Build vs. Buy for KYC: When In-House Identity Verification Stops Making Sense

KYC for Microfinance: Biometric eKYC in Low-Connectivity, Field-Led Onboarding

<img src="https://m2p-website-file.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/marketing-cms/m2p-blog/2026/10/baas-cover-fraud-loss-ownership_2x1.webp" alt="In a BaaS Stack, Whose Fraud Loss Is It, Really?" title="" id="x6grswgvy" width="100%" height="60">A customer gets defrauded on a neobank app. The app was built by a fintech. The fintech doesn't hold a banking license — it operates under a sponsor bank. The sponsor bank doesn't run the technology stack — that's handled by a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform sitting in between. The card that was compromised was issued through a program manager. The transaction that moved the money ran over a card network and a processor neither the customer nor, often, the fintech's own support team has direct visibility into.Now ask the obvious question: whose fraud loss is this?In a traditional bank, the answer is uncomfortable but at least clear — it's the bank's, full stop, because the bank is the only regulated entity in the relationship and the customer's contract is with no one else. In a BaaS stack, the honest answer is: it depends on the contract, it depends on which party had operational control at the moment of failure, and in a meaningful share of cases, it depends on who blinks first in the dispute. That's not a regulatory framework. That's a negotiation.This is one of the more uncomfortable open questions in modern financial infrastructure, and it's worth examining directly, because every month that it stays unanswered, more transaction volume flows through stacks where the question hasn't been settled.<h2 class="heading-node" id="7lr4v0tra">The Stack: More Parties Than the Customer Ever Sees</h2>A typical BaaS arrangement for a consumer neobank or embedded finance product involves, at minimum:<ul class="list-node" id="qyifg25jq"><li>The sponsor bank — the regulated, licensed entity whose charter underpins the whole arrangement, legally the entity "providing" the financial service</li><li>The BaaS/infrastructure platform — the technology layer that provides APIs, core banking rails, card issuing processing, ledgering, and often the actual fraud and risk tooling</li><li>The program manager or fintech — the brand the customer actually sees and trusts, who designed the product experience and owns the customer relationship</li><li>The card network — Visa, Mastercard, RuPay, or equivalent, which has its own rulebook on chargeback liability</li><li>The processor — handling authorization and settlement, sometimes a separate entity from the BaaS platform</li><li>Downstream service providers — KYC/identity verification vendors, fraud scoring vendors, dispute management vendors — each potentially a different company again</li></ul>A customer onboarding into this product has a relationship with the fintech brand. Legally, their account is with the sponsor bank. Operationally, their transaction data, fraud scoring, and dispute workflows run through the BaaS platform. None of these three — brand, license holder, and infrastructure operator — necessarily has full visibility into what the other two are doing at the moment a fraud event occurs.This isn't a hypothetical structure drawn up for the sake of argument. It's the default architecture of embedded finance today, in India under the NBFC-fintech co-lending and PPI issuance models, in the US under the sponsor-bank model that's powered most neobanks and embedded finance launches of the last decade, and increasingly across Southeast Asia, the GCC, and Africa as digital-first banking licenses proliferate. The question of who owns fraud risk isn't a corner case. It's the central unresolved question of the entire BaaS category.<h2 class="heading-node" id="jr3nukzcb">Why "The Contract Decides" Isn't a Satisfying Answer</h2>The reflexive answer from most legal and commercial teams is that the contracts between these parties allocate liability, and in a narrow sense, that's true — most BaaS and program agreements do contain indemnification clauses, loss-sharing formulas, and service-level commitments that assign financial responsibility for different fraud scenarios.But this answer breaks down in practice for three reasons.First, contracts are written before the fraud happens, and fraud typologies evolve faster than contract renegotiation cycles. A loss-sharing clause drafted around card-not-present fraud risk in 2022 may say nothing coherent about a 2026 scam where the customer is socially engineered into authorizing their own transaction, moved through a mule account the sponsor bank's own compliance team should arguably have flagged, using a device fingerprint the BaaS platform's fraud engine scored as "unusual" but didn't block. Which clause governs that? Often, none cleanly does — and the parties end up negotiating the specific incident rather than applying a pre-agreed formula.Second, contractual liability and operational control frequently don't line up. The sponsor bank may be contractually on the hook for a category of loss, but the fraud model that failed to catch it was built, tuned, and operated entirely by the BaaS platform, with the bank having limited visibility into its thresholds or decisioning logic. Conversely, the fintech brand — the party the customer trusts and who designed the user experience that may have made the scam more or less likely to succeed — often carries little to no direct financial liability at all, because they're not a regulated entity and their contract with the sponsor bank was deliberately structured to limit their exposure. The party with the most contractual liability is not always the party with the most operational ability to have prevented the loss, and that mismatch is exactly why these disputes drag on.Third, regulators have not caught up to the structure. Most financial regulation — in the US, India, the EU, and most of APAC and MEA — was written with a bilateral mental model: one regulated institution, one customer, one relationship. Outsourcing and third-party risk guidelines (RBI's guidelines on outsourcing of financial services, the EBA's guidelines on outsourcing arrangements, the US OCC and FDIC's third-party risk management guidance) all gesture at the idea that the regulated entity remains accountable for outsourced functions — but "remains accountable" is a supervisory statement about who the regulator will come after, not an operational answer to who absorbs the loss, who built the control that failed, or how four or five companies should coordinate incident response in real time during an active fraud event. The regulatory answer and the commercial answer are different documents, written by different people, for different purposes, and they often don't reconcile cleanly.<h2 class="heading-node" id="xpjxeb4hj">A Concrete Scenario Worth Walking Through</h2>Consider a realistic case: a customer of a BaaS-powered neobank falls victim to a phishing scam and is tricked into authorizing a push payment to a mule account. The transaction passes SCA-equivalent authentication because the customer, under the scammer's instruction, approves it themselves. It passes the fraud model's real-time scoring because the device, location, and amount are all consistent with the customer's normal behavior — the only anomaly is the payee, which was flagged as "new" but not blocked, per the risk threshold the BaaS platform configured by default.Now trace the aftermath:<ul class="list-node" id="y0z893cgh"><li>The fintech brand fields the customer's complaint first, because that's the app the customer opened. It has no direct mechanism to reverse the transaction and limited visibility into the fraud model's decisioning.