Meal vouchers in Europe / Lunch cards for the companies that hand them out

Lunch cards for the companies that hand them out

If your company puts a meal benefit in people's hands, we build the card underneath it. Verestro is a Global Mobile Payments Technology Provider, and this is the part of it that issues cards, decides what they may buy and reports what they bought. You keep the brand and the customer.

See what it is for Book 15 minutes

Card issuing is delivered with licensed partners across the EU and EEA. Last reviewed: 3 September 2026.

What do you need it for?

Six reasons companies arrive here. Pick the one that sounds like you and it opens the detail.

• LaunchingStart a programme from nothingYou have decided to give staff a meal benefit and need the card, the rules engine and the reporting behind it.
• PaperMove off paper vouchersFour countries have already closed the paper route and more have dates. A card is the only way forward in those markets.
• SwitchingReplace an issuer that is leavingYour current provider is winding down, has been sold, or cannot support what you need next. Migration is a solved problem.
• ControlMake the card obey your own rulesNot just a category code. Your own merchant list, your own daily ceiling, your own decision on every authorisation.
• CountriesRun one programme in several marketsThe ceiling, the period and the acceptance rule differ in every country. One platform, seventeen sets of rules.
• CheckingFind out what your market allowsBefore anything is built. Whether a category code is enough, or the law wants a contract with every accepting merchant.

What it costs

Less than most people expect, and it is not an enterprise licence. Two things drive that.

The absence of transaction fees is the part worth pausing on. A meal card gets used on most working days, so a programme priced per transaction bills you roughly twenty times a month per person and costs more the better it works. Priced per card, next year's cost follows from headcount alone, and you can approve it without a usage forecast.

Physical cards carry the cost of plastic and delivery, and anything outside a standard build is priced separately rather than hidden in the monthly figure. Pricing has the detail.

How fast we can do it

One week from decision to first card. Two in unusual cases, meaning a market nobody has launched in yet or an acceptance rule that has to be built rather than configured.

That is possible because the platform is already live, already certified and already issuing. Your programme is a configuration on it rather than a build, so what would normally be the long part, certification and scheme onboarding, has already happened. What is left is your rules, your card design and your onboarding.

How we work with you

1. A call, fifteen minutesYou describe the programme. We tell you what your market allows, what it depends on, and what we cannot do. If it does not fit, you find out here rather than after you have signed.
2. Scope and a written offerThe modules you take, the countries, the fee. A draft contract goes with it, so your legal review starts in parallel with the commercial one instead of after it.
3. BuildIntegration against our API, your rules loaded, your design on the card. You keep the brand and the relationship with your customer throughout.
4. TestSandbox first, then live. The scheme certification that normally makes this the long part is already done at platform level, which is why the answer is a week rather than a quarter.
5. Live, then the next marketFirst cards issued. Adding a country later reuses everything except the local rules.

What we are, and what we are not

We issue cards and process transactions with licensed partners, on Mastercard. We do not hold our own electronic money or payment institution licence, we do not do acquiring, and we are not on every network. If your programme needs something we do not have, it is faster for both of us if you know that on the first call.

Where we are useful is narrow and specific: programmes where the acceptance decision has to consult your own merchant list rather than a category code, and programmes moving off an issuing partner that is no longer reliable. If you would rather read than talk, the overview explains the whole category, the calendar holds every dated change in Europe, and each of the seventeen country pages tells you what applies where you operate.