Business, not boundaries with Adyen Issuing

At Adyen, we believe in business, not boundaries, and today one more boundary has been removed by bridging the divide between accepting and funding payments with Adyen Issuing. Beyond the normal business benefits of card issuing, the real merit is in having these capabilities within one global technology platform. That’s part of what we’ll explore in this blog.

Businesses that want to issue a card have a host of challenges. Inflexible APIs leading to sub-optimal user experience, complex reporting leading to difficulties in reconciliation — just to give a few examples. Worse still, most businesses are only able to create card products by tying together multiple solutions — with each added partner creating technical challenges and operational overhead.

That’s where Adyen Issuing comes in. One platform, one contract — but more importantly, an API-first approach that provides the full lifecycle. This gives full control not only over processes, but also the experience for the end user. Businesses can greatly benefit from using Adyen acquiring to fund Adyen-issued cards. Funding timelines can be reduced, which means money reaches its destination faster and with less operational complexity.

Digital disruption has led to an explosion of new and exciting business models, not to mention the blurring of offline and online channels. But in a busy market with behemoth brands and nimble new players, owning the full experience with customization is key. We built Adyen Issuing with a range of tools and features to create custom experiences. These include:

 - Issuing of virtual cards so that money can be moved in the background by sending a 16-digit PAN through APIs

- Issued cards can also be used in the more familiar mode of a plastic card or a card stored in a digital wallet

- Flexible cardholder onboarding with real-time KYC, making it possible for businesses to deliver amazing new experiences through virtual and customizable physical cards

- Relayed Authorization gives businesses the ability to approve or decline transactions by being in the authorization flow in real-time

- Card controls that can be predefined with spend settings like geo-locations, time windows, funding amounts, or even restricting the sales channels where cards can be used

- Compliance, regulation, and payment industry standards such as PCI DSS are built in

- Full integration into lifecycle management tools (such as network tokenization and account updater) to ensure that cardholders subscriptions are never disrupted

In the following section, we’ve outlined some potential use cases for issuing and what it might look like for your business.

Imagine you operate a large marketplace, and hundreds of sellers use your platform to sell all sorts of items, including rare books. When they sign up as sellers, you issue each one a platform-branded card. Gone are the days of waiting around for traditional bank payouts. Right after they’ve sold their pristine copy of The Velveteen Rabbit, cash from that sale is immediately available to a seller on their platform-issued card. They can then use the card to make everyday purchases, such as buying groceries or pharmacy items, or for supplies for their home business. For the marketplace, issuing cards mean more loyalty to your brand as well as a new revenue source as your sellers use your issued cards to make those purchases.

In another example, let’s say you run a travel website that offers bookings and tickets from a number of entities, including hotels, tour operators, and museums. Invoicing all of these properties can be cumbersome and expensive. So instead, each time someone books a hotel, for example, you issue a virtual card for that transaction to the hotel. Then, whether it’s a full or partial payout, the money flows to the hotelier immediately based on your funding instructions. In the end, your partner, the hotel, gets paid quickly. The customer has a fast, seamless experience purchasing from your site, and you have more control over how cash moves around your business.

Finally, let's take a food delivery service. As part of the onboarding for drivers, they’re issued a special prepaid card to purchase orders. This card might come with controls like time windows for payment, predetermined purchase amounts, and technology that locks the card when it’s not used at a restaurant, all powered by Adyen Issuing’s APIs. The beauty of all this: since drivers are empowered to buy goods, essentially acting as proxies for customers, the delivery service no longer needs to go through a lengthy onboarding process with each restaurant. Want to deliver tacos el pastor from everyone’s favorite food truck? The courier card lets you add pop-ups, food trucks, and other non-traditional dining establishments to the menu, with no administrative headaches.

We’re excited about the possibilities that Adyen Issuing represents. We’ll continue to build with and for merchants, pushing limits and crossing boundaries. If you’re interested in joining the Adyen Issuing early adopter program, register your interest today.