How does Lithic balance short-term success with long-term sustainability in the competitive card issuing space?

It’s an interesting dilemma, because there are real benefits to scale in this business. We’re seeing it year-over-year, just in terms of the obvious margin scale and COGS scale. But there are other non-financial and product things, too. There’s definitely a land grab dynamic.

The thing that we weigh is that, at the end of the day, we’re building infrastructure, and we need to build an enduring business. I think we’ve been reasonably thoughtful about that balance, because it does our customers no favors if we give away the product and go bankrupt tomorrow or in a year or something. It’s a fine balance.

I think what’s interesting is that the choice of processor is often so mission-critical that you have to be price competitive. But I think folks realize that going with the absolute value player may feel good in the short term, but in the long term, it means that you build a less robust offering and you spend more time on maintenance. So it’s not always just about the price dynamic, and that is very key in what we’re doing.