An issuer – also called a card issuer – is a company that provides debit cards and/or credit cards to card users. Issuers are often banks or subsidiaries of banks. Issuers have contracts with payment network operators like Mastercard and Visa.
Typically, issuers provide the following services:
- Creating new debit cards or credit cards for card users
- Enabling the use of their cards with mobile payment solutions with Apple Pay and Google Pay
- Receiving payment requests from acquirers, authorizing payments, and reserving the needed amount.
- Transferring the money to the merchant’s acquirer, which passes it on to the merchant.
- Collecting the money required for payments from the card user.
- Providing customer service to card users.
- Passing on disputes submitted by card users to the relevant acquirer.
- Providing a line of credit (in the case of credit cards).
Whether or not you can use your card to pay or withdraw money depends on whether the payment network (Mastercard or Visa, for example) used by your card is accepted by a merchant or ATM. Which issuer services your card generally does not impact acceptance. But other card features can vary between issuers. These may include the card’s design, the fees you pay, reward programs and cardholder benefits, and currency exchange rates.
The issuer handles the collection of money for payments made using a debit card or credit card from the card user. The issuer transfers the money for a payment to the merchant’s acquirer, which passes it on to the merchant. The acquirer pays the issuer a fee for its services (the interchange fee).
Swiss issuers include: Cornèrcard (a subsidiary of Cornèr Banca), Cembra Money Bank, BonusCard (also a subsidiary of Cornèr Banca), Migros Bank, PostFinance, Raiffeisen, SIX, Swisscard AECS (a joint venture between Credit Suisse and American Express), Swiss Bankers, TopCard (a subsidiary of UBS), UBS, Valiant, and Viseca.
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