Against this backdrop, Marqeta’s third quarter 2025 earnings, announced Wednesday (Nov. 5), stand out not just for what it says about the Oakland-based card-issuing platform, but also for what it signals about the future of modern financial infrastructure businesses.
“Our robust Q3 financial results demonstrate our business momentum and our ability to deliver strong growth while rapidly improving our profitability,” said Mike Milotich, CEO and CFO of Marqeta on Wednesday’s investor call. “Marqeta’s unique combination of modern capabilities, scale, geographic reach, expertise and flexibility continues to enable both innovation and growth for our customers.”
The company reported $98 billion in total processing volume (TPV), up 33% year over year. This headline figure underpins its growing customer base across sectors as diverse as embedded finance, expense management, gig economy payroll, and business loyalty.
But in a market that’s increasingly skeptical of growth stories built on negative cash flows, the most telling number was Marqeta’s adjusted EBITDA: clocking in at $30 million, a remarkable 236% increase on the same quarter last year.
Read more: Marqeta Says Embedded Finance Will Turn Brands Into Banks
Embedded Finance as a Growth Driver
For years, Marqeta was celebrated as a breakout in a seemingly niche corner of FinTech — API-based card issuing and processing. By allowing businesses to build customizable payment cards and digital wallets without the hassle of legacy banking integrations, the company rode the waves of the gig economy, on-demand consumer platforms, and neo-banking.
TPV remains the lifeblood of the business. Each time a customer swipes or taps using a Marqeta-issued card, the company takes a fractional cut. It’s a high-volume, low-margin model that can scale beautifully when tied to fast-growing customers and sectors. A 33% surge in TPV shows that Marqeta’s technology still sits at the center of burgeoning payment flows, especially as newer customers diversify beyond the traditional FinTech disruptors.
More revealing is the company’s evolving product mix. Marqeta has long balanced between two types of customer relationships: high-volume, lower-margin card processing at scale — the kind favored by digital banks and gig economy platforms — and what it calls “program management,” deeper integrations involving everything from card issuing logistics to compliance monitoring.
Globally, the embedded finance sector is forecasted to grow at a compounded rate of 40% through 2027, reshaping everything from lending to corporate payments. Marqeta’s latest partnerships suggest it is positioning itself not just as a back-office issuer, but as a strategic partner in customer retention and new revenue generation models.
One deal highlighted in the earnings release: powering credit programs for a company focused on small- and mid-sized business loyalty. That development puts Marqeta in direct dialogue with newer FinTech verticals, including business enablement platforms and nonfinancial enterprises eager to turn transactional relationships into financial ones.
Like other FinTechs before it, Marqeta appears to be targeting massive B2B and enterprise markets as it scales.
Charting the Road Ahead
The TransactPay acquisition, announced earlier this year, continues to be an accelerant for Marqeta’s international ambitions. By bringing program management capabilities in-house across Europe, the company aims to offer seamless expansion pathways to its existing U.S.-based customers.
Company executives cited expansion with a North American expense management customer into Europe, signaling the weight of the TransactPay deal in widening Marqeta’s moat in program management.
PYMNTS spoke earlier this year with Todd Pollak, chief revenue officer at Marqeta, about how the payment processing landscape has required significant innovation to accommodate the rapid growth of BNPL services.
“Legacy providers, whether that be traditional banks, traditional credit providers, issuers coming to Marqeta and probably others, are asking questions about how they would get access to real-time capabilities,” Pollak said. “They want real-time APIs so that they can participate in the new economy.”
