A card issuing platform is the software that a bank or a fintech company uses to create and run debit cards, credit cards and prepaid cards. The bank that gives you a card is called the issuing bank, or issuer. The card issuing platform is the issuer's card software.
The platform does four main jobs. First, it creates the card. It generates the card number and either sends the details for printing a plastic card or shows a virtual card in the app. Second, it sets the card's limits. For example, it gives a new credit card a limit of ₹80,000. Third, it approves or declines every payment. Consider what happens when you tap your card to pay ₹1,200 at a bookshop in Kolkata. The card network sends the request to the issuer's platform. The platform checks that the card is not blocked and that ₹1,200 is within your limit. Then it approves the payment, in a fraction of a second. Fourth, at the end of each month, it prepares the credit card bill, with the amount due, the minimum due and any interest.
Older banks often ran their cards on old systems connected to the core banking system. Launching a new card on those systems could take a year or more. A modern card issuing platform runs in the cloud, beside the old core. It keeps each card's balance in its own cloud ledger. So a bank can launch a new card in weeks, without changing its core. A neobank can also launch a card in this way, through its partner bank. This is part of banking as a service.
India adds its own needs. Since 2022, RuPay credit cards can be linked to UPI. For instance, you can scan any shop's UPI QR code and pay from your RuPay credit card. Indian card issuing platforms build this feature for banks, along with other kinds of credit line on UPI. They also build co-branded credit cards, which a bank launches together with another company, such as an airline or a shopping app.