Euronet Eyes Credit Card Growth With CoreCard Acquisition

Euronet Worldwide is making a strategic push into credit card issuing, combining its established payments infrastructure with a newly acquired modern processing platform to challenge both legacy systems and fintech competitors.

The Kansas City-headquartered fintech, which is listed on Nasdaq, operates in real-time digital and cash payments across more than 200 countries. Vishal Pasari, Vice President of Products and Partnerships at Euronet Worldwide, explains that the company enables businesses and consumers to move money globally.

“We operate in the world of real-time digital and cash payments and enable businesses and consumers to transact and move money pretty much anywhere in the world,” Vishal says. The company's solutions span card issuing, card processing, acquiring, ATMs, digital wallets, money remittances and branded payment cards.

With over 30 years in the payments space, Euronet's card issuing product is called Ren. The platform provides financial institutions and fintechs with comprehensive solutions spanning card programme definition, authorisation, fraud protection, disputes and loyalty rewards.

“We have clients today from Ecuador to New Zealand,” Vishal says of the company's global debit and prepaid card issuing business. However, he explains that credit cards present the most significant growth opportunity.

The economics are compelling. Debit cards carry limited profitability for banks, particularly large US institutions subject to the Durbin Amendment, which caps interchange fees they can levy. “Debit cards are not very profitable for banks. They're considered a cost of doing business,” Vishal notes.

Elsewhere, prepaid cards have faced increased scrutiny following regulatory issues and the collapse of companies like Synapse, a banking-as-a-service platform that failed in 2024.

“Credit, on the other hand, presents a large growing opportunity,” Vishal explains. “Over a period of five years, more than 40% of net new revenue for banks would come from consumer credit cards.”

Rather than building a credit card processing platform from scratch, Euronet pursued an acquisition strategy. 

Vishal describes a market divided between established legacy processors with comprehensive but inflexible solutions and modern fintechs struggling to handle credit card complexity.

“On one hand, you have the duopoly of legacy players who have fairly comprehensive solutions, but they're not suited to the agility of the modern payments landscape,” he says. “On the other hand, you have modern fintechs who have tried to make a dent in the credit card industry, but with very limited success.”

Acquiring proven technology with marquee clients

Credit card processing involves numerous edge cases that require sophisticated handling. Vishal provides an example of the complexity involved when a consumer disputes a transaction from previous months.

“You have to reverse a transaction, then you've got to figure out what to do with the interest, the fees,” he explains. “What if I made a payment on that transaction or a partial payment? Where should I apply that payment?”

“It can get really complex really fast, and knowing how to handle that is key,” Vishal continues.

Euronet found its solution in CoreCard, an API-driven credit card processor serving major clients including Goldman Sachs, American Express and Apple. The Apple Card partnership has handled billions of transactions.

Vishal describes Apple Card as “arguably one of the most successful card programmes in the history of card issuing”. The company announced the CoreCard merger in July 2025, with completion expected shortly after the Money20/20 conference.

“CoreCard combined with Ren gives us a comprehensive, robust, modern platform that can meet the needs of not only traditional banks but also fintech innovators,” Vishal says.

He uses a quadrant framework to explain Euronet's competitive positioning, with one axis representing platform maturity and the other representing modern agility. “We are fortunate to be on the positive side of both, which puts us in a unique and differentiated space,” he explains.

Modernisation without disruption for legacy systems

For banks operating legacy platforms, Euronet recommends an adjunct approach rather than complete replacement. Institutions can launch new programmes or verticals on the modern platform, operationalise the new system, then gradually migrate existing card programmes.

“There's an overwhelming desire to modernise, but also an overwhelming fear to modernise just because of what it takes to migrate out of a platform,” Vishal reveals. He emphasises that migration need not be binary.

“Dip your feet in with a new platform, put a new programme on it or a new vertical,” Vishal advises. “ Perhaps if you offer consumer cards through legacy technology, you could offer commercial cards through a new platform.” 

For organisations entering the credit space, Vishal emphasises clarity on product progression. “You need to be clear on your product graduation journey,” he says, outlining potential paths from prepaid and debit through secured cards to revolving credit.

Companies must ensure their processor can support that journey with proven solutions. “Quite often you'll see slideware, and that slideware is just that,” Vishal warns. “You need to make sure there's proven scale solutions behind that.”

Market differentiation remains crucial for new entrants. “You don't want to end up in the maze of mirrors where you're doing exactly what everyone else is doing,” Vishal says.

He highlights a customer offering secured credit cards backed by home equity rather than cash deposits. Cardholders only pay interest on amounts they use, unlike traditional home equity lines of credit, where interest accrues on the entire borrowed amount.

Regional innovation driving product development

Of course, innovation trends are not the same everywhere, but Euronet’s global operations provide insights into regional innovation patterns. 

“Unlike most payment companies that operate in a similar country or region, we're fortunate that we operate on a global scale,” Vishal says.

Asia Pacific markets demonstrate more advanced flexible funding models, where a single card account can process transactions as debit, instalment, credit or prepaid depending on purchase type and consumer preference.

“Under the same account, under the same card, you can make a transaction that's treated as a debit or an instalment plan or a credit transaction,” Vishal explains. “If I'm grocery shopping, I might want a debit transaction. If I'm buying a phone, maybe I want an instalment plan.”

Legacy technology limitations have constrained such innovation in the US market. “A lot of that is driven by the challenge of legacy, which is limiting fintechs from being able to innovate,” he notes.

The company's scale provides competitive advantages beyond technology. With over 10,000 employees operating globally, Euronet can apply learnings from diverse markets to clients everywhere.

Crucially, the company uses its own payment products internally for its core business operations. “We eat our own dog food in that sense,” Vishal explains. “We don't just build this to sell it, we build this to use it.”

Invisible payments and real-time settlement ahead

Looking ahead, Vishal anticipates continued evolution in payment form factors. Credit cards emerged in the 1930s as metal charge plates, progressing through cardboard and plastic before becoming digital with Apple Pay and Google Pay in the 2010s.

“We're now getting used to the concept of invisible payments, embedded payments,” Vishal says. He cites Uber as an example where passengers enter and exit vehicles without actively processing payments. “Payment is not the experience. Payments enable the experience,” he explains.

For Vishal, real-time settlement will replace batch processing, enabling instant merchant payments upon card authorisation. “Merchants will soon get paid at the moment their card is authorised,” he says. “Some of the newer technologies, like blockchain, will help us make these processes more efficient.”

Artificial intelligence is already enhancing fraud protection and personalisation capabilities, though Vishal views current applications as preliminary. “That's just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more opportunity when it comes to using AI to make the experiences better, to make the process more efficient,” he concludes.