Retail card issuing
Physical, virtual and digital card issuance with lifecycle management and customer controls.
Photon
Power every
payment, from
issuance to acceptance
Photon brings card issuance and processing, merchant acquiring, digital acceptance and payment orchestration together on one real-time platform.
One payments foundation
One platform across the retail payments value chain
Photon brings issuance, transaction processing, merchant acquiring and digital acceptance onto a common real-time platform.
Issuer processing
Real-time authorization and transaction lifecycle processing through clearing and settlement.
Merchant acquiring
Merchant onboarding, hierarchy management, acquiring transaction processing and settlement.
Payment orchestration
Digital acceptance, dynamic routing across channels, payment methods and ecosystems.
Common real-time processing core
A single foundation replaces the seams between card programs, processing, acquiring and acceptance, so every payment moves through one coherent system instead of four stitched-together ones.
Retail card payments
Card issuance and transaction processing
Photon supports retail card programs from instrument issuance through real-time transaction processing.
Issuance & lifecycle
- Physical & virtual cards
- Activation
- Block / unblock
- Replacement
- Renewal
- Closure
Customer controls
- Transaction limits
- Channel controls
- Domestic / international
- Contactless controls
Real-time authorization
- Card status
- Account state
- Limits
- Policies
- Point-of-payment decisioning
Transaction lifecycle
- Authorization
- Reversals
- Refunds
- Clearing
- Settlement
- Exceptions
Digital integration
- Issuing & card-management APIs
- Mobile banking
- Wallets
- Partner experiences
Programmable processing
Context-aware payment processing
Photon applies configurable policies and transaction intelligence to determine how each payment should be processed, routed and acted upon.
- Merchant attributes
- Customer attributes
- Instrument attributes
- Authorization
- Funding selection
- Routing
- Transaction labeling
- Process
- Route
- Post
- Reward
- Trigger downstream workflows
Merchant acquiring
Merchant lifecycle and acquiring operations
Photon enables banks to onboard, manage and process merchants through a configurable hierarchy, with transaction and operational visibility across the merchant lifecycle.
Onboarding & KYB
Rules- and workflow-driven merchant onboarding.
Merchant management
Lifecycle, hierarchy, configurations and merchant servicing.
Acquirer processing
UPI and supported digital acquiring transactions, including refunds and reversals.
Merchant operations
Pricing, reconciliation, disputes, transaction visibility and reporting.
Acceptance and orchestration
Accept, route and settle payments on one platform
Photon supports nine acceptance methods and routes each transaction across acquirers, networks and rails through one orchestration engine.
01
Acceptance methods
Nine ways for merchants to take payments, in store, online and in conversation.
Payment instruments
How the customer pays
Card
Debit, credit and prepaid cards
UPI
UPI payments and mandates
Digital wallet
Payments from linked wallets
In-store touchpoints
Where the payment is captured at the counter
QR (push & pull)
Static and dynamic QR codes
Barcode
Scan-to-pay at checkout
NFC tag
Tap-to-pay tags
Remote and conversational
Payments started outside the store
Payment link
Shareable links to pay
WhatsApp payments
Payments inside a chat
Voice channel
Payments by voice command
02
Payment orchestration engine
Photon routes each transaction across acquirers, networks and rails using configurable rules, with failover and one normalized transaction record.
Rules-based routing
Routes by method, amount, merchant and card range.
Provider connectors
One integration to acquirers, networks and the UPI switch.
Failover and retries
Reroutes when a provider declines or times out.
Normalized records
Maps provider responses into one record and status set.
Reconciliation
Matches transactions against settlement files.
Route monitoring
Tracks route performance, rules and limits.
Specialized payment ecosystems
Closed-loop and hybrid payment networks
Photon supports payment ecosystems where acceptance, routing, funding and settlement rules are defined by the program rather than inherited entirely from an open payment network.
Merchant-level acceptance controls · Transaction-based routing · Wallet / funding selection · Open- and closed-loop coexistence
Fees and pricing can be configured at program, merchant and hierarchy levels.
Daily / periodic settlement · Hierarchy-level settlement · Settlement holds · Multiple payout methods · Netting
Transaction-to-settlement reconciliation with exception handling and reporting.
Operations
Unified transaction operations
Photon provides a common operating layer across retail issuing and merchant payments.
Built to connect
Real-time,
Real-time,
API-first payments infrastructure
Photon connects to any part of a bank's payments ecosystem through open APIs and events: systems running on Zeta's platforms and systems that are not.
Open APIs
Issuing, acquiring and acceptance capabilities exposed as composable endpoints.
Event-driven
Every state change emits an event, so downstream systems stay in step in real time.
Interoperable
Coexists with existing rails and third-party systems without forcing a full replacement.
Modernize retail payments on
one platform
Launch or modernize retail card programs, merchant acquiring and digital acceptance on a shared real-time payments foundation.