</li><li>The sponsor bank is the regulated entity responsible for the account and, in most jurisdictions, is the party a regulator or ombudsman will ultimately hold accountable for customer treatment — but it likely didn't configure the specific payee-risk threshold that let the transaction through.</li><li>The BaaS platform owns and operates the fraud model, and may have offered a stricter threshold as a configurable option — one the program never enabled, whether due to cost, conversion-rate concerns, or simply not being flagged as a priority during onboarding.</li><li>The card network or payment rail, if involved, has its own dispute rules, which may or may not cover authorized-but-coerced transactions at all — most do not, by design, since the customer genuinely authorized the payment.</li></ul>Every party in this chain has a partially valid claim that the loss isn't "theirs" alone, and every party also had some sliver of ability to have prevented it. This is precisely why these disputes are frequently resolved through negotiation, internal write-offs, or — worst of all — simply left unresolved, with the customer absorbing the loss because no single party accepts full ownership quickly enough to make them whole.<h2 class="heading-node" id="4cb6t7ab8">Three Structural Reasons This Keeps Happening</h2>1. BaaS is multi-party by design, and no single party owns the full transaction lifecycle. This isn't a bug to be patched — it's the entire value proposition of the model. A bank gets distribution without building consumer product. A fintech gets a banking license without becoming a bank. A BaaS platform monetizes infrastructure instead of owning customer relationships. That division of labor is exactly what makes embedded finance commercially viable — but it also means the full transaction lifecycle, end to end, isn't visible to or controlled by any single entity, which is precisely the condition that makes fraud liability so hard to assign cleanly.2. Regulatory frameworks still presume a bilateral relationship. Virtually every consumer protection and fraud liability regulation on the books — whether it's Regulation E in the US, RBI's customer liability circulars in India, or PSD2/PSD3's liability provisions in the EU — was drafted assuming the customer's financial institution is a single, identifiable, directly accountable entity. These frameworks are only slowly being updated to contemplate multi-party technology stacks, and in the meantime, the gap gets filled by private contracts that were never designed to do the job regulation is supposed to do.3. Commercial incentives push liability downstream rather than toward the party best positioned to prevent the loss. In commercial negotiations between banks, BaaS platforms, and fintechs, liability allocation is a point of leverage, not a principled design exercise. The party with the most negotiating power — frequently the sponsor bank, given its licensing position — tends to push liability toward the parties with less leverage, regardless of which party actually controls the systems that could have prevented the fraud. This produces contracts that are internally consistent and legally enforceable, but structurally disconnected from where operational risk actually sits.<h2 class="heading-node" id="v4aptyex9">What a More Defensible Model Looks Like</h2>None of this means the problem is unsolvable — it means it hasn't been treated as a design question with the seriousness it deserves. A few principles point toward a more defensible structure:Liability should be mapped to operational control, stage by stage. Rather than a single blanket liability clause, BaaS agreements need granular control-mapping: who configures authentication thresholds, who owns fraud model tuning, who monitors real-time alerts, who has authority to freeze a suspicious transaction before settlement. Liability for a given failure mode should sit primarily with whoever had the operational ability to prevent it — not whoever has the weakest negotiating position.Shared, real-time fraud visibility has to replace siloed dashboards. A meaningful share of these disputes exist because the bank, the fintech, and the BaaS platform are each looking at partial data after the fact. A fraud and risk management layer built for multi-party visibility — where the sponsor bank, the program manager, and the infrastructure platform see the same transaction-level risk signals in real time, not reconstructed after a complaint — removes much of the ambiguity about who knew what, when.Incident response needs a predefined, cross-party playbook, not an improvised negotiation. When a scam or account takeover is detected, the question of who freezes funds, who notifies the customer, and who initiates recovery shouldn't be settled contract-clause-by-contract-clause during the incident itself. The institutions handling this well have pre-agreed, tested incident response protocols that span all parties in the stack, triggered automatically by defined fraud signals.Regulators and industry bodies need to keep building multi-party liability guidance, not just bilateral frameworks. Some progress is visible — the UK's Confirmation of Payee and APP fraud reimbursement rules under the PSR, and evolving guidance from US regulators following several high-profile bank-fintech partnership failures, both represent early attempts to address multi-party accountability directly. APAC and MEA regulators drafting open banking and BaaS-specific frameworks have a real opportunity to build this in from the start rather than retrofitting it later.<h2 class="heading-node" id="3weu95n7b">The Bottom Line</h2>The honest answer to "who owns fraud risk in a shared BaaS stack" today is: it's split across several parties, unevenly, inconsistently, and in ways that frequently don't match who actually had the ability to prevent the loss. That's not a satisfying answer, but it's the accurate one, and pretending otherwise — treating a signed indemnification clause as if it resolves the operational question — is exactly how these disputes end up taking months to settle while customers wait for resolution.Getting this right isn't primarily a legal exercise. It's an infrastructure exercise. The institutions that will handle this well are the ones that build — or partner for — fraud and risk systems designed from the outset for multi-party visibility and clear, stage-by-stage control mapping, rather than treating shared liability as something to be resolved after the fact through negotiation.If you're a bank, fintech, or program manager operating in a BaaS stack and this question has come up in a real dispute rather than a hypothetical one, it's worth examining whether your fraud and risk infrastructure actually supports shared visibility and clear control attribution — or whether it's quietly assuming the bilateral model that regulation was built around. <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/frm-aml/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=frm&amp;utm_campaign=oct" target="_blank">M2P's FRM</a> system is built for exactly this multi-party reality, giving every party in a BaaS stack visibility into the same transaction-level risk signals rather than reconstructing them after a dispute. If this is a live question for your organization, <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/contact-us/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=frm&amp;utm_campaign=oct" target="_blank">reach out to M2P</a> to talk through what a clearer ownership model could look like for your stack.

