep network of reputable, FDIC‑insured banks.
- Patriot Bank backs our credit card.*
In the case of Mercury Treasury, we work with Apex Clearing Corp, a FINRA‑regulated brokerage firm subject to similarly rigorous requirements as our partner banks. Mercury Treasury accounts, which allow customers to earn yield** through Morgan Stanley and Vanguard mutual funds, are insured by the SIPC rather than the FDIC.
It all starts with building a bank account
From start to finish, your Mercury experience is crafted around a bank account, the ultimate source of truth for your company’s finances.
And to give you the best possible banking experience, we’ve preserved the finest elements of traditional banking — and cut out the worst.
You get stability and security through strategically chosen partner banks that support a range of industries and are less sensitive to the volatility of the startup ecosystem.
You’re spared from unwieldy interfaces and hidden fees because we’ve designed a banking experience that respects your startup’s time and resources.
How your FDIC protection is 20x the per bank limit
A sweep network is a program that involves strategically spreading deposits across multiple banks, reducing the impact of any single point of failure. Customers gain access to expanded FDIC insurance coverage without having to interact with more than one bank.
Our partner banks, Choice and Evolve, each participate in their own sweep networks that include several trusted, FDIC-insured banks — all of which can be found in the Evolve Documents and Choice Documents on our Legal page.
Thanks to this program, your Mercury checking and savings deposits are eligible for up to $5M in FDIC insurance coverage — 20x the standard per bank limit.
To diversify your deposits, you can use Mercury Treasury to allocate any of your excess funds — for example, beyond the FDIC‑insured $5M — into mutual funds that are invested in short-term securities.
Some of the regulated financial institutions we work with
- Patriot Bank
- Morgan Stanley
- Choice Financial Group
- Vanguard
- Evolve Bank & Trust
layer 2
Modern payments infrastructure reduces friction
Banking is complex.
But your experience with it doesn’t have to be.
One of the primary functions of banking is to send money.
Every time you wire a payment or deposit a check, that money moves between financial institutions along a network of payment rails.
Mercury has engineered smoother ways for you to send money along these payment rails — like in the case of international wires and ACH payments — by offering more transparency than traditional banks. As a bonus, we’ve even absorbed many of the hidden fees levied in the process.
To keep your transactions compliant and secure, we’ve also assembled a world-class compliance and risk team that understands banking — and startups.
A more transparent way to wire money abroad
Whenever you send a wire abroad, that money may pass through intermediary banks before reaching your recipient’s bank — which may lead to incurred fees.
As a sender, you often don’t have visibility into the process or the fees, which are typically deducted from your recipient’s final sum.
At Mercury, we’re transparent about our wiring fees.
- Domestic wires are always free to send.
- International wires in USD are free to send, and you have the option to absorb your recipient’s fees for a flat $15 so that the full amount you send is always delivered to your recipient.
- Fees incurred by non‑USD international wires are covered by our flat 1% foreign exchange rate.
Why your ACH payments are processed in-house
While most fintechs outsource ACH file processing to their partner banks, we do as much of the work in‑house as possible to reduce the chance of fraud.
Not only do we build each file to the exact specifications of our partner banks, but we also use our own compliance system as a first line of defense to properly validate your transaction.
Only then do we hand off the file to our partner banks, who use their own due diligence instruments to perform a final check on our work before making sure that money is delivered safely to its destination.
layer 3
Proactive security & user controls give you peace of mind
We’ve built the security tech to protect you from external threats.
You get to design the guardrails to keep employee spending and account access in check.
In addition to using airtight encryption protocols on your account, data, and card information, we enforce a robust system of multi‑factor authentication to reduce the risk of your account getting in the wrong hands.
Beyond that foundational security tech, you have the power to customize special controls according to your own organization’s risk tolerance. From user permissions to weekly and monthly card transaction limits, it’s all yours to customize.
Security that goes above and beyond to keep you safe
Strong, industry‑standard protocols keep your data secure and confidential, at rest and in transit.
Multi‑factor authentication is enforced across all your accounts to prevent any unauthorized access. In addition to time‑based one‑time passwords, we support best‑in‑class tools like Touch ID and YubiKey to verify your identity, rather than settling for vulnerable methods like SMS.
Unexpected logins from new devices are blocked and flagged for your review as an anti‑phishing measure.
Receive‑only accounts allow you to safely request payments from clients without exposing your primary account numbers.
