Issuing as a Service ("IaaS") & Emerging Fintech Corridors of LATAM & India: New Frontiers in Opportunity
Payment flows and the Payment 3.0 ecosystem have exploded worldwide, but payment infrastructure hasn't kept pace. Chinese manufacturers selling into Brazil, e-commerce platforms scaling into Mexico, and merchants bridging Shenzhen and Mumbai all hit the same wall: creating liquidity and moving money across these corridors is often slow, expensive, and fragmented.
However, the combination of new innovations in card issuing—Issuing as a Service (IaaS)—and Web 3.0 infrastructure offers an exciting path forward to address these challenges.
That's why we're excited to share two new research reports that take a deep dive into the card issuing landscape across LATAM and India for fintechs evaluating this kind of strategy.
In Latin American markets, companies like Pomelo, Bridge, and Rain are no longer treating card issuance as a back-office utility; they're building it as stablecoin-native infrastructure from the ground up. Bridge already runs a live, LATAM-first stablecoin card program. Rain, valued at nearly $2B following a $250M raise, is doing the same globally. The result: a Chinese exporter can get paid in USDC and a LATAM merchant can spend it locally within the same card program — settled through a partner bank rather than the traditional correspondent-banking chain.
India offers an equally intriguing landscape — an evolving regulatory stance means the Digital Rupee will play a prominent role in this corridor, perhaps more than private stablecoins. But the underlying thesis holds everywhere: the fintechs that win these corridors won't be the ones with the flashiest crypto rails. They'll be the ones who pair that innovation with issuing partners who understand local compliance, licensing, and cards as well as they understand blockchains.
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