Issuing Visa or Mastercard prepaid cards used to require either a banking licence or a direct card network relationship — years of regulatory groundwork and significant capital. BaaS platforms have changed this by providing access to existing card issuer infrastructure through APIs, reducing the path from years to weeks.
1. Licensed bank or e-money institution: Requires CBUAE licensing, AED 150M+ capital. Not relevant for most fintech businesses.
2. Direct Visa/Mastercard programme manager: More control and better economics at scale. Requires direct relationships with card networks and issuer banks, plus $500K-$2M in setup investment.
3. BaaS platform (fastest path): Provider has established issuer bank relationships, network memberships, and compliance frameworks. You integrate their API and launch in weeks. Appropriate for most fintech businesses.
Cardholder onboarding requirements, card pricing (issuance and annual fees), top-up fees, spend limits per cardholder tier, merchant category restrictions, physical card design and branding, and balance loading sources (bank transfer, crypto, or both).
| Revenue Source | Description |
|---|---|
| Interchange fee | 0.1-1.5% of each transaction. Flows to issuer, shared with programme manager. |
| Issuance fee | One-time fee to cardholder. You set this. |
| Top-up fee | Fee when cardholder loads money. You set this. |
| FX conversion fee | Spread on cross-currency transactions. Split between issuer and programme manager. |
Programmes issue in AED and USD. Full KYC required for all cardholders (Emirates ID or passport with face verification). Transaction monitoring for AML required — BaaS platforms operating in UAE include this in their infrastructure. Crypto-linked card programmes require source-of-funds consideration for USDT loading.
Active card issuer contracts in UAE, Turkey, Estonia, and Singapore. Virtual and physical Visa/Mastercard with Apple Pay and Google Pay. Both API and white-label delivery modes. View BaaS
Book a 45-minute demo. We will show you exactly how Innovatex handles this live, for your specific setup.