Real-time central card issuance solution

Transform legacy card issuance with real-time control and visibility

Enterprise
Financial services
Payment cards

Replace batch-based card issuance with a single global, API-driven solution that provides real-time visibility, control and scalable access to a worldwide network of personalisation centres.

D1 Developer Portal

The hidden cost of legacy card issuance

File-driven card issuance lacks real-time visibility and control, making delivery issues harder to prevent and resolve.

25%

of inbound calls ask “Where is my card?”

5-10%

of cards fail to reach customers

83%

frustrated by the lack of real-time delivery updates (Retail Rewired 2025)

Benefits of real-time central card issuance

With Thales, replace entrenched processes with real-time, API-driven issuance connected to a global network of personalisation sites.

Improved customer experience

Track every card from production to delivery with continuous updates that can be shared through apps or internal systems, improving customer confidence and reducing support enquiries.
Reduce cost-to-serve

Streamline processes to reduce failed deliveries, inbound calls, and manual effort through address validation, live tracking and instant order updates.
Faster time-to-market

Launch and update card products in days instead of weeks with standardized configurations and real-time workflows.
Simplified global expansion

Reuse a single API to connect to multiple personalisation bureaux, reducing integration effort when entering new markets.
Premium delivery readiness

Enable same-day card issuance with extended production windows.

Gain end-to-end control of the card issuance lifecycle

Card issuance remains one of the last operational bottlenecks for issuing banks and still relies heavily on file-driven processing. Thales Central Issuance replaces this model with a unified, API-driven approach, giving issuers real-time control and simplifying operations and expansion across markets.

Thales real-time Central Card Issuance combines the technology, infrastructure and expertise to modernise card issuance, enabling issuers to streamline operations at scale.

End-to-end control across the issuance lifecycle

Financial Services – See all digital and physical payment solutions

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Real-time card issuance explained

D1 Real-Time Central Issuance is an API-driven service within the Thales D1 Platform. It enables issuers to order, track and manage individual cards in real time instead of using batch files. Each request receives immediate confirmation, with production monitoring, delivery tracking and record updates managed through one platform.

Batch-based issuance limits visibility between card order and delivery. D1 Real-Time Central Issuance replaces file exchanges with real-time API interactions, providing immediate confirmations, card-level status updates and faster exception handling. This helps issuers reduce operational friction and costs, improve customer communication and maintain control throughout the issuance journey.

Explore the API documentation

D1 Central Issuance connects issuers to Thales personalisation centres, partner bureaux and instant issuance services through a single API. Instead of creating separate integrations for each bureau or country, issuers integrate once and expand globally using the same framework, reducing project complexity and accelerating market expansion.

D1 allows issuers to update card records in real time, even after submission. Through API-based record updates, issuers can change delivery addresses, place cards on hold, accelerate delivery or stop production without waiting for batch reconciliation. This reduces manual intervention and helps resolve card issuance issues more quickly.

D1 Central Issuance is already used in production by organizations including REAP, Nickel and Lithic. Lithic became the first U.S. processor to offer API-driven card issuance through the D1 Platform, while REAP uses D1 to support globally scalable physical card issuance and fulfillment through Thales' worldwide network.