Who Owns Fraud Risk in a Shared Banking-as-a-Service Stack — and Why Nobody's Really Answered This Yet

<img src="https://m2p-website-file.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/marketing-cms/m2p-blog/2026/09/acs_readiness_mena_blog_v4_2000x1000.webp" alt="ACS Readiness: The Step MENA Banks Can't Skip" title="" id="bmihr66ay" width="100%" height="362">Digital card issuance across the Middle East and North Africa is accelerating, driven by a mix of national digital economy strategies, growing e-commerce volumes, and a new generation of digital-first banks and fintechs entering the market. As card portfolios scale, so does exposure to <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/blog/intelligent-access-control-securing-digital-payments/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=acs&amp;utm_campaign=4" target="_blank">card-not-present (CNP) fraud</a> — and with it, the importance of getting Access Control Server (ACS) infrastructure right from the outset.Unlike markets where <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/blog/3d-secure-your-barrier-against-cyber-attacks/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=acs&amp;utm_campaign=4" target="_blank">3-D Secure (3DS)</a> was added onto legacy systems over time, many MENA issuers have the opportunity to build authentication infrastructure correctly the first time. Doing that well requires a clear-eyed view of what "ACS readiness" actually means before scaling issuance volumes.<h2 class="heading-node" id="c9p10zbvy">Why Readiness Matters Before, Not After, Scale</h2>It's tempting to treat ACS as something to configure once volumes justify it. In practice, authentication infrastructure is much harder — and more expensive — to retrofit once a card program is live and processing meaningful transaction volumes. Issues with challenge flow design, scheme compliance, or risk-engine calibration surface as customer complaints, failed transactions, or chargeback disputes, not as clean engineering tickets.For MENA banks planning to scale digital card issuance, ACS readiness is best assessed across five areas.<h2 class="heading-node" id="a5wx6nrgp">1. Regulatory and Scheme Compliance Alignment</h2>MENA <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/blog/psd2psd3-and-dora-learnings-for-apac-mea-markets-from-european-regulations/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=acs&amp;utm_campaign=4" target="_blank">regulators</a> and central banks are increasingly issuing guidance on strong customer authentication, often informed by frameworks like PSD2's SCA requirements in Europe, while also reflecting local market context. Issuers need an ACS platform that:<ul class="list-node" id="gf11gobg0"><li>Supports EMV 3DS 2.x specifications across all schemes the bank issues on (Visa, Mastercard, and regional/domestic schemes where applicable)</li><li>Can be configured to align with jurisdiction-specific regulatory requirements as they evolve</li><li>Provides audit trails and reporting sufficient to demonstrate compliance to regulators and card networks</li></ul><h2 class="heading-node" id="irjrarb14">2. Risk-Based Authentication Calibration</h2>A core value proposition of 3DS 2.x is the ability to authenticate low-risk transactions frictionlessly while reserving step-up challenges for higher-risk ones. This depends on a risk engine that can:<ul class="list-node" id="iryqsxowr"><li>Ingest transaction, device, and behavioral data to make real-time risk decisions</li><li>Perform reasonably well even with limited historical data during early scale-up, and improve as data volume grows</li><li>Be tuned by the issuer's risk team rather than operating as a fixed black box</li></ul>Banks scaling issuance quickly should ask providers directly how the risk engine behaves in the first months of a new card program, when transaction history is thin.<h2 class="heading-node" id="ldgpgozbx">3. Multi-Channel and Multi-Device Experience</h2>MENA consumers transact across a wide range of devices and channels — mobile apps, mobile web, and desktop browsers — often with varying network conditions. ACS readiness means the challenge experience:<ul class="list-node" id="et951us0a"><li>Renders correctly and loads quickly across device types and connection speeds</li><li>Supports authentication methods relevant to the market (OTP, biometric, app-based approval) without adding unnecessary friction</li><li>Is tested against real regional usage patterns, not just reference implementations</li></ul><h2 class="heading-node" id="r8k2q0e4a">4. Multi-Network and Multi-Market Scalability</h2>Many MENA issuers operate — or plan to operate — across multiple countries and multiple card schemes simultaneously. An ACS platform that requires separate integration work per scheme or per market becomes a scaling bottleneck. Readiness here means confirming the platform can:<ul class="list-node" id="g5firhzig"><li>Handle multiple schemes through a consistent architecture</li><li>Extend to new markets without a ground-up re-implementation</li><li>Maintain consistent uptime and performance as issuance volume grows across regions</li></ul><h2 class="heading-node" id="tvpkwx2go">5. Integration