UATP and Mica Forge New Payment Rail Beyond the Card

WASHINGTON and AUSTIN, Texas – February 19, 2026 – A landmark partnership announced today between global payment network UATP and infrastructure provider Mica is set to redefine the landscape of digital and physical commerce. The collaboration introduces a revolutionary multi-tender payment solution that promises to solve two of the industry's most persistent challenges: the growing complexity of payment options and the ever-present threat of fraud. By combining multiple forms of payment into a single transaction while simultaneously eliminating stored payment credentials, the new system aims to offer merchants unprecedented flexibility and security.

At the heart of the partnership is Mica's patented credential-less payment technology, now integrated into UATP's extensive global network. This allows merchants to accept a mix of payment types—from traditional credit cards and account-to-account transfers to loyalty currencies, vouchers, and even stablecoins—all within a single, seamless checkout process. For consumers, it means the ability to split a purchase between their frequent flyer miles and a credit card without undergoing separate transactions. For merchants, it signals a future of simplified back-office operations and a powerful new defense against cybercriminals.

A New Paradigm in Payment Security

The partnership's most significant innovation lies in its approach to fraud prevention. For years, the industry has relied on tokenization, a method that replaces sensitive card numbers with a non-sensitive token. While an improvement, this model still relies on a stored credential that the token refers back to, which remains a potential, albeit protected, point of failure. The UATP-Mica solution takes a radical step forward by eliminating the stored credential entirely.

Powered by Mica's technology, the system generates ephemeral, single-use keys for each transaction. These cryptographic keys are temporary and unique, meaning that even if they were intercepted, they would be useless for any subsequent fraudulent activity. This “credential-less” model fundamentally shifts the security paradigm from protecting stored data to making the data itself valueless after a single use. By removing the primary target for data breaches and account takeover attacks—the vault of stored customer payment information—the solution drastically reduces a merchant's risk profile and attack surface.

This enhanced security architecture also has significant implications for regulatory compliance. By removing sensitive cardholder data from the merchant's environment, the solution stands to dramatically simplify the scope and cost of achieving and maintaining compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

"Merchants have been forced to choose between payment flexibility and fraud protection," said Mike Ward, CEO of Mica, in the announcement. "With Mica's credential-less tokenization and multi-tender payments technology now available through UATP's global network, they no longer must compromise. We are eliminating credential exposure that fuels massive payment fraud, with a more powerful payment experience with multi-tender orchestration, something legacy payment systems simply cannot deliver."

Unifying Payments Without the Pain

Beyond its security advancements, the solution directly addresses the growing operational headache merchants face as payment options multiply. Consumers increasingly expect to pay with digital wallets, loyalty points, or alternative financing, but integrating and reconciling these disparate methods adds significant complexity and cost to a merchant's back-office operations.

The new platform functions as a sophisticated orchestration layer. It empowers merchants with rule-based capabilities to decide how a customer's total purchase amount is allocated across various tenders. For instance, a travel company could set rules to automatically apply a customer's loyalty points or a promotional voucher first, before routing the remaining balance to a traditional card or account-based payment rail. This all happens within a single transaction, creating a unified flow for what would otherwise be a fragmented and difficult-to-track process.

Crucially, this entire system is delivered at the network level through UATP. This means merchants can adopt these advanced capabilities without having to rip and replace their existing infrastructure. They maintain their current relationships with acquirers, gateways, and settlement providers, effectively adding a powerful new layer of functionality on top of their current payment stack. This approach dramatically lowers the barrier to entry for merchants seeking to modernize.

"Merchants want to expand payment choice without adding complexity or cost," stated Ralph Kaiser, President and CEO of UATP. "Our proven infrastructure, combined with Mica's technology, helps merchants adopt new payment models efficiently, even in the most complex business environments. By delivering multi-tender and credential-less capabilities as a network solution, we enable merchants to orchestrate multiple forms of payment within a single transaction, while keeping settlement, reporting, and reconciliation fully streamlined across the UATP platform."

Building the Future of Payment Networks

The strategic implications of this partnership extend far beyond a single product launch. By delivering a credential-less, multi-tender solution at the network level, UATP and Mica are providing a blueprint for the future of payment infrastructure—one that is less reliant on traditional card rails and more adaptable to the diverse forms of value exchange in the digital economy.

The platform's ability to handle emerging payment types like stablecoins is particularly forward-looking. As regulatory frameworks like the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation come into effect, having a compliant and secure infrastructure to process such assets will become a key competitive advantage. The flexibility of Mica's API-driven system, integrated with UATP's established global reach, positions the partnership to adapt quickly to new technologies and evolving regulatory demands.

This collaboration also expands UATP's existing payment acceptance capabilities, known as Ceptor, into new physical environments, including in-store, in-airport, and in-flight purchases. This move signals a significant expansion from UATP's historic stronghold in corporate travel payments into the broader retail and commerce ecosystem.

By creating a single, secure rail that can orchestrate any form of value, the partnership is not just offering a new tool but is challenging the fundamental constraints of legacy payment systems. As merchants and consumers continue to demand more flexibility, security, and efficiency, solutions that can intelligently manage complexity without adding friction are poised to lead the next wave of payment innovation.