How Interchange Works in White-Label Card Issuance

By Venly Research | January 8, 2026

How card interchange works in Europe, what white-label card issuance involves for a platform, and where stablecoin-funded cards fit. Card issuance on Venly Finance is coming soon.

How Interchange Economics Work

Interchange is the fee a card issuer earns on every card transaction. Every time a cardholder taps, swipes, or enters their card details online, the merchant's acquiring bank pays a percentage of the transaction to the card issuer. In the European Economic Area, the Interchange Fee Regulation (EU 2015/751) caps interchange on consumer cards at 0.2% of the transaction value for debit and 0.3% for credit. Commercial cards fall outside those caps, as do transactions where the issuer or the acquirer sits outside the EEA, so rates vary by region and scheme. A platform that wants a share of these economics usually works through a principal member of the scheme or a program manager, because its own Mastercard or Visa principal membership would require years of compliance work and significant capital reserves.

How Does White-Label Card Issuance Work?

In a white-label program the platform does not become the issuer itself. It participates in the interchange through a principal member or program manager. The platform's brand goes on the card; the infrastructure (BIN sponsorship, processor connectivity, scheme membership) is provided by the issuing partner. The platform controls the user experience, such as card design, spending limits and reward mechanics, while the program manager handles the regulatory and scheme compliance.

Card issuance on Venly Finance is coming soon.

What Are the Unit Economics of Card Issuance?

Interchange income is card spend multiplied by the interchange rate, then split between the issuer, the program manager and the platform according to the program's terms. Under the EEA consumer debit cap, every EUR 100 of spend carries at most EUR 0.20 of interchange before that split. Card fees, FX markups on international transactions and premium card tiers can add to it, and each depends on how the program is priced.

The operational requirements are significant. KYC/AML onboarding, transaction monitoring, dispute management, and regulatory reporting all need to be handled. The best issuance platforms abstract these into APIs and dashboards, letting operators focus on user acquisition and engagement rather than scheme compliance and processor integrations.

How Do Stablecoin-Funded Cards Work?

Cards fit platforms whose users already spend money, such as gig workers, traders, travelers and employees. A stablecoin-funded card lets those users spend a balance they already hold.

In a stablecoin-funded program, users hold USDC or USDT in their account and spend it wherever the card scheme is accepted, including restaurants, e-commerce and ATMs. The stablecoin is converted to local currency at the point of sale, and the cardholder uses it like any debit card. The program earns interchange on the card transaction, and the stablecoin-to-fiat conversion can carry its own FX margin.

For crypto-native platforms, including exchanges, DeFi protocols with off-ramp needs and Web3 wallets, a card lets users spend a stablecoin balance without first withdrawing it to a bank.

What runs on Venly Finance today is the money movement around such a program: per-customer EUR and USD receiving details, conversion into USDC, EURC, USDT or USDS, and bank payouts in USD by ACH, EUR by SEPA and GBP by Faster Payments, all through the Finance API. Card issuance is coming soon.