Rakuten Picks Credit Startup Imprint for Co-Branded Card

Credit card startup Imprint is launching a co-branded card with eCommerce platform Rakuten, CNBC reported Tuesday (July 22).

Imprint bested banks in a bidding process for the card, a sign of the company’s traction in a space dominated by the likes of JPMorgan Chase and Capital One, the report said.

“We’re talking to Fortune 500 companies about being their partner and them choosing us over Synchrony, over Barclays, over U.S. Bank,” Imprint CEO Daragh Murphy said, per the report. “We have to kind of walk and talk like we’re a big, important company, even though we still have a startup ethos.”

These discussions are what led Imprint to raise $70 million in capital, bringing its total funding to $330 million, which Murphy said shows the company’s staying power, according to the report.

The company also has roughly $1.5 billion in credit lines from banks such as Citigroup, which it uses to extend loans to customers, Murphy said, per the report. Imprint’s other branded cards include ones from Eddie Bauer, Brooks Brothers and Turkish Airlines.

The Rakuten card is being offered on the American Express network, with issuance assistance from First Electronic Bank, the report said.

“Though we’re not a regulated bank, we’re effectively building a bank,” Murphy said, per the report. “We have to do all the same things as a bank. We’re a capital markets company; we’re a compliance company; we’re a risk and credit and fraud company; we’re a technology company.”

Meanwhile, small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are turning to personal and business credit cards to patch funding gaps for their operations, pay bills and buy the time they need to grow.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “SMB Growth Monitor: How Firms Use and Choose Credit Cards” found that 54% of SMBs used personal and business credit cards in the last year to fund their operations. That number is even greater in large cities, showcasing that long-standing consumer reliance on cards bleeds into the business world.

“The lack of firewall between personal and business cards isn’t just a quirky habit of scrappy entrepreneurs,” PYMNTS reported Friday (July 18). “For many, the two options aren’t a binary choice — they’re a dual necessity.”

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