Marqeta’s Credit Platform: Designing credit cards as the new “homepage” of a brand’s digital experience

By Simon Khalaf, CEO, Marqeta

The old era of brand loyalty and user engagement, as we know it, is over. Think about the evolution of how brands have been able to reach their customers. First it was the billboard. Then the newspaper, then television stations through advertising. Then it was the website. Then the mobile app. Now, it’s the wallet. It’s brought brands into increasingly personal proximity with their customers: from the laptop, to the pocket and now with the explosion in embedded finance, the wallet. The credit card, if executed properly, could be the launchpad of the brand’s digital experience; in other words, the card is the new “homepage” of the digital experience.

The opportunity is huge. The innovation to take advantage of it, not so much. For decades, credit card companies have treated each cardholder the same, with identical rewards and offers. Legacy card providers can take a year at least to launch a new card and require brands to stitch together multiple vendors to create a new card program. They also provide the same set of rewards and incentives, with little to no room for flexibility or customization.

It’s left us in what I call the “PDF version” of financial services. Credit cards are now digital, but the same for everyone and are just an HTML-rendering of what was already possible. When I was at Yahoo! I worked on the personalization of Yahoo! homepage which served as the frontpage of the internet for hundreds of millions of global consumers. It was the equivalent to printing hundreds of millions of newspapers each day, customized to each reader. I think we can do this in credit.

The energy to capture what is possible, and the impact it could have, is why I’m so excited about the launch today of Marqeta’s new credit platform, allowing companies to create beautifully designed, embedded credit cards that can help innovative brands engage with customers in a whole new way.

As part of our new platform, Marqeta will enable our customers to truly own the customer experience and embed the card within their own brand – cardholders won’t have to log into a bank’s website to manage their card. Managing a card is really complex, and for too long when brands have gotten a card live, they’ve then had to send those customers away. Our 2023 State of Credit report showed that half of consumers surveyed in the US own a credit card affiliated with a brand and 62% of them consider themselves a customer of the brand or store instead of the bank. If your customers are already holding you accountable for their experience, it makes sense to truly own their experience from start to finish.

Marqeta’s platform has a rewards engine that customers can use to create personalized rewards and incentives to encourage greater spending, or for commercial cards, to help customers reinvest back in the business. Brands can also harness the multitudes of data about each cardholder to determine spend controls catered to their individual needs, and can easily spin up cards for new users and issue them instantly. For brands launching commercial card programs they can choose from a range of flexible funding models to allow them to take control of their business’s financial health and access capital more easily. The days of offering a one-size-fits-all credit card are in the past, with the ability to create highly personalized and tailored rewards for cardholders.

We believe that our new credit platform allows brands to reimagine how they earn customer trust and loyalty, build payment experiences directly into their brand experience and offer rewards and benefits customized to each person.

It’s no secret that credit card rewards have a grip on US consumers, with consumers reporting rewards as the biggest benefit of using their credit cards 1. But people tend to max out their rewards and move on to the next card with bigger and better promises, making it different for brands to create a lasting impression and reap the benefits of lasting customer loyalty.

It’s the ability to customize rewards and integrate them into shopping experiences that will earn real adoption and loyalty. The stakes are high – our research shows that 74% of US consumers surveyed said there is room to personalize rewards based on individual spending habits. With consumers gravitating towards brands that have the best experiences and personalized rewards, brands are discovering that credit cards can unlock a major opportunity for them to rethink the customer experience and provide a truly customized offering.

The credit card has the chance to become the launchpad of the new digital experience for brands. But there can’t be any daylight between the card and the brand. We want our credit card platform to completely change the consumer experience and ultimately, the loyalty equation.

Bigger ideas need better technology to execute. Marqeta is excited to deliver.