Paymentology, the leading next-gen global issuer-processor, today announced a strategic partnership with audax Financial Technology (“audax”), a comprehensive digital banking technology solutions provider backed by Standard Chartered Ventures. This collaboration transforms the payments landscape in Southeast Asia and the Middle East and allows financial institutions (FIs) to seamlessly launch and manage their own branded card program in a matter of months.  

With CaaS, banks and FIs can deliver frictionless payment experiences without the complexities associated with traditional methods, including time-consuming technical integrations into incumbent systems such as core banking, and dramatically reduce the total cost of ownership. By leveraging audax’s all-encompassing digital banking and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) solutions alongside Paymentology's advanced card processing capabilities, this partnership addresses a market gap and niche for CaaS in these regions, presenting a scalable and quick-to-market model that simplifies the initiation and management of the card-issuing process.

Paymentology leads the payments industry with its superior multi-cloud platform that supports shared and dedicated processing instances for all card types. Paired with audax’s digital banking technology solutions, the combined offering empowers banks and FIs to swiftly scale and modernise their existing infrastructure. This enables them to efficiently manage large volumes of customer data concurrently, deploy innovative card programs, streamline operations, reduce time-to-market, and ultimately enhance the customer experience.

The news comes as banks across the board face significant challenges amid economic uncertainty, with earnings reports highlighting the developing trend of slowing revenue growth and decelerating margin expansion. Despite similar regulatory and tax structures to larger banks, many institutions, including community and regional banks, often operate with lower reserves and less stable funding bases, rendering them more susceptible to financial volatility. 

To fortify their revenue stream, banks and FIs must explore innovative ways to serve their existing customer base and attract new clients. audax and Paymentology’s joint solution aims to help banks and FIs streamline and scale the operations of card programs without the challenges associated with navigating complicated regulatory frameworks. 

Merusha Naidu, Global Head of Partnerships at Paymentology commented on the partnership: "We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with audax. Through this collaboration, we will empower banks to thrive in the digital age by utilising audax's digital banking platform in combination with our cloud-native next-generation platform. We aim to modernise the infrastructure of financial services institutions by accelerating the deployment of card programmes for issuers and co-brands, empowering them to run programmes based on customer and market needs efficiently.”

Michael Breen, Head of Commercial at audax added: “Our partnership announcement is timely as we continue to grow our presence in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Together, we enable banks to increase their customer base, balance sheet and launch compelling, relevant products at speed, meeting customer needs. By leveraging audax and Paymentology's combined expertise, banks can navigate economic uncertainty and bolster their bottom lines by offering innovative payment solutions."