with the Broader Fraud and Risk Stack</h2>ACS doesn't operate in isolation. It works alongside <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/frm-aml/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=acs&amp;utm_campaign=4" target="_blank">fraud and risk management (FRM) systems</a>, issuer processing platforms, and dispute management workflows. Before scaling, banks should confirm:<ul class="list-node" id="0rm6vx09n"><li>How ACS decisions feed into (and are informed by) the bank's broader FRM capability</li><li>How chargeback and liability-shift data flows back into dispute management processes</li><li>Whether the ACS provider offers this as a connected capability or requires the bank to stitch systems together independently</li></ul><h2 class="heading-node" id="8t3w6uw0j">The Cost of Getting This Wrong</h2>Issuers who scale digital card issuance without a <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/blog/build-vs-buy-the-real-cost-of-running-an-in-house-acs/" target="_blank">properly readied ACS</a> tend to encounter the same set of problems: elevated false decline rates that push customers away, inconsistent challenge experiences that frustrate mobile users, weaker footing in chargeback disputes, and compliance gaps that surface only during a regulatory review or scheme audit. Each of these is more costly to fix retroactively than to design correctly upfront.<h2 class="heading-node" id="9b1g6wgko">Building Readiness as a Deliberate Step</h2>For MENA banks planning to scale digital card issuance, ACS readiness shouldn't be an afterthought bundled into a broader card processing decision. It deserves its own evaluation — one that tests regulatory alignment, risk-engine performance, device experience, and scalability against the bank's specific growth plans, not just generic vendor claims.Banks that treat this as a deliberate, upfront step are the ones that scale issuance smoothly, with fewer surprises as volumes grow.<hr>M2P Fintech provides <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/acs/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=acs-mena&amp;utm_campaign=4" target="_blank">Access Control Server (ACS)</a> infrastructure built for EMV 3DS 2.x, designed to support issuers scaling digital card programs across the Middle East and North Africa. To assess ACS readiness for your card program, <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/contact-us/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=acs-mena&amp;utm_campaign=4" target="_blank">get in touch</a> with our team.

ACS Readiness: What MENA Banks Need Before Scaling Digital Card Issuance

<img src="https://m2p-website-file.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/marketing-cms/m2p-blog/2026/09/m2p_multirail_violet_centered_2000x1000.webp" alt="One Platform. Every Rail. All Your Merchants Covered." title="" id="w6vlef0gi" width="100%" height="362">Merchants today don't accept payments through a single channel — they accept them through all of them. A customer might tap a card, scan a UPI QR code, or pay through a mobile wallet, often within the same store, sometimes within the same hour. For the merchant, this is a checkout convenience. For the acquiring bank or PSP behind that checkout, it's a considerably harder infrastructure problem.This is what the industry calls multi-rail acquiring — the ability to accept, process, and settle payments across different payment rails through a single, unified system rather than a patchwork of disconnected channels.<h1 class="heading-node" id="omzfpvt62">Why Multi-Rail Acquiring Has Become Non-Negotiable</h1>A few years ago, an acquiring bank could reasonably specialize: card acquiring on one system, UPI on another, wallet integrations handled as one-off partnerships. That approach doesn't hold up anymore, for a few reasons:<ul class="list-node" id="pabf08c6v"><li>Payment preferences are fragmented and shifting. Cards remain dominant for certain merchant categories, UPI has become the default for everyday retail in markets like India, and wallets continue to hold share in specific demographics and geographies. Merchants need to support all three to avoid losing sales at checkout.</li><li>Merchants expect one relationship, not three. A merchant onboarding with an acquirer wants a single dashboard, a single settlement cycle, and a single support line — not three vendor relationships stitched together on the back end.</li><li>Regulatory and interoperability requirements keep expanding. Rail-specific mandates (tokenization for cards, UPI's own compliance framework, wallet KYC norms) all have to be satisfied simultaneously, and increasingly, in real time.</li><li>Operational cost adds up fast. Running separate reconciliation, risk, and reporting pipelines per rail multiplies the acquirer's operational overhead and increases the chance of errors at settlement.</li></ul>The acquirers that handle this well aren't the ones with the most integrations — they're the ones that have abstracted the complexity of each rail behind a common, well-architected core.