India Payments

Mastercard Invests in Indian Unicorn Zeta, Signs a 5-Year Partnership

Zeta, an Indian banking tech unicorn and provider of next-gen credit card processing to banks and fintechs, announced that it has signed a 5-year global partnership with Mastercard.

As part of the agreement, the firms will go-to-market jointly to launch credit cards with issuers worldwide on Zeta’s modern, cloud-native, and fully API-ready credit processing stack.

Additionally, Mastercard has also made an investment in Zeta for an undisclosed sum.

Zeta is looking to leverage Mastercard’s support and the integration of its capabilities in digital issuance, fraud and risk, loyalty solutions and more.

With both partners pre-configuring key capabilities behind the scenes, issuers will now be able to launch cards much faster, making it easier than ever to rapidly design and launch flexible, highly customisable card programmes.

Zeta Tachyon Credit offers functionality that spans the entire credit card program lifecycle including issuance, core, payments, BNPL loans, fraud and risk, rewards, and more.

The two companies’ collaboration began in 2018 in Asia Pacific when Zeta joined Start Path, Mastercard’s global startup engagement programme. Zeta had also recently joined the Mastercard Developers Partner Network, Engage.

Through Engage, Zeta will gain access to the Mastercard network to pre-integrate or bundle products and services, including Mastercard’s Digital First and Fintech Express programmes.

The programmes will look to provide instant customer KYC and verification, instant digital card issuance, provisioning, and usage.

Bhavin Turakhia

“With Zeta’s next-gen credit card processing platform, we are fundamentally rewiring how issuers launch credit card programs by offering new paradigms over legacy mainframe systems.

In Mastercard, we have a partner that is committed to undertake this journey with us and truly believes in this mission.”

said Bhavin Turakhia, Co-founder and CEO of Zeta.

Sandeep Malhotra

“As people shop and bank online more than ever before, Mastercard is partnering with Zeta to provide issuing banks and fintech innovators with modern credit card processing capabilities at scale that will maximise the safety, security and convenience of e-commerce, online banking, and contactless transactions.

By deploying Zeta’s credit processing stack, issuers will have an opportunity to grow their user base, drive higher usage and enter new geographical markets, all while accelerating the cashless revolution around the world,”

said Sandeep Malhotra, Executive Vice President, Products & Innovation, Asia Pacific, Mastercard.