How Issuing works
Learn how to start building a card program with Stripe Issuing.
Stripe Issuing allows you to create, manage, and scale a payment card program for your users without setup fees. You can programmatically control the details of your card program, which includes issuing physical or virtual cards, managing spending, and approving or declining transactions.
We partner with multiple trusted banks to provide an embedded finance infrastructure for you to build new financial service offerings. We also partner with the Mastercard and Visa card networks so you can issue cards on either network or on both.
Regional considerations
Issuing is available in the US, UK, and many European Economic Area (EEA) countries. Stablecoin-backed card programs are also available in more than 30 countries.
In the US, you can provide cards to individuals who live in the same country where the business is established. If your business is established in the EU or the UK, you can provide cards to individuals who live in EEA countries and the UK. See Globally integrate Issuing for a full list of supported countries.
Get started with Issuing
Complete the following steps to set up a commercial card program with Issuing:
- Determine your eligibility to use Issuing by contacting Stripe sales .
- Choose whether to offer virtual or physical cards. Learn more about Issuing card types .
- Customize your card program, including choosing a network and a card product type. Learn how to customize your card program .
- To enable card spend, you need to fund an Issuing balance. Learn how to add funds to your card program .
- Take steps to identify and limit transaction fraud. Learn more about managing fraud with Stripe controls and tools.
- (Optional) Set up spending controls, including spending limits and blocking specific business categories, countries, or business IDs. Learn more about setting spending controls .
- Simulate purchases in a sandbox environment to test your integration. Learn more about testing Issuing .
Issuing use cases
| Use case | Description |
|---|---|
| Commercial card program | Create, manage, and distribute payment cards for your business. |
| Consumer card program Private preview | Create, launch, and run a bank-sponsored credit program for your customers with Credit Consumer Issuing. |
Integration options
Treasury for platforms
You can integrate Issuing with Treasury for platforms to attach cards to open loop fiat or stablecoin wallets and offer your users additional transaction options. Treasury for platforms is only available to platforms and connected accounts located in the United States. Learn how to set up a Treasury for platforms integration.
Connect
You can integrate Issuing with Stripe Connect to issue cards to users who aren’t directly employed by your business. See Set up an Issuing and Connect integration for more details.
Stablecoin-backed cards Private preview
You can integrate Issuing with Bridge to attach cards to Bridge Custodial Wallets, Privy wallets, or third-party non-custodial wallets. Bridge manages cardholder creation and KYC for consumer programs that use this integration. Learn more about Stablecoin-backed Issuing cards.
Issuing architecture
With Stripe Connect, you onboard customers to your platform with connected accounts. For each of these connected accounts, you can create account holders and provide cards to authorized users. The following diagram shows a platform with a Stripe Issuing integration using an Issuing balance and a financial accounts balance:
Connected accounts
Issuing only supports connected accounts that don’t use a Stripe-hosted Dashboard, and where your platform is responsible for requirements collection and loss liability, also known as a Custom connected account. Learn how to create connected accounts that work with Issuing.
Issuing balance
An Issuing balance is a funding source attached to a connected account that provides the funds for spending with the associated card account. You can add funds to the connected account’s Issuing balance either by transferring from the connected account’s Stripe account balance, or through a top-up from an external bank account. You can also pay out funds from the Issuing balance to an external bank account.
Connected accounts can also use a Treasury for platforms account to fund cards for a full embedded finance solution.