<h1 class="heading-node" id="k1w0amfqv">What "Handling" Multi-Rail Actually Requires</h1>Supporting multiple rails isn't just a matter of adding more payment method logos to a checkout page. A platform genuinely built for multi-rail acquiring needs to solve for several things at once:1. A unified transaction and settlement layer Regardless of whether a payment came in via card network, UPI, or a wallet provider, the acquirer needs consistent transaction data, consistent settlement timelines, and a single reconciliation process. Without this, finance teams end up manually <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/recon360/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=mms&amp;utm_campaign=multirail" target="_blank">reconciling</a> three different formats from three different rails.2. Rail-specific compliance without rail-specific silos Cards require PCI-DSS adherence and network-specific tokenization; UPI has its own NPCI compliance and dispute-handling framework; wallets bring their own KYC and interoperability rules. A well-designed acquiring platform builds compliance into the core architecture per rail, while keeping the merchant-facing experience consistent.3. Risk and fraud monitoring that spans rails Fraud patterns don't respect payment method boundaries — a merchant being targeted for card fraud may also see anomalies on UPI. Acquiring platforms need FRM systems that monitor transaction behavior holistically across all rails a merchant uses, not in isolated per-rail silos.4. Merchant onboarding that scales across payment types A merchant shouldn't have to go through separate onboarding for card acceptance versus UPI acceptance. Modern platforms consolidate <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/kyc-suite/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=mms&amp;utm_campaign=multirail" target="_blank">KYB</a>, documentation, and risk checks into a single onboarding flow that activates all relevant rails together.5. Real-time visibility for merchants Merchants want to see all their transactions, across every rail, in one dashboard — with clarity on settlement status, fees, and disputes, without switching between tools.<h1 class="heading-node" id="rbns5e89y">How M2P's Merchant Acquiring Solution Solves This</h1>This isn't a theoretical challenge for us — it's one we've built our <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/merchant-acquiring-solutions/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=mms&amp;utm_campaign=multirail" target="_blank">Merchant Management System </a>(MMS) around from the ground up.M2P's acquiring platform is designed as a single core system that natively supports cards, UPI, and wallet-based payments, rather than layering rail-specific add-ons onto a card-first architecture. A few ways this shows up in practice:<ul class="list-node" id="cepo0cpxy"><li>Unified merchant onboarding: Merchants onboard once through a consolidated KYB and risk-check process, and are activated across the payment rails relevant to their business — without separate onboarding cycles per rail.</li><li>Consolidated settlement and reconciliation: Transactions across cards, UPI, and wallets flow into a common settlement engine, giving merchants (and the acquiring bank's finance teams) one clean view instead of fragmented, rail-by-rail reports.</li><li>Cross-rail risk and fraud monitoring: Our <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/frm-aml/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=mms&amp;utm_campaign=multirail" target="_blank">FRM</a> capability is built to evaluate merchant transaction behavior across all active rails together, so fraud signals aren't missed because they showed up on a different payment channel than the one being watched.</li><li>A single merchant dashboard: Merchants get one place to track transactions, settlements, and disputes — regardless of which rail the customer paid through.</li><li>API-first integration: Banks and PSPs can plug into M2P's acquiring stack through a consistent set of APIs, whether they're enabling card acceptance, UPI QR acceptance, or wallet payments, reducing the integration burden on their engineering teams.</li></ul>The result is that banks and PSPs partnering with M2P aren't choosing between rail coverage and operational simplicity — they get both, from a platform already built to handle the complexity underneath.<h1 class="heading-node" id="aqh526cca">The Direction This Is Heading</h1>As payment behavior continues to diversify — and as new rails or interoperability mandates inevitably emerge — the acquirers best positioned to adapt will be the ones running on infrastructure designed for multi-rail from day one, not the ones retrofitting new channels onto legacy, card-only cores.For banks and PSPs evaluating their acquiring stack, the question worth asking isn't "can this platform support UPI or wallets too?" It's "was this platform built to treat every rail as a first-class citizen?"Ready to simplify multi-rail acquiring for your merchants?<a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/contact-us/?utm_source=blg&amp;utm_medium=mms&amp;utm_campaign=multirail" target="_blank">Talk to our team</a> about how M2P's Merchant Acquiring Solution can help you accept cards, UPI, and wallet payments on one unified platform.

