Lithic Launches Revolving Credit API
Lithic
This launch turns Lithic from a card processor for money already on hand into infrastructure for lending, which is where much more of the economics and product control sit. A prepaid or debit program mainly decides who can spend existing funds. A revolving credit program adds underwriting, credit limits, billing cycles, minimum payments, interest, and delinquency handling. That lets Lithic customers build business cards that look more like Brex style working capital tools than simple spend cards, while keeping Lithic in the transaction flow.
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Lithic had already positioned itself as the modular issuer processor for customers that outgrow simple debit programs and want to launch new card types. Earlier, that meant bring your own credit core for charge cards. The December 2024 product goes further by adding native support for true revolving balances, statements, interest accrual, and payments.
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The revenue logic changes with credit. Debit and prepaid are mostly about interchange on each swipe. Revolving credit adds interest and fee income on balances that carry month to month, on top of card spend. That matters because credit interchange is not capped the way large bank debit interchange is, and business card spend is a large market in its own right.
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Commercial credit is also the easier place to expand first. Business programs tend to have tighter controls, clearer spend policies, and lower underwriting complexity than mass market consumer credit. That makes them a practical next step for an API platform that already serves fintechs, vertical SaaS companies, and embedded finance programs.
From here, the likely path is up the stack into more complete embedded credit programs. Once Lithic can support debit, charge, revolving credit, and stablecoin linked cards on the same platform, it becomes more valuable to software companies that want one card layer for many use cases, from employee spend to supplier payments to working capital inside their own product.