How is Modern Card Issuing Enabling Innovative Payment Experiences?

Dubai, UAE - June 17, 2022

For decades, legacy payment infrastructure has enabled the payment of goods and services globally, reliably and securely. However, with the rise of new and complex business models, a one-size-fits-all architecture can no longer serve the demands of today's sophisticated use cases.

That's why innovators are turning to modern card issuing solutions to provide payment experiences that ensure the success and growth of these emerging business models.

What is Modern Card Issuing?

Modern card issuing is a more flexible and secure way to issue payment cards. Usually delivered through open APIs, modern card issuing solutions empower businesses to customize, build and run card programs at scale.

These solutions enable flexible embedded payment experiences that have been difficult to provide with legacy frameworks and architectures. Modern card issuing removes the roadblocks for businesses looking to deliver unique business models and payment experiences in a scalable, flexible and secure manner whilst ensuring quick time to market with limited investment.

Modern Card Issuing Use Cases for Merchants & Retailers

Using card-issuing APIs, businesses can create customizable, branded, physical and virtual cards to serve multiple scenarios and use cases.

Here are 4 modern card issuing use cases that merchants and retailers can leverage to scale their payments:

Use case 1: BNPL & Virtual Cards

Buy now, pay later has become one of the most in-demand financing options around the world, sweeping the consumer landscape. Today, customers can buy now and pay later for just about anything and everything. As the name suggests, this kind of financing provides customers with point-of-sale installment loans to purchase items and pay for them in small installments – breaking up the cost over predefined time periods.

Modern card issuing is an easy way for BNPL platforms to provide their customers with BNPL payment options through instantly issued virtual cards. To illustrate, when a customer initiates a BNPL purchase at a merchant's store or online, a card is issued to pay the merchant instantly and is accepted through a standard POS system. This creates a seamless onboarding experience for the merchant since complex POS integration is not required beforehand and the BNPL platform can scale on the back of the payment acceptance networks.

Use Case 2: Consumer Spend Cards

More businesses across various industries are implementing payments as a core part of their business model to stay at the heart of their customers' financial lives.

Modern card issuing APIs can provide merchants such as retail marketplaces with increased visibility into customer spending patterns and lifestyles to gain in-depth actionable insights. By collecting more data on how, when, and where customers are spending their money, merchants can provide more relevant, tailored offerings to enrich customer experiences.

Use Case 3: Corporate Payout Cards

Merchants can conveniently pay employees, workers, contractors, and suppliers by pushing funds to cards that they issue. Modern card issuing provides an alternative method for payroll, enabling organizations to pay salaries on reloadable prepaid cards. This helps today's B2B organizations adapt to emerging trends like remote workforces, gig economies, and supply chain diversification.

It's not just that. When it comes to merchant-supplier disbursements, modern card issuing facilitates supplier payments and breaks down the amount of complexity in a typical B2B payment process. Online and offline merchants and retailers can quickly onboard suppliers and provide them with instant access to their money through prepaid cards.

Use case 4: Corporate spend cards

Corporate expenses and reimbursements can be painfully troublesome for both employers and employees alike.

The challenge lies in how employees can receive the money and transact, and the ability of employers to place controls to align employee spending to corporate policy. Modern card issuing resolves both issues.

Dynamic spend controls for virtual and physical cards can monitor spend and approve transactions in real-time. These controls can be set to restrict spending options to specific channels, and/or different user groups or individuals, or by different amounts for different merchant category codes.

Across numerous industries, merchants and retailers can now create next-generation payment experiences that set them apart. Looking to launch a card program for your business? Learn more here.

Partner up with a modern card issuing provider like SimpliFi to develop your own card issuing solution or launch your own card program. Using our open APIs and SDKs, card products can be built quickly, tested in a private sandbox, and delivered to market in a short time frame.

Want to find out more? Get in touch with our team today!