How Modern Acquiring Platforms Handle Multi-Rail Payments (Cards, UPI, Wallets)

The Widest Infrastructure Stack in Banking & Fintech: Every Product, Every AI Agent, One Platform

<img src="https://m2p-website-file.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/marketing-cms/m2p-blog/2026/03/2-1.webp" alt="Flexible Credentials" title="" id="0bhanmy8u" width="100%" height="347">In the fast-evolving world of financial technology, the demand for more personalized and flexible payment solutions has never been greater. Consumers today expect a seamless and intuitive payment experience that adapts to their financial needs in real time. This is where Flexible Credentials come into play - a revolutionary technology that is set to redefine the way we think about cards payments. <h2 class="heading-node" id="ua5ceklix">What are Flexible Credentials?</h2>At its core, a Flexible Credential is a feature that allows a single payment card to be linked to multiple funding sources. Imagine a single card that allows the holder to access their debit account for everyday purchases, your credit line for larger expenses, and even a Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) - all at the point of sale. This is the power of flexible credentials. This technology is being introduced by major payment networks, including Visa with its "Flexible Credential" and Mastercard with the "One Credential." These solutions are designed to give consumers more direct choice at the point of sale, allowing them to select the funding source for each transaction.<h2 class="heading-node" id="k9znu8h24">Why Should Banks and Issuers Pay Attention?</h2>For financial institutions, embracing flexible credentials is not just about keeping up with the latest trend; it's a strategic move to enhance customer loyalty and drive growth. <ul class="list-node" id="mtbc43fl3"><li>Higher spends through top-of-the-wallet behaviour: When one card can handle any payment need - debit, credit, or installments - it naturally becomes the customer's primary choice, leading to increased usage and higher overall spending.</li><li>Increased cross-sell &amp; unlock new revenue lines: By integrating credit and BNPL options into a single card, you can seamlessly introduce customers to new financial products, creating opportunities for interest-based revenue and other fee-based services.</li><li>Operational efficiency and lower costs: Managing a single, multi-functional card program can be more streamlined and cost-effective than maintaining separate debit, credit, and BNPL products, reducing overhead and simplifying operations.</li><li>Improve personalization &amp; Data Insights: A single card provides a unified view of a customer's spending habits across all payment methods. This rich data allows for deeper personalization of offers, services, and communications.</li><li>Competitive differentiation: In a crowded market, offering a truly flexible, all-in-one payment solution positions your institution as a forward-thinking innovator and sets your brand apart from the competition.</li><li>Increase transaction volume: The sheer convenience of having multiple payment options available on one card encourages more frequent use for a wider variety of purchases, directly boosting your total transaction volume.</li><li>Deepen customer loyalty and increase retention: By providing a superior, more convenient payment experience that adapts to their financial needs, you give customers a compelling reason to stay and build a stronger, more positive brand association.</li></ul><h2 class="heading-node" id="3pyu7eyhm">M2P's Vision for a Flexible Future</h2>At M2P Fintech, we believe payments experience will be remain consistent regardless of the type of product the customer uses. Flexible credentials is the capability that helps issuers build such an experience. Our platform is designed to help issuers like you seamlessly enabled these capabilities into your existing infrastructure. We manage the requirements/ standards set out by networks to enable flexible credentials for issuers, leaving the banks to focus on curating the world class product offerings to their customers. As Shyam Kumar, VP of Sales at M2P Fintech, explains, the shift is more than just technological; it's strategic. "Visa Flex Credentials is not just reimagining payments, it’s redefining strategy itself. By turning a single payment credential into an intelligent orchestration layer, Visa Flex Credentials redefines customer experience where flexibility feels effortless, and strategy is embedded into every transaction."This focus on user empowerment and tangible business outcomes is critical, especially in a market with diverse payment habits. Mahesh Karuppiah, Senior Director at M2P Fintech, adds, "Flexible Credentials are set to give spenders real control by letting them decide which wallet pays for each transaction. UPI drives everyday convenience in India, but cards and credit lines still lead for large purchases, rewards, and pay‑over‑time options. Bringing all stored values onto a single card will increase share of wallet and make the card meaningful again."<h2 class="heading-node" id="h4ifq29ng">The Road Ahead</h2>The journey towards a more flexible and personalized payment ecosystem has just begun. Flexible credentials are more than just a new feature; they represent a fundamental shift in how we experience payments. For banks and financial institutions, the time to embrace this change is now. By partnering with M2P Fintech, you can be at the forefront of this transformation, offering your customers a payment experience that is truly tailored to their lives.Follow us on&nbsp;<a class="link fui-Link ___1q1shib f2hkw1w f3rmtva f1ewtqcl fyind8e f1k6fduh f1w7gpdv fk6fouc fjoy568 figsok6 f1s184ao f1mk8lai fnbmjn9 f1o700av f13mvf36 f1cmlufx f9n3di6 f1ids18y f1tx3yz7 f1deo86v f1eh06m1 f1iescvh fhgqx19 f1olyrje f1p93eir f1nev41a f1h8hb77 f1lqvz6u f10aw75t fsle3fq f17ae5zn" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/m2pfintech/mycompany/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">LinkedIn</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a class="link fui-Link ___1q1shib f2hkw1w f3rmtva f1ewtqcl fyind8e f1k6fduh f1w7gpdv fk6fouc fjoy568 figsok6 f1s184ao f1mk8lai fnbmjn9 f1o700av f13mvf36 f1cmlufx f9n3di6 f1ids18y f1tx3yz7 f1deo86v f1eh06m1 f1iescvh fhgqx19 f1olyrje f1p93eir f1nev41a f1h8hb77 f1lqvz6u f10aw75t fsle3fq f17ae5zn" href="https://twitter.com/m2pfintech" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Twitter</a>&nbsp;for insightful fintech bytes curated for curious minds like you.

