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.
Our top stories
Rebundling banking services: Are fintechs trying to be more like banks?
Why are fintechs that have grown to a certain size continuing to pursue a banking license?
While most FIs wait for crypto regulations to kick in to get involved, Visa is rolling up its sleeves and stepping in to contribute towards its architecture.
10 trends that will shape the payments industry in 2023
Key themes for this year involve B2B payments, M&A activity, real-time payments, digital wallets, fraud, sustainability, and more.
Just look at the charts
What you need to know
Dwolla, sensing demand for embedded payments, preps for the year ahead
One potential benefit for open banking and embedded payments is to speed up payment automation at businesses that are under pressure to streamline operations — and the fintech Dwolla plans to make a major push in the coming months to address this need.
Deep Dive: Are we still at the beginning of the “Embedded Finance” revolution?
Investing into embedded finance and improving the offerings can bring a number of benefits to banks including increased customer acquisition and retention, enhanced customer experience, new revenue streams, competitive advantage and improved risk management.
Antonio Soares, CEO of Dock: ‘Embedded finance will boost financial inclusion’
Dock is a Brazilian platform that offers solutions for the entire payments and banking ecosystem. In May 2022, it raised a $110 million funding round, which brought its valuation to over $1.5 billion. CEO Antonio Soares shared his insights on financial inclusion, embedded finance, Pix, and more.
APIs turn businesses into banking services providers in weeks
Itai Damti, CEO of the Banking-as-a-Service platform (BaaS) Unit, told PYMNTS that BaaS and embedded finance models would change the banking, payments and retail dynamics.
5 predictions for banking and fintech in 2023
Banking and fintech veteran Ron Shevlin gives his predictions for the industry in the year ahead, and he thinks embedded fintech will be an even bigger trend than embedded finance.