In an increasingly dynamic and competitive payments environment, where customers—both retail and commercial—expect seamless, real-time, and personalised digital experiences, the strategic partnership between FIS and Episode Six is a timely response to this market shift. The launch of the FIS International Issuing Hub, a cloud-native, application programming interface (API)-first issuer processing platform, aims to give financial institutions the agility, configurability and compliance support they need to stay competitive and scale globally. Frakie Wai, Temenos Responding to a new era of digital payments “We are hugely excited by this partnership,” said Andrew Murray, head of international banking and payments at FIS. “It combines FIS’s global reach and distribution with Episode Six’s modern, modular platform. Together, we have built a future-ready issuer processing ecosystem that delivers speed, security and scale.” The initiative targets a wide range of institutions—from traditional banks to digital challengers—facing mounting pressure to improve time-to-market for new products while maintaining regulatory compliance and cost efficiency. Rethinking issuer processing from the ground up Legacy issuer processors often predate the smartphone era and were never built to support the flexibility now required in today’s digital economy. As John Mitchell, CEO and Co-founder of Episode Six, explained, “Many of the incumbent platforms were designed for a world that no longer exists. We founded Episode Six in 2015 to create an issuer processor from scratch—purpose-built to be agile, resilient and fully modular.” Episode Six’s proprietary platform, which underpins the FIS International Issuing Hub, was built cloud-native from inception. Rather than simply migrating a legacy system into the cloud, it leverages distributed architecture across 16 AWS regions to deliver location-agnostic services, enhanced scalability and robust resilience. This architecture is claimed to enable real-time performance, personalisation, and rapid deployment—capabilities that traditional systems struggle to achieve. “Our platform allows clients to deploy and adjust card products across different markets quickly and securely,” said Mitchell. “That includes credit, debit, prepaid, virtual, and one-time-use cards, all configurable via bundled APIs.” Expanding use cases across banking and fintech The FIS International Issuing Hub was built with flexibility to serve a wide spectrum of financial institutions, from established banks to agile fintechs and emerging digital-first players. While names of early adopters remain confidential, Murray confirmed that interest spans large banks looking to modernise infrastructure incrementally, regional issuers expanding cross-border capabilities, and fintechs launching innovative prepaid or virtual card offerings. Mitchell emphasised that the system is designed to support both traditional and non-traditional use cases: “Commercial credit, virtual card, business-to-business—those are all big ideas.” Prepaid variants and one-time-use cards also feature prominently. These use cases are particularly attractive in markets like Southeast Asia and the Middle East, where issuers are seeking to rapidly scale new card propositions without overhauling their legacy cores. Unlike traditional issuer processors, which often impose long lead times and rigid configurations, the platform allows each client to tailor products for specific customer segments. Banks can differentiate themselves by offering unique credit lines for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), tailored spending controls for corporate card programmes, or embedded issuance for super apps and digital wallets. As Mitchell explained, “The product creation toolkit allows for configurations based on credit, debit, prepaid, virtual—across multiple geographies and currencies. And it is all accessible via APIs.” This multi-segment appeal positions the hub as a foundational component in broader digital banking strategies. Accelerating innovation with lower costs and faster speed to market A key value proposition of the platform is its dramatically reduced time-to-market. Mitchell highlighted that product changes that typically took more than 12 months on legacy systems can now be made in weeks—or even days—once integrated. “It is not only faster but also much more cost-effective,” he noted. “Changes can often be implemented by business analysts without waiting on large technology project teams.” The platform's design also avoids costly system overhauls. “It’s built to sit alongside existing core systems, not replace them,” said Mitchell. “That makes it particularly attractive for banks seeking modernisation without the risk and disruption of full migrations.” As a software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based solution, the International Issuing Hub also lowers total cost of ownership by offering scalability based on usage volume and minimising upfront infrastructure investments. Regulatory agility and global compliance One of the biggest hurdles for modern issuer processors is managing regulatory complexity across jurisdictions. The International Issuing Hub was explicitly built to address this, according to Mitchell. “Compliance is baked into the system,” he said. “And when regulations evolve, clients can reconfigure the platform quickly to stay compliant. That is critical in markets like Southeast Asia where timelines for compliance changes are short.” Data residency concerns are addressed through the platform’s global cloud deployment, which allows sensitive data to remain in-country where required. The system’s configurability ensures alignment with local compliance standards, security frameworks, and audit trails. “If a bank is not compliant, they are first fined, then sanctioned or even more,” Mitchell said. “They can use the functionality of our system to help ensure they stay ahead of those risks.” Read the full article here.
