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Card Issuing Platform

Card issuance and lifecycle management under a BIN Sponsorship model on Visa, Mastercard, and Diners networks.

What is the P2 Card Issuing Platform?

The P2 platform acts as an intermediary between the major card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Diners) and an Affiliate operating under a BIN Sponsorship model. It handles the full card lifecycle - from creating customers and accounts, to issuing physical or virtual cards, processing real-time authorization requests (Online to Issuer), managing 3DS/SCA challenges, processing end-of-day clearing files, and enabling secure card data retrieval (PAN, CVV, PIN) in compliance with PCI DSS.

Key concepts​

  • BIN Sponsorship - the Affiliate issues cards under a BIN (Bank Identification Number) licensed through the P2 platform, without needing its own principal membership in the card scheme.
  • Customer / Account / Card - the three-level hierarchy: a Customer (person or legal entity) owns one or more Accounts; each Account can have one or more Cards.
  • Online to Issuer (O2I) - the real-time authorization flow: when a cardholder makes a purchase, the transaction passes through the card scheme and the P2 platform before reaching the Affiliate for approval or denial.
  • 3DS & SCA - Strong Customer Authentication layer for online transactions, with configurable risk levels (low / medium / high / undecided).
  • Clearing & Settlement - end-of-day processing of all authorized transactions via clearing files from the card scheme.
  • Card Data & PIN - PCI DSS-compliant mechanism for the cardholder to retrieve sensitive card data (PAN, CVV, expiry) and manage their PIN using end-to-end encryption.

How to navigate this section​

Begin with Card Management to understand the Customer-Account-Card data model. Then read Online to Issuer (O2I) to understand how transactions are authorized, followed by 3DS & SCA for the authentication layer. Clearing & Settlement covers end-of-day reconciliation, and Card Data & PIN explains how to expose sensitive card information to the cardholder securely. All API endpoints are available in the Card Management API reference.