What are Flexible Credentials? A Quick Introduction for Issuers

<img src="https://m2p-website-file.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/marketing-cms/m2p-blog/2026/03/2.webp" alt="UPI Autopay interoperability banner image, symbolizing speed and seamless connections." title="" id="u7woq523v" width="100%" height="451">The next evolution in recurring payments is here. NPCI's mandate for UPI Autopay interoperability is set to create a more resilient, competitive, and customer-centric payment ecosystem. For banks and financial institutions, this presents both a compliance requirement and a strategic opportunity. &nbsp; &nbsp; The core challenge? The significant development effort required to upgrade legacy systems.&nbsp; At M2P Fintech, we have engineered our UPI Switch to do the heavy lifting for you. As a leading payment infrastructure provider, we empower banks to seamlessly adopt this new framework, reduce go-to-market time, and deliver a superior experience to merchants and end-users.&nbsp; <h2 class="heading-node" id="9j5hn88m6" style="text-align: left">The Challenge: Why Interoperability Requires Deep System Changes&nbsp;</h2> Previously, UPI Autopay mandates were rigid. They locked merchants to a single Payment Service Provider (PSP) and tied users to the UPI app where the mandate was created. This created business continuity risks and friction for everyone involved.&nbsp; The new interoperability framework solves this but requires substantial technical updates for banks acting as acquirers, payers, or remitters. Core processes must be re-architected to handle:&nbsp; <ul class="list-node" id="g95luydzo"><li>The generation and validation of the new Merchant Identifier Code (MIC).&nbsp;</li></ul><ul class="list-node" id="39i0p639h"><li>New APIs for fetching and porting mandates across different UPI apps.&nbsp;</li></ul><ul class="list-node" id="o7ws1r1gy"><li>Complex transaction routing logic to support PSP fallback.&nbsp; </li></ul>Developing these capabilities in-house is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process.&nbsp; <h2 class="heading-node" id="gm8p1ymaa" style="text-align: left">The Solution: M2P's UPI Switch for Effortless Compliance&nbsp;</h2>M2P's UPI Switch is a ready-to-deploy solution that abstracts away the complexity of this transition. We provide the core infrastructure needed for banks and fintechs to become fully compliant with the new guidelines, fast.&nbsp; Here’s how we empower our banking partners:&nbsp;1. Acquire and Execute Mandates with Full Interoperability&nbsp;The new framework replaces VPA-based validation with the Merchant Identifier Code (MIC), a unique code tied to the merchant's PAN. This allows a mandate to be executed through any of the merchant's onboarded PSPs.&nbsp;How M2P helps: Our UPI Switch is already equipped to handle MIC-based validation and routing. We enable banks to offer their merchants true acquiring interoperability, ensuring business continuity for UPI mandates. If a primary PSP fails, our system automatically reroutes the transaction through a secondary provider, drastically reducing payment failures and protecting revenue streams.&nbsp;&nbsp;2. Empower Users with Mandate Portability&nbsp;The NPCI guidelines empower users to view and transfer their active mandates between any UPI app. This feature, known as UPI mandate portability, is critical for customer retention and delivering a modern user experience.&nbsp;How M2P helps: M2P's platform readily supports the new Fetch Mandate and Port Mandate APIs. By partnering with us, banks can quickly offer these features through their own UPI apps without the need for extensive internal development. You can provide your customers with the freedom they expect, fostering loyalty and a competitive edge.&nbsp; <h2 class="heading-node" id="67c5wrgnb" style="text-align: left">Partner with M2P to Go-Live Faster&nbsp;</h2>The transition to an interoperable UPI Autopay system is not just about compliance; it’s about future-proofing your payment offerings. With M2P, you can avoid the long development cycles and operational hurdles.&nbsp; Our UPI Switch provider platform delivers:&nbsp;<ul class="list-node" id="90j6igsra"><li>Accelerated Compliance: Go live with the new interoperability features in a fraction of the time.&nbsp;</li></ul><ul class="list-node" id="2jhe0c87a"><li>Reduced Development Overhead: Free up your internal tech resources to focus on your core business and product innovation.&nbsp;</li></ul><ul class="list-node" id="qtgn2jbk6"><li>Enhanced Resilience: Leverage our sophisticated routing and fallback logic to offer higher success rates to your merchants.&nbsp;</li></ul><ul class="list-node" id="czsup1py5"><li>Expert Guidance: Partner with a team that has deep expertise in the intricacies of India's payment ecosystem.&nbsp;</li></ul>The era of locked-in recurring payments is over. If you are a bank or financial institution looking to navigate the transition to UPI Autopay interoperability with speed and confidence, M2P Fintech is your trusted partner.&nbsp;Ready to enable the future of recurring payments? <a class="link" href="https://m2pfintech.com/contact-us/?activeKey=1" target="">Contact us today</a> to learn more about our <a class="link" href="https://m2p-website-file.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/marketing-cms/m2p-blog/2026/03/2.webp" target="">UPI Switch solution</a>.

