Two Lanes in Card Issuing
Karim Atiyeh, co-founder and CTO of Ramp, on the future of the card issuing market
The real product in card issuing is not just the API, it is the operating machine behind the API. A startup can move faster with a newer processor when it wants direct access to engineers and custom product work, but a scaled platform like Marqeta or Galileo often moves faster on the messy work that actually gets cards live, bank coordination, manufacturing, compliance, and keeping a large program running without breaking.
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For Ramp, the differentiator worth building in house is the user facing layer, instant card controls, merchant rules, receipt matching, and accounting automation. The parts it wants a partner to handle are the network plumbing and operational complexity. That is why partner choice is really about where speed matters.
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The market split is concrete. Issuer processors 1.0 like Marqeta and Galileo sell proven scale and stronger operations. Issuer processors 2.0 like Lithic and Highnote sell cleaner APIs, faster iteration, and more direct product collaboration. Buyers are choosing between implementation help and product agility, not just feature checklists.
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As fintech matured, the easy win of simply launching a card program faded. Surviving companies bundled cards with software and workflow, while infrastructure vendors also consolidated. That raised the value of processors that can either support a complex enterprise program end to end or help a startup ship differentiated workflows fast.
Going forward, card issuing providers will keep separating into two lanes. One lane will own operational depth for large and regulated programs. The other will win by helping software companies launch highly specific card workflows quickly. The strongest platforms will eventually combine both, faster product building on the front end, and fewer operational bottlenecks on the back end.