Celent’s New Card Processing Report: Partnership Strategies in the Payments Industry

Celent has released a new report on card issuing and processing solutions, detailing how innovative partnership models can be evaluated in the payments industry.

A New Wave of Innovation in Card Infrastructure

■27 distinct solution profiles published across 4 editions, totaling roughly 600 pages

■The companion study Moving the Needle with Digital Cardholder Engagement focuses on AI‑first experiences in digital cardholder interaction

■84% of retail banks surveyed by Celent in 2026 intend to invest in card issuing and processing platforms

■The report is published by Electronic Payments International, a brand owned by GlobalData

Technology Embedds: Tokenization, AI, and Embedded Finance

■Card rails have become a hotbed of innovation, leveraging tokenization, artificial intelligence, and digital assets to drive rapid change

■Embedded finance models enable fintechs and other innovative players to uncover new, sometimes unexpected, use‑cases for cards

■Legacy technology stacks — whether home‑grown, vendor‑sourced, or outsourced — are increasingly seen as unsustainable by traditional banks

Strategic Recommendations: Partnering for Platform Modernization

■Benchmark current platforms against the best‑practice approaches and differentiated capabilities highlighted in the report

■Engage in candid conversations with existing vendors to understand how their roadmaps aim to close identified gaps

■Explore alternative partners in the broader market to future‑proof the issuing infrastructure

Defne Aydın, Director of Geopolitical Risk and European Markets, observes that the partnership strategies outlined in the report could interact with the Eurozone inflation outlook and the ECB’s rate trajectory, suggesting that card‑based payment networks augmented with digital‑asset tokenization may lift transaction volumes by 10‑15%, providing banks a valuable tool to diversify returns during the policy transition.