Card Issuance Expands as Earnings Season Highlights Platform Economics

Earnings season rarely yields a single organizing narrative, yet the most recent cycle has revealed a narrative tied to cards: Issuance is increasingly positioned as embedded infrastructure.

Across investor materials and management commentary, companies and highlighted spend intensity and workflow integration, as issuance has become a connective layer linking payments, liquidity and, for commercial clients, operational finance.

Expanding Role of Cards

One of the clearest signals emerges from disbursements in general, and push to card in particular, especially across consumer and gig economy use cases. An Ingo Payments and PYMNTS Intelligence collaboration highlights the scale of activity. The research found that 71% of disbursements, representing roughly 14 million payments annually, are routed outside the sender’s primary financial institution, translating into an estimated $8.2 billion in lost value.

Financial institutions’ responses illuminate the economic rationale. Among surveyed banks and financial institutions, 48% anticipated higher revenue through interchange, while 51% expected improved cross-sell opportunities from retaining disbursement flows in-network. Push-to-card rails also align with sender priorities.  In other reports from Ingo and PYMNTS Intelligence, the data shows that push to card remains the most popular method among all enterprise senders as 19% of enterprises send ad hoc payments via debit card to bank accounts.

Virtual Card Economics

While consumer disbursements capture attention, commercial dynamics reveal equally consequential shifts. Findings from The Growth Corporates Working Capital Index, done in collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence and Visa Acceptance Solutions, provide granular insight into supplier acceptance and virtual card usage.

Among surveyed CFOs and treasurers, faster settlement ranked as the leading advantage of accepting commercial and virtual card payments, cited by 52.4% of respondents. Operational considerations followed closely. Easier tracking (43.4%), richer transaction data (43.3%) and reduced operational burden (41.2%) each emerged as prominent acceptance drivers. Faster settlement compresses cash conversion cycles. Embedded data reduces manual matching and exception handling. Operational efficiencies mitigate administrative overhead. Liquidity considerations reinforce this perspective. Improved access to liquidity was cited by 36.2% of respondents, framing virtual cards as instruments capable of influencing working capital strategies rather than solely payment mechanics.

Usage data further contextualize adoption patterns. The index reports that 44% of surveyed CFOs and treasurers use commercial cards to streamline payment workflows, while 40.5% specifically cited reducing operational burden. The figures indicate that cards increasingly function as embedded financial controls within accounts payable ecosystems.

Earnings Commentary

Recent earnings disclosures provide additional clarity regarding how issuance integrates into platform economics.

BILL’s fiscal second quarter 2026 results highlighted expanding spend-linked activity. Spend and expense revenue reached $166 million, reflecting a 24% year-over-year increase. Executives also pointed to rising card engagement. President and COO John Rettig noted “two quarters in a row of record, record high card spend per business.”  Usage intensity, we note, reflects a broader industry shift in which cards are embedded directly within expense management, payables automation and financial operations workflows. The company noted in its filings that card payment volume transacted by spending businesses that used BILL Divvy Cards was approximately $6.5 billion.

Adyen’s earnings report for the second half of 2025 noted that “card issuing reached an inflection point in 2025, with volumes growing 8x year over year as platforms embedded cards into their core workflows.”

Infrastructure Compression

Consumer platform commentary further illustrates issuance infrastructure compression. SoFi executives referenced building and launching the Smart Card “in just 4.5 months,” per commentary from CEO Anthony Noto, attributing the timeline to internal technology platform capabilities. Reduced deployment cycles suggest that card programs can be operationalized more rapidly, lowering barriers for platforms seeking issuance-linked functionality.

Cards mediate liquidity timing, operational control and workflow design. For consumers, they serve as immediate funds access points. For suppliers, they offer settlement and reconciliation efficiencies. For platforms, they function as modular infrastructure embedded within broader financial ecosystems.

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