Visa and Marqeta, the open API payment card issuing platform, have announced a multi-year, global partnership to drive further innovations in commercial and consumer payments, according to a joint press release.

Additionally, Visa has made a strategic investment in Marqeta to support Marqeta's domestic and international growth plans.

The companies said the initial efforts of the partnership will involve growing opportunities for virtual, physical and tokenized payments across a number of commercial markets and use cases that can benefit from Marqeta’s platform, according to the release.

"We're excited to partner with Marqeta to collectively bring our unique assets and capabilities to more partners and clients globally," Jim McCarthy, executive vice president of innovation and strategic partnerships at Visa, said in a release. "We are always looking for partnerships and investments that allow us to evaluate innovative, new ways to support our clients’ needs, and increasingly see open, developer-friendly platforms as a way to help clients move quickly in today's fast-paced environment."

"The Marqeta core processing platform is architected from the ground up to be the most modern, flexible and developer friendly platform anywhere in the market today," Marqeta CEO Jason Gardner said in the release. "We're democratizing access to innovation for new issuers and fintech players, and we're proud to partner with Visa and its broader ecosystem."