Nordic challenger bank Lunar is to begin processing Visa cards over a cloud-native core banking platform provided by Pismo.
Pismo, which was acquired by Visa in 2024, offers an all-in-one platform with a broad product coverage, including core banking, payment processing, card issuing, digital wallets, lending, corporate banking, and financial asset management functionalities.
Claus Richter, country manager for Visa in Denmark, says: ”Core banking and issuer processor capabilities are key offerings for many of Visa’s financial institutions and fintech partners. With Pismo under our wings, we have been able to broaden these offerings and serve the whole ecosystem even better as a result."
Founded in 2015, Lunar currently serves over one million private and business users across the Nordics. Ken Villlum Klausen, CEO and founder of Lunar, says that the new platform will reduce reliance on legacy technology and enable it to to develop and launch new products leveraging built-in value added services from Visa, such as AI-powered fraud protection and digital-first UX.
“Switching to Pismo means we can move faster and deliver better experiences to our users across the Nordics," he says. "It allows us to accelerate service delivery, enhance the way our users interact with payments, and reduce our dependency on legacy systems. This partnership gives us the flexibility to build and launch new products independently, driven by the speed, simplicity, and control we believe modern banking should offer.”
In a separate development, Lunar has also become the latest bank to adopt Wise Platform to enable customers to send money abroad quickly from within their app.
Klausen says: "This means our users can send money abroad easily, quickly, and at a fair exchange rate. It’s another step toward becoming the best everyday bank in the Nordics and a great example of how smart fintech partnerships can simplify banking for everyone.”