Two founders price the same idea. The first builds a wallet from scratch and budgets eighteen months. The second licenses a platform and plans to launch in six weeks.
Both numbers are real. They buy different things, and the difference is worth understanding before you sign anything.
Contents
- What a white label wallet actually is
- What comes in the box
- What stays yours
- How long a launch really takes
- What it costs
- Whose licence, and what that means
- Your own BIN or the provider’s
- When you do not need a white label wallet
- What to check in a provider
- Wallet, gateway or account: which one you need
- Three mistakes at launch
- Where to start
What a white label wallet actually is
You get a working payment product under your brand. The balances, the transfers, the compliance checks and the banking connections already exist. You add the name, the design and the customers.
What you do not get is ownership of the licence. You operate inside the provider’s regulatory framework. For most startups that is the point, not a drawback.
What comes in the box
- Multi-currency accounts — 20+ currencies, with a personal or business euro IBAN attached
- Transfers — wallet to wallet inside your system, SEPA and SWIFT outbound
- Top-ups — cards, bank transfer, and crypto with conversion to fiat
- Cards — virtual and physical, issued on your BIN or ours
- Apps — mobile and web under your brand, or your own build on our API
- Ledger — full transaction history, statements, audit trail
What stays yours
The brand, the customer relationship and the pricing. You set the fees your users pay and keep the margin over ours.
The contract with the end customer is yours. So is the data, within what the regulation allows.
How long a launch really takes
In the cloud, two to four weeks. On your own infrastructure, two to three months, depending on how much gets customised.
Those timings assume your side is ready. The usual delay is not technical. It is company documents, the compliance questionnaire and decisions nobody has made yet.
What it costs
Three parts, in every offer worth reading. A setup fee, a monthly platform fee, and a share of transaction volume.
The proportions shift with your volume, your regions and the modules you switch on. Card issuing, crypto and advanced risk tooling are priced separately.
Ask for the breakdown before comparing providers. A single headline number hides which part grows when you do.
Whose licence, and what that means
You operate under the provider’s licence. That removes a year of applications and a compliance team you would otherwise hire.
It also means the provider’s rules apply to your customers. Onboarding checks, limits and restricted activities are not yours to redefine.
If your model depends on rules nobody else allows, white label is the wrong shape. You need your own licence, and that is a different project.
Your own BIN or the provider’s
On our BIN you launch faster and cheaper. The infrastructure exists and no scheme agreement of your own is required.
Your own BIN gives more freedom over pricing and rules. It also means certification, a direct agreement with the schemes and months of lead time.
At launch the provider’s BIN is almost always the sensible answer. Moving to your own is a conversation for when volume justifies it.
When you do not need a white label wallet
If you only need to accept payments on a website, you need a gateway, not a wallet. A wallet earns its place when customer money has to live inside your system.
If you have no users yet, the monthly fee starts before the revenue does. Validate demand first, then license the platform.
What to check in a provider
- Which licence covers you, and in which countries it works
- Whether the API documentation is public, or arrives after you sign
- Who holds the customer funds, and where
- What happens to your users if you leave — data export, portability, notice period
- Support response times in writing, not in conversation
Wallet, gateway or account: which one you need
The three get confused constantly, and the wrong choice costs months.
A gateway takes a payment on your website and passes it on. The money goes to your account and the story ends there. If that is your whole model, you need a gateway.
An account holds your company’s money. It receives, it pays out, it has an IBAN. It does not manage balances for your customers.
A wallet holds money for each of your users separately. Every customer has a balance, a history and the ability to pay another user. That is the dividing line.
Ask one question: does your customer need a balance with you, or do they just pay and leave? A balance means a wallet. Paying and leaving means a gateway.
Three mistakes at launch
Buying every module at once. Cards, crypto, multi-currency and advanced risk all carry a monthly cost. Start with what your first hundred users will touch, and switch on the rest when they ask.
Planning the launch without the compliance questionnaire. It is usually the longest item on the timeline, and the one nobody schedules. Ask for it in week one, not after the contract.
Treating the licence as a detail. The provider’s rules decide who you can onboard and what they can do. Read those rules against your target audience before the design work starts, not after.
Where to start
Describe your model: the market, the product, where your customers come from. We will tell you which parts you actually need and what you can leave out.
The platform and the commercial model are described on the white label page.
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