Miles Schwartz is a Canadian entrepreneur, CEO, and co-founder of Zūm Rails. This fintech company—short for financial technology—has offices in Montreal and Miami, and offers a platform that helps businesses manage payments and risk in real time.
Founded in Montreal, Canada, in 2019, the company has grown rapidly, expanding from six employees last year to 75 today. In 2024, realizing that 45% of its U.S. clients were based in Miami, Schwartz relocated there, and the Florida team now includes around twenty employees.
Zūm Rails’ Next Project
Banking-as-a-Service will allow companies to offer prepaid and digital cards integrated into Zūm Rails’ payment system. “We’re giving large organizations the ability to become banks,” Schwartz told Riley Kaminer of Refresh Miami. “It’s all part of making payments as seamless and efficient as possible.”
In simple terms, if a company holds client funds in an account, it can “become” a bank and issue payment cards drawing from that account. It can also allow clients to invest, save, or pay bills. Schwartz believes that once a company builds trust with its users, adding banking services becomes a natural next step.
He adds: “If you’re Robinhood (a commission-free trading platform) or Questrade (an online brokerage), you can let customers invest directly from their account and still pay bills from it. We’ve put the whole box together so companies can offer bank-like services in a way that wasn’t possible before.”
Technology at the Core of Financial Services
Zūm Rails’ offering is built on secure, instant fund transfers—and above all, simplicity for its clients, who include investment brokers, marketplaces, lenders, and cryptocurrency exchange platforms.
What Zūm Rails provides is everything a company would need to become “bank-like” without having to build the infrastructure with a dozen different providers—a true turnkey banking system.
Schwartz states: “We can build your entire bank in a box in 30 days. One API, one platform, one portal. It’s a no-brainer compared to stitching together five or six different providers.”
Miami: A Fintech Powerhouse
Zūm Rails is in full growth mode, and its ambitious founder hopes U.S. expansion will mirror its Canadian success. To support this, he hired engineering and compliance talent early on in Florida.
Miami is quickly becoming a major tech hub in the U.S., backed by local authorities. Its positioning as the “Capital of Capital” is supported by a global financial gateway strategy, especially focused on Latin America and the Caribbean. The city already hosts over 500 fintech companies and 60 international banks. The arrival of major venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund, along with giants like Blockchain.com, helped raise $965 million for fintech startups in 2023.
Schwartz says he’s impressed by the concentration of founders and tech companies already established in the region. “It’s exciting, and it’s a great place to meet clients face-to-face. What better place to build the U.S. operation?”
