Make Payments Part of Product
Bo Jiang, CEO of Lithic, on the power of the cards as a digital payment rail
Choosing an issuer processor is really a decision to make payments part of the product, not just the back office. The trade is more setup work in exchange for direct control over how cards are issued, what rules govern spend, how fast new flows ship, and how closely the company can work with its bank and network partners. That matters most when card behavior itself shapes the user experience or the economics of the business.
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The concrete difference versus BaaS is assembly. Going direct to an issuer processor usually means also choosing the bank, KYC stack, ledger, and compliance workflow. BaaS packages those pieces for speed, which is why it fits teams that want a ready made card program more than a deeply customized one.
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The payoff for taking on that work is finer control. Teams can issue virtual cards on demand, set merchant or time based rules, tailor physical card design, reconcile transactions and fees faster, and launch new products like charge cards on top of an existing stack instead of waiting for an all in one platform roadmap.
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The customer pattern tends to split by stage. Startups often choose modern platforms for faster launch and cleaner APIs. As programs scale, priorities shift toward reliability, redundancy, economics, direct bank relationships, and the ability to support more bespoke use cases. That is why larger players often migrate away from more packaged setups over time.
The market is moving toward a barbell. More companies will start with packaged embedded finance products, then the winners whose payment flows become mission critical will peel back layers and own more of the stack. That creates room for issuer processors that act like infrastructure, and for all in one platforms that get companies to first launch quickly.