Multinational payments company Marqeta has chosen ASX-listed payments processing company Novatti Group Ltd to launch its prepaid payment cards platform in Australia.

Marqeta, with operations in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia, has issued around 140 million payment cards through its platform. It was recently signed up by Australian buy-now-pay-later provider, Afterpay, as its partner for the US market.

According to an ASX statement by Novatti, Marqeta is "the world’s first open-API payments platform", with a client register that includes many other high profile tech based service firms, including Square, Uber, Affirm, Instacart, and DoorDash.

Novatti said it will earn fees from the new partnership for:

• project implementation;• ongoing services such as compliance; and • program performance, based on the take-up of Marqeta's services.

Novatti, which was awarded a principal issuer license by Visa in 2019, will also use its own Visa card issuing platform to support Marqeta.

While Novatti's core business strength remains in transaction processing – which has been showing steady profitability over recent reporting periods – its capital-hungry banking aspirations are likely to remain in limbo for most of this year, after APRA decided to "temporarily suspend" the issuance of all new licences for at least six months.

The group's plans to enter the banking sector via a Restricted Authorised Deposit Taking Institution licence were further sidelined with the withdrawal of $18 million in support from two key investors a month ago.