Get started with Issuing
Beta
Last updated: March 22, 2023
To start issuing cards, you will need to set up a card program. A card program is a payments product that enables you or your customers to make payments to any suppliers or merchants worldwide that accept card payments.
When setting up a card program, you will go through the following stages:
- customer acquisition
- customer onboarding
- customer servicing
- fraud prevention
- anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) prevention
When creating your card program, we will need to understand your requirements to ensure that the program can be quickly integrated and launched. Your card program requirements will impact not only how we set up your program within our ecosystem, but also how we work with card schemes.
If you would like to issue cards for your own business, we will need to know the following information:
- the country and currency of the cards
- the loading mechanisms for the cards
- whether you'll be issuing debit or prepaid cards
- whether you'll be issuing virtual cards, physical cards, or both
- your volumes
- your card spending limits
- any card restrictions
- if you would like the cards to be accessible using an ATM
- whether Apple Pay and Google Pay should be enabled
If you would like to issue cards to your customers, we will also need to know the following:
- how you will source and onboard your customers
- how you will operate the card program (customer servicing, fraud management, and AML processes)
- any fees that are associated with the cards
When designing a card program, you will need to decide whether you will be issuing prepaid or debit cards. This will determine if you will need a prepaid or debit business identification number (BIN).
Within the payments industry, debit cards have traditionally been associated with bank accounts, while prepaid cards have a more general use. However, with our Issuing solution, you can issue debit cards that are linked to an e-money account where your customers' funds are held.
Prepaid cards can be:
- single-use or multi-use
- reloadable or non-reloadable
Prepaid cards have the following limitations:
- cashback is not available
- maximum daily load limit is 5,000 USD
Compared to prepaid cards, debit cards have an increased acceptance and customer recognition, as well as the ability to offer cashback.
The following requirements must be met when issuing debit cards:
- you must provide a live customer service channel, such as phone or live chat – email support is not sufficient
- you must issue a physical card associated with the account
- you must perform full Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) checks on the cardholder — anonymous cards and simplified due diligence are not accepted
- the cardholder must be able to load the e-money account by wire transfer - for example, SEPA, Faster Payments, or Swift
- the cardholder must be able to access their balance and transaction history through the internet, ATM, a call center, and interactive voice response
- the card must have global ATM access
- the card must support purchases with cashback transactions