5 Signs You Need A New Issuer Processor

Businesses that flourish have partners that can keep up. A vision for industry-leading products, services, and customer experience is only as viable as its weakest link in execution. As embedded finance evolves and use cases push into new frontiers, innovators are taking a good hard look at their issuer processors, and holding them to a new standard.

Many leading innovators have real pain associated with their existing issuer processors, including so-called “modern” card issuers. These pain points come up again and again. Chances are, if you have an established card program that you want to take to the next level, you are facing the same challenges. Your existing issuer processor is probably failing to deliver when you want to do some really basic and important things.

You need to add products – You have a commercial debit program and want to add consumer credit? You are building from scratch with your existing issuer processor. Everything from the ledger, to servicing, to statements, and to repayment flows; these are all on you to establish. Why? Because you are not on an integrated platform, but rather a siloed product offering. You have to build home-grown integrations or contract with third parties to cobble together your expanded program offering. You need a new issuer processor.

You need to continually innovate and add features – The profile of a card program is ever-evolving. Once established, there are many features you want to incorporate over time. Things like adding cards to digital wallets. Or adding spend rules to cards. Even accessing different data because you want to expose new information to your customers, or track different KPIs for your business. These are common enhancements that can be made incredibly difficult to implement by your issuer processor. They may have inaccurate and unclear documentation, or may force you to implement broad modules just to get one simple feature. You don’t need more friction for your engineering team. You need a new issuer processor.

You need card profiles – Many card programs, especially those that target B2B use cases, need to set up multiple instances of the same card product to handle the differences in each end customer’s requirements. Supporting multiple card artwork sets for co-branding, or configurations for capabilities related to a card directly (magstripe vs. EMV, fleet options, etc.) is typically handled by setting each one up as a separate card product. What if, instead, you want one card product with the ability to create card profiles for each customer so you can issue cards utilizing specific profile sets? You need a new issuer processor.

You need program management – There are well-defined responsibilities that go along with offering a card program to your customers. Besides satisfying customer expectations, bank sponsors and regulators have expectations you need to satisfy. There is also ongoing fraud, risk and compliance support; like policy development/maintenance, KYC/KYB monitoring, and transaction monitoring. A successful program also needs ongoing operational support, like bank and network reconciliation, access to data needed for customer support, and BIN testing on transactions to ensure your interchange rate is protected. You want a partner that actively assists you in maintaining a smoothly operating, compliant card program? You need a new issuer processor.

You need better service – It takes more than a platform to be a partner. It takes the right people with the right skill sets and a focus on customer success. Only then can the alignment needed for “partnership” happen. Unfortunately, high service levels are not associated with many existing issuer processors. Whether it’s general lack of responsiveness or difficulty delivering effective service (like with any of the issues above!), you need and deserve better. You deserve a team of world-class professionals dedicated to you and your goals. You need a new issuer processor.

Of course, satisfying these needs requires the best technology, and that is a consideration when settling on a new issuer processor. Highnote has the most modern tech stack in the industry, and is unique in its cloud-native infrastructure, GraphQL API, and embedded advanced ledger. The result is a platform with clear, user-friendly documentation that makes building your next-generation card program a delightful experience.

Highnote prides itself on having built industry-leading technology and a top-tier team of professionals designed to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your card program. Partnering with Highnote ensures your access to the best in the business. Reach out to us now and learn how to build a great card program.