Embedded Briefing: Mapping the largest credit card-as-a-service providers
- Fintechs are reimagining corporate cards and how businesses can manage their expenses, while others focus on issuing white-label consumer cards. But all of this takes partnering with banks and technology providers.
- There are many providers of such services on the market currently. We take a look at a couple of the biggest players in this space.
As banking becomes increasingly digital, innovation across different segments of the value chain is slowly but surely contouring new market sectors. This has been the case for Banking-as-a-Service, but if we drill down further, core sub-sectors like credit or debit cards are also witnessing digital transformation.
When it comes to credit or debit cards, there's a couple of different areas that fintechs are looking to bring new products in – some are reimagining corporate cards and how businesses can manage their expenses, while others focus on issuing white-label consumer cards.
In practice, this means that any company can start issuing cards once they find the right partner. To do this, they need to collaborate with an issuing bank, which is able to issue cards from payment giants like Visa, and an issuer processor, which is the actual seller of the white-labeled card and takes care of card approvals and fund settlements.
There are many providers of such services on the market currently. We take a look at three of the biggest players in this space, based on Jonathan Ching's BaaS Stack Database for Card Issuance.
Marqeta
The company issues cards for the likes of Cash App, Square, RobinHood and Ramp, just to name a few. The main banking partner is Sutton Bank, but they also work with Evolve Bank, WebBank and Cross River Bank.
Galileo
Galileo also has a powerful customer roster: Chime, Dave, MoneyLion, Current, among others. The firm has a number of banking partners, like The Bancorp Bank, Stride Bank, and Choice Financial Group.
Stripe
The payments innovator launched Stripe Issuing in 2020, essentially an API that allows companies to create and control virtual and physical cards.
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