Stripe Announces Corporate Credit Card for Business Clients
In September 2019, Stripe announced the launch of a corporate credit card aimed at its business clients, expanding its suite of embedded financial products. The card represented Stripe's continued push beyond core payment processing into adjacent financial services, following closely on the heels of the Stripe Capital merchant lending launch earlier that month. The corporate card positioned Stripe in competition with fintech card issuers like Brex as well as Square, which had also been expanding its financial services offerings.
The product was part of Stripe's broader strategy to become a comprehensive financial platform for internet businesses, offering payments, lending, and now corporate spending tools through a single integrated platform. The announcement came alongside Stripe's $250 million fundraise at a $35 billion valuation, signaling the company's aggressive expansion plans in embedded finance.
- Stripe's entry into corporate cards demonstrates a platform strategy of layering financial products on top of payment infrastructure, a hallmark of the BaaS model.
- Increasing product breadth from payments to lending to cards positions Stripe as a one-stop embedded finance platform, raising the bar for competing BaaS providers.