Zeta, a banking tech unicorn and provider of next-gen credit card processing to banks and fintechs, and Mastercard today announced a 5-year global partnership. As part of the agreement, the firms will go-to-market jointly to launch credit cards with issuers worldwide on Zeta’s modern, cloud-native, and fully API-ready credit processing stack. Mastercard has underscored the partnership by making a financial investment in Zeta.
“With Zeta’s next-gen credit card processing platform, we are fundamentally rewiring how issuers launch credit card programs by offering new paradigms over legacy mainframe systems,” said Bhavin Turakhia, co-founder & CEO of Zeta. “Amongst other benefits, our stack allows issuers to increase the lending book by composing contextual upsells using our extensive APIs and SDKs; reduce costs via pay-as-you-go SaaS billing; improve customer satisfaction by launching rich, self-serve experiences for card holders; and launch and iterate faster using our infinitely scalable cloud-native deployment. In Mastercard, we have a partner that is committed to undertake this journey with us and truly believes in this mission.”
With Mastercard’s support and the integration of its capabilities in digital issuance, fraud and risk, loyalty solutions and more, Zeta aims to take the credit card processing industry from the age of fragmented, multi-vendor systems to an age of nimble, composable, single vendor systems that are truly responsive to changing cardholder needs and preferences. With both partners pre-configuring key capabilities behind the scenes, issuers will now be able to launch cards much faster, making it easier than ever to rapidly design and launch flexible, highly customizable card programs.
“As people shop and bank online more than ever before, Mastercard is partnering with Zeta to provide issuing banks and fintech innovators with modern credit card processing capabilities at scale that will maximize the safety, security and convenience of e-commerce, online banking, and contactless transactions. By deploying Zeta’s credit processing stack, issuers will have an opportunity to grow their user base, drive higher usage and enter new geographical markets, all while accelerating the cashless revolution around the world,” said Sandeep Malhotra, Executive Vice President, Products & Innovation, Asia Pacific, Mastercard.
Zeta Tachyon Credit is the industry’s only modern credit processing stack that offers an integrated credit and loan processing platform. The stack offers functionality that spans the entire credit card program lifecycle including issuance, core, payments, BNPL loans, fraud and risk, rewards, and more. Using Zeta’s comprehensive APIs, issuers can rapidly build new revenue lines as BIN/balance sheet sponsors by providing a complete credit Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and embeddable banking platform to co-brands, fintechs, and affinity partners. Additionally, Zeta offers a comprehensive suite of managed services to its customers that includes servicing and collections amongst others.
The two companies’ collaboration began in 2018 in Asia Pacific when Zeta joined Start Path, Mastercard’s global startup engagement program, and continues to gain momentum with Zeta recently joining the Mastercard Developers Partner Network, Engage. Through Engage, Zeta will gain access to the Mastercard network to pre-integrate or bundle products and services, including Mastercard’s Digital First and Fintech Express programs. The programs will look to provide instant customer KYC and verification, instant digital card issuance, provisioning, and usage.