How M2P Enables UPI Autopay Interoperability for Banks

<img src="https://m2p-website-file.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/marketing-cms/m2p-blog/2026/03/2-4.webp" alt="How Branded Wallets Increase Customer Loyalty &amp; Lifetime Value" title="" id="mplsyu6h4" width="100%" height="253">In today's competitive market, businesses are in a constant battle to not only attract new customers but also to retain them. Customer acquisition is expensive, and every lost customer represents a significant loss of potential revenue. The solution lies in building a loyal customer base, and one of the most effective ways to achieve this is by creating a seamless, branded ecosystem that keeps your customers engaged. This is where branded wallets, powered by a robust prepaid card stack, come into play.<h2 class="heading-node" id="t4wl002u5">The Modern Customer Engagement Challenge</h2>Traditional loyalty programs, while beneficial, often fall short of creating true "stickiness." Customers are inundated with loyalty cards and apps that offer generic rewards and a disjointed experience. This often leads to low engagement and a failure to capture the customer's long-term loyalty. Businesses need a more integrated and value-driven approach to keep their customers drive repeat engagement.<h2 class="heading-node" id="l4v1v9cec">What are Branded Wallets and How Do They Help?</h2>A branded wallet is a digital wallet customized and offered by a non-financial institution, such as a retail brand, an e-commerce platform, or a service provider. It allows customers to store funds, make payments, and access exclusive rewards, all within the brand's ecosystem.Consider these use cases:<ul class="list-node" id="sqr2y9bqe"><li>For a large retail chain: A branded wallet can store loyalty points that are instantly convertible to cash for in-store purchases. This solves the customer's problem of tracking points and offers real-time benefits, encouraging them to choose the store over a competitor.</li><li>For an FMCG company: A wallet can be used to offer direct-to-consumer cashback rewards on products purchased from any store. The customer simply scans the receipt, and the cashback is credited to their wallet, solving the challenge of brand loyalty in a multi-brand retail environment.</li></ul>These wallets are more than just a payment tool; they are a direct channel to your customers and a powerful driver of loyalty.<h2 class="heading-node" id="y7tawd1m2">The Hurdles of Building Your Own Wallet</h2>While the benefits are clear, the path to launching a branded wallet is fraught with challenges for a typical company. The journey is complex and resource-intensive, involving:<ul class="list-node" id="kdnkszzpj"><li>Licensing and Regulations: Navigating the labyrinth of financial regulations, including obtaining the necessary licenses to operate a payment instrument, is a significant barrier.</li><li>Compliance and Security: Adhering to strict compliance mandates like KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) is non-negotiable. Building a secure infrastructure to prevent fraud and protect customer data requires specialized expertise.</li><li>Technical Complexity: Developing the core technology, ensuring high uptime, and integrating with various payment networks is a massive undertaking that distracts from your core business.</li></ul>These obstacles can make the prospect of launching a wallet seem daunting, if not impossible, for most companies.<h2 class="heading-node" id="vrwyhj2e9">The M2P Solution: Your Plug-and-Play Digital Stack</h2>We provide a comprehensive, plug-and-play Prepaid Card Stack that takes care of all the heavy lifting. Think of it as an out-of-the-box solution that allows you to launch your own branded wallet without the associated complexities.Our digital stack provides:<ul class="list-node" id="i94eroufe"><li>Pre-built Compliance: Handle all the regulatory and licensing requirements, ensuring your program is fully compliant from day one.</li><li>Bank-Grade Security: Built with robust, bank-grade security and risk management protocols to protect you and your customers.</li><li>Seamless Integration: Suite of flexible APIs allows for quick and easy integration, empowering you to build a feature-rich wallet app and get to market faster.</li></ul>By partnering with M2P, you can overcome the challenges and focus on what you do best: serving your customers.<h2 class="heading-node" id="5s8kcwezm">Unlock Business Growth with a Branded Wallet</h2>Once you have the right foundation, you can unlock the transformative power of a branded wallet. Benefits:<ul class="list-node" id="nwo1pyv0f"><li>Seamless Payment Experience - By offering a frictionless, one-click payment process, reduce complexity from transactions and encourage repeat purchases.</li><li>Personalized Rewards and Offers - Branded wallets allow you to offer spend-based personalized rewards and discounts that are truly relevant and meaningful.</li><li>Enhanced Brand Engagement - A branded wallet keeps your brand top-of-mind. Every transaction, every notification, and every reward is an opportunity to reinforce your brand's value proposition.</li><li>Exclusive Access and Benefits - Offer exclusive access to sales and new products to your wallet users, making them feel like valued insiders and increasing their loyalty to your brand.</li></ul><h2 class="heading-node" id="z4weig4qa">Driving Sustainable Growth through Integrated Wallet Solutions</h2>In a market where customer loyalty is a key competitive differentiator, branded wallets have evolved from a supplementary tool to a strategic necessity. They are a powerful tool for building a loyal customer base and increasing customer lifetime value. By leveraging a plug-and-play solution, you can create a branded wallet experience that not only enhance the customer experience but also drives significant business growth and creates a sustainable competitive advantage.Follow us on&nbsp;<a class="link fui-Link ___1idfs5o f3rmtva f1ewtqcl fyind8e f1k6fduh f1w7gpdv fk6fouc fjoy568 figsok6 f1hu3pq6 f11qmguv f19f4twv f1tyq0we f1g0x7ka fhxju0i f1qch9an f1cnd47f fqv5qza f1vmzxwi f1o700av f13mvf36 f1cmlufx f9n3di6 f1ids18y f1tx3yz7 f1deo86v f1eh06m1 f1iescvh ftqa4ok f2hkw1w fhgqx19 f1olyrje f1p93eir f1h8hb77 f1x7u7e9 f10aw75t fsle3fq f17ae5zn" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/m2pfintech/mycompany/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">LinkedIn</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a class="link fui-Link ___1idfs5o f3rmtva f1ewtqcl fyind8e f1k6fduh f1w7gpdv fk6fouc fjoy568 figsok6 f1hu3pq6 f11qmguv f19f4twv f1tyq0we f1g0x7ka fhxju0i f1qch9an f1cnd47f fqv5qza f1vmzxwi f1o700av f13mvf36 f1cmlufx f9n3di6 f1ids18y f1tx3yz7 f1deo86v f1eh06m1 f1iescvh ftqa4ok f2hkw1w fhgqx19 f1olyrje f1p93eir f1h8hb77 f1x7u7e9 f10aw75t fsle3fq f17ae5zn" href="https://twitter.com/m2pfintech" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Twitter</a>&nbsp;for insightful fintech bytes curated for curious minds like you.

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