ApideckTapeMonthly recap
← Embedded Finance Index 2026/Networks
For whoever runs a card network

The network isn’t the only rail anymore

Your authorisation data shows you everything routed through you and nothing routed around you. Across 7,345 analysed companies that embed financial products — the buyers, not the vendors selling to them — 903 disclose an account-to-account rail and 556 name a card network at all — 1.6× more of the former. Where a card still appears, it increasingly sits downstream of settlement that somebody else owns.

903
Disclose A2A rails
Open-banking / account-to-account, out of 7,345 analysed companies.
556
Name a card network
Visa, Mastercard, Amex and the rest, combined. 7.6% of the dataset.
358
Disclose stablecoin rails
Of which 60 issue a stablecoin of their own.
What this shift looks like in practice
Western Union moves remittances for 100M customers. Its new card is the last mile of a stack where settlement no longer runs through the network.
Settlement
USDPT, Western Union's own stablecoin — issued by Anchorage Digital Bank on Solana
Wallet + issuing
Rain, a Visa and Mastercard principal member
Network
Visa — spend acceptance only, at the edge of the flow
Reach
37 markets at launch, targeting 60+
The interchange survives. The settlement economics, the float and the FX spread move to a chain and a custody bank. Western Union investor relations.

Where the money moves

Rails named in companies’ own sourced stack text, ranked by how many disclose them. Blue rails settle without a card network. Purple rails still route through one — see where they rank.

ACH
546
no card needed
SEPA
197
no card needed
Pix
168
no card needed
SWIFT
127
no card needed
RTP
82
no card needed
UPI
66
no card needed
Wire
58
no card needed
Faster Payments
56
no card needed
Visa Direct
44
card-dependent
SEPA Instant
40
no card needed
FedNow
36
no card needed
Push-to-card
25
card-dependent
iDEAL
24
no card needed
Fedwire
16
no card needed

Your distribution, as disclosed

Read each line right to left: the network is the last link, and everything between it and the cardholder belongs to someone else. 69 companies disclose all three links — network, issuer-processor and sponsor bank. Those are the relationships that decide which network a program launches on, and they sit upstream of the network itself.

Visa358Mastercard318American Express48Verve24Discover23UnionPay13Elo5JCB5
Card networkIssuer-processorSponsor bankVisa → Marqeta: 10 programsVisa → Stripe Issuing: 8 programsVisa → Enfuce: 5 programsMastercard → Marqeta: 3 programsVisa → Galileo: 3 programsMastercard → i2c: 2 programsMastercard → Stripe Issuing: 2 programsMastercard → Enfuce: 2 programsMastercard → Galileo: 2 programsMastercard → Paymentology: 2 programsVisa → Pathward: 2 programsVisa → Paymentology: 2 programsVisa → Pliant: 2 programsMastercard → Pathward: 1 programNapas → Galileo: 1 programVisa → Sutton Bank: 1 programSutton Bank → Sutton Bank: 19 programsPathward → Pathward: 11 programsStripe Issuing → Celtic Bank: 7 programsStripe Issuing → Evolve Bank & Trust: 5 programsStripe Issuing → Fifth Third Bank: 5 programsMarqeta → Column: 4 programsMarqeta → Pathward: 3 programsGalileo → The Bancorp Bank: 2 programsGalileo → Pathward: 2 programsGalileo → Stride Bank: 2 programsMarqeta → Sutton Bank: 2 programsStripe Issuing → Sutton Bank: 2 programsGalileo → Evolve Bank & Trust: 1 programGalileo → Cross River: 1 programi2c → Stride Bank: 1 programi2c → The Bancorp Bank: 1 programi2c → Cross River: 1 programMarqeta → Evolve Bank & Trust: 1 programMarqeta → Cross River: 1 programMarqeta → Stride Bank: 1 programMarqeta → Celtic Bank: 1 programMarqeta → The Bancorp Bank: 1 programPathward → Cross River: 1 programStripe Issuing → Column: 1 programStripe Issuing → Cross River: 1 programSutton Bank → Cross River: 1 programSutton Bank → Evolve Bank & Trust: 1 programSutton Bank → Stride Bank: 1 programSutton Bank → Celtic Bank: 1 programSutton Bank → The Bancorp Bank: 1 programVisa: 33 programsVisa 33Mastercard: 14 programsMastercard 14Napas: 1 programNapas 1Sutton Bank: 24 programsSutton Bank 24Stripe Issuing: 21 programsStripe Issuing 21Marqeta: 14 programsMarqeta 14Pathward: 12 programsPathward 12Galileo: 8 programsGalileo 8Enfuce: 7 programsEnfuce 7Paymentology: 4 programsPaymentology 4i2c: 3 programsi2c 3Pliant: 2 programsPliant 2Sutton Bank: 23 programsSutton Bank 23Pathward: 16 programsPathward 16Celtic Bank: 9 programsCeltic Bank 9Evolve Bank & Trust: 8 programsEvolve Bank & Trust 8Cross River: 6 programsCross River 6Column: 5 programsColumn 5Fifth Third Bank: 5 programsFifth Third Bank 5Stride Bank: 5 programsStride Bank 5The Bancorp Bank: 5 programsThe Bancorp Bank 5
Band thickness = disclosed programs. Showing the 9 issuer-processors and 9 sponsor banks carrying the most flow, of 546 and 402 disclosed — the tail is real and is not drawn.
Program by program
The full view names the company at the end of every band — 60 programs across 14 networks, each with its issuer-processor and sponsor bank where disclosed.
A readable sample, capped per network rather than exhaustive. 69 companies in the dataset disclose all three links; the report carries those, and every other layer of their stacks.
Request access →
Issuer-processors by disclosed programs
Marqeta 67Stripe Issuing 32Enfuce 26Paymentology 24Sutton Bank 22Galileo 20i2c 17Pathward 17Pliant 17Adyen 16Lithic 15Swan 15American Express Sync 14Thredd 12Evolve Bank & Trust 10Rain 10
Analysis
All companies A–ZMoney-movement railsBank charter applicationsHow banks sell embedded financeEarly-stage companies to watchConsortiums & alliancesEmbedded finance newsMonthly recapEmbedded finance statistics
Leaderboards
Sponsor banksBaaSCard issuingKYC / compliance
Regions
USUKEU
What these numbers are, and are not

Every figure counts companies that disclose something in public sources — documentation, subprocessor lists, press releases, filings — across 7,345analysed companies that embed financial products into their own product — buyers of embedded finance, not the providers selling it. None of it is transaction volume, revenue, or market share, and it should not be read as a proxy for them: a single disclosed A2A integration and a billion-transaction card program count once each. What disclosure frequency does measure is which rails builders consider worth naming when they describe how their product moves money — which is the leading indicator, not the trailing one. Rail names come from companies’ sourced stack text, so a rail used but never named is absent. Card-push rails (Visa Direct, Mastercard Send) are counted as card-dependent, not A2A, which makes the gap this page describes narrower than a looser definition would.

By theApideck research team— the unified API platform behind this analysis.