Finovate Awards Profile: Highnote

with John MacIlwaine, CEO and Co-Founder

How Highnote is Making Its Mark as a New Issuer/Processor

The digital revolution has done wonders for ecommerce. The growth in online purchases has had a ripple effect in the payments sector, giving rise to embedded payments.

Highnote, a two-year-old fintech that specializes in modern card issuance and card processing, operates in squarely in the center of this growth. We spoke with the company’s CEO and Co-Founder, John MacIlwaine, for more information on Highnote’s role in the space.

John MacIlwaine,

Co-Founder and CEO, Highnote

Card issuance and card processing are mature businesses with established players. Why did you decide to launch Highnote?

Three critical factors made it compelling for us to launch Highnote. First, the tech behind incumbent issuer-processors is a few decades old and not built to suit the needs of today’s digital enterprises. Second, there is a tremendous amount of emerging embedded finance use cases that can’t be supported by inflexible cookie-cutter card programs. Incumbent solutions just aren’t equipped to drive the differentiation that innovative companies need in order to win in their markets. Finally, the explosion of digital payments makes for a significant market opportunity. Customer needs have changed! For instance, just in the past 10 years cash usage in the US has declined by over 70%. This requires a new way of thinking about transaction processing, infrastructure, money movement, and overall technical architecture. We built Highnote to address these needs now and in the future.

What makes you confident that Highnote can attract customers in such a saturated market?

At Highnote, we set out to develop a platform that is “built for purpose” to enable innovative digital enterprises of all sizes to accelerate their embedded finance journey and be more competitive. We empower them to extend their brands to drive engagement, loyalty, and business growth. We have an ambitious product roadmap that allows our customers to build an equally ambitious embedded finance offering that can span everything from prepaid card products to fully branded credit card programs. Customers choose us over others for our modern cloud-native GraphQL API based payments platform that gives them the flexibility, differentiation, and control they need. Additionally, our ledger capability allows for dynamic funds flows, innovative integrations, and seamless financial operations. Our best-in-breed program management capabilities gives customers everything they need to launch and scale their card programs. We have customers of all sizes that leverage our platform in ways that other providers cannot address. It’s remarkable how consistently our customers tell us that Highnote is unlike anything out there, and that it’s exactly what they've been looking for!

You're a relatively young company. What have you been able to build and bring to market so far?

We’ve been able to build a full-stack, end-to-end API based issuer-processor using leading-edge technologies that is directly integrated with both Mastercard and Visa. We have three partner banks with unique strengths and a full suite of program capabilities. Customers can launch both consumer and commercial use-cases across debit, prepaid and charge cards. We have credit capabilities on the commercial side as well as deep support for Fleet, Payroll, and AP Automation use cases. Most importantly, we’ve been able to assemble world class talent. We believe we have the most talented, advanced payments experts in the country that have ever been assembled to build, launch, and continue to grow across all of these constructs and use cases.

Highnote’s website uses the word "platform." Is that an important keyword for Highnote? Why?

Platform is central to how we are different. By intentionally building a platform that’s “enabling,” all capabilities are extended via the API, so innovation is in the hands of our customers.This is as opposed to our developing solutions or a set of features that are rigid and difficult to implement. So it’s easy for our customers to evolve. Once you start a program, such as virtual card payments for vendors, you can easily add employee expense cards, rewards programs - any embedded finance features you want to leverage for your customer experience, all while staying within the same platform, ledger, and API. The Highnote platform empowers businesses to differentiate in ways only they know how, and to move at their own pace.

What can we expect to see coming out of Highnote over the next two years?

First you will see a continually richer set of capabilities across our issuance products in both consumer and commercial verticals around prepaid, debit, charge card, and fuel card products. We never stop innovating in these fundamental areas. Next, we have some exciting innovations brewing on the credit issuance side of things. For instance, we’re building a full-stack loan management and loan servicing system that will enable flexible credit issuance use-cases.Of course, we will continue to expand into additional verticals and use cases as they emerge. Finally, we will complete the buildout of the Highnote unified payments platform by adding full-stack acquiring into the offering. More on that soon!