How you maintain control as you scale
Once you log into Mercury, you have the power to customize controls that protect you from user error and bad actors as your team grows.
Multi‑admin approvals let you define who can create and/or approve payments.
Tiered user permissions — like view‑only access for bookkeepers and card‑only access for new employees — allow you to assign different capabilities to different team members.
Employee transaction limits and merchant‑locked cards automatically keep your team within company spending parameters.
layer 4
Finance automations keep your team efficient
Your job is to build and scale a successful startup — not to spend hours on tedious banking tasks.
We make every minute count, from opening an account to paying invoices.
Mercury saves you and your finance team valuable time on everyday banking tasks.
You’re able to:
- Search or filter for any payment, by any field
- Generate statements instantly
- Sync transactions to your accounting software, like QuickBooks or Xero
- Schedule payments in advance
Altogether, these built‑in efficiencies keep your finance team lean and efficient as your company scales.
Auto-transfer rules keep you capital-efficient
Optimizing your cash management strategy involves finding a rhythm for your allocations. Mercury helps you master this with auto‑transfer configurations.
To ensure you never miss payroll, you can set up a target balance rule on your payroll account that trigger transfers into and out of your savings account, depending on the balance.
To make the most of your idle cash, you can use Mercury Treasury to automatically sweep any of your excess funds into yield‑earning mutual funds.
Why you’re able to pay invoices in record time
The short answer: impossibly fast payment workflows, built on machine learning and optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities.
When you upload an invoice to our drag‑and‑drop bill pay tool, we automatically populate the payment details — so that all you have to do is hit send.
Once you’re ready, you can sync your transaction directly by taking advantage of third‑party integrations with your favorite accounting software, including QuickBooks and Xero.
Awards
But don’t just take it from us.
To date, over 100K startups — including over 40% of YC cohorts — rely on Mercury as they build the next great companies.
Hear from founders like you
Banking engineered for startups
Mercury Treasury, by Mercury Advisory, LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisor. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. SEC registration does not mean the SEC has approved of the services of the investment adviser.
Mercury Advisory, LLC (the “Firm”) is an investment management firm that offers a wrap fee program that allows small businesses to invest idle cash in relatively low-risk, short-term instruments. Please see the ADV Wrap Fee Brochure for further information regarding fees and conflicts.
The performance discussed herein is historic and reflects an investment for a limited period of time. It should not be assumed that future investors would experience returns, if any, comparable to those illustrated herein. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investment results will fluctuate. Returns are not guaranteed. All investments are subject to the risk of loss, including the loss of principal. No representation is being made that an investment account has, will, or is likely to achieve profits or losses equal to the profits or losses shown. Actual returns will vary greatly and depend on personal and market conditions. Before investing, consider your financial goals and the costs of using the program.
Furthermore, the information set forth has been obtained from sources that the Firm believes to be reliable; however, these sources cannot be guaranteed as to their accuracy or completeness. The information contained herein is not, and should not be construed as, an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. The information has been prepared solely for the purpose of determining your level of interest in Mercury Treasury and to provide general background information on such algorithmic investment program.
Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, estimates with respect to financial condition, results of operations, and success or lack of success of the depicted investment strategy. All are subject to various factors, including, but not limited to general and local economic conditions, changing levels of competition within certain industries and markets, changes in interest rates, changes in legislation or regulation, and other economic, competitive, governmental, regulatory and technological factors affecting operations that could cause actual results to differ materially from projected results.
Targeted returns (e.g., forward-looking statements of performance up to a stated return) reflects the returns that the Firm is seeking to achieve over a particular period of time. Projected returns reflect the Firm’s performance estimate – i.e., the returns that the Firm believes can be achieved using the advertised investment services. Target returns are presented to inform clients or potential clients about the Firm’s risk tolerances when managing the Mercury Treasury strategy and to provide information useful to a client or potential client when assessing how the Firm’s strategy fits within the investor’s overall portfolio. Target returns are not guarantees or promises of future return.
Mercury Treasury is not insured by the FDIC. Mercury Treasury are not deposits or other obligations of Choice Financial Group or Evolve Bank & Trust, and are not guaranteed by Choice Financial Group or Evolve Bank & Trust. Mercury Treasury products are subject to investment risks, including possible loss of the principal invested.
The Mercury Debit Cards are issued by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC, pursuant to licenses from MasterCard. The IO Card is issued by Patriot Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from MasterCard.