- Card issuing platform Marqeta has signed a five-year deal with Varo Bank to serve as the financial institution’s issuer processor.
- The partnership will enable Varo Bank to offer a range of new products including digital wallet tokenization via Apple and Google Wallets for its cardholders.
- Headquartered in Oakland, California, Marqeta was founded in 2010.
Card issuing platform Marqeta has signed a five-year deal with Varo Bank to serve as the financial institution’s issuer processor. Marqeta’s ability to blend virtual, tokenized, and physical card-issuing technology with faster speed-to-market was among the factors cited by Varo Bank in teaming up with the fintech.
“We sought an issuer partner that complements our unique position as both a technology company and a regulated financial institution,” Varo Bank CEO Colin Walsh explained. “This partnership with Marqeta enables us to offer cutting-edge card issuing technology, giving our customers enhanced ability to view and manage their transactions efficiently. This advancement aligns perfectly with our mission of financial empowerment.”
Widely recognized as one of the first nationally-chartered consumer-based techbanks in the U.S., Varo Bank offers fee-free checking accounts, high-yield savings accounts, secured credit-building credit cards, instant payment solutions, and free ATM access at more than 40,000 locations. Varo Bank’s mobile app enables customers to review and improve their financial health, and now, courtesy of the institution’s partnership with Marqeta, the bank will enable digital wallet tokenization with Apple and Google Wallets for its cardholders.
“Marqeta is proud to announce this deal with Varo Bank, which relies on the latest payments and banking technologies to help Americans who are striving to get ahead,” Marqeta CEO Simon Khalaf said. “Varo’s mission is aligned with ours and we can’t wait to start innovating with the Varo team, enabling their customers to see transactions in real-time thanks to Marqeta’s APIs.”
Marqeta is an alumnus of our developers conference series, FinDEVr. The company presented its technology at our event in Silicon Valley in 2016. In the years since then, the Oakland, California-based fintech has grown into a major, modern card issuing platform operating in 40 countries and processing more than $160 billion in volume in 2022. The company’s partnership news with Varo Bank comes less than a month after Marqeta announced that it had become the first issuer processor in the U.S. that was certified to enable Visa Flexible Credential, a product that provides access to multiple funding sources from a single payment card.
Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash