Amir Wain is founder and chief executive of i2c, a Redwood City, California company whose platform processes credit, debit, and prepaid cards and runs digital banking for issuers in more than 216 markets. He started it in 2001 and has led it for a quarter century.
Engineer and Serial Founder
Wain studied computer science and engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington and then went home to Pakistan to build companies. In 1987 he founded Innovative Pvt Ltd, and later Avanceon, an industrial automation business.
Those years shaped his view of software. By 1996 he had concluded that outsourcing was a failed model. He wanted a single platform that many customers could configure, a software-as-a-service idea well before the term was common.
Building i2c
He put that idea into practice at i2c, founded in 2001 to process cards for issuers on one shared platform. Over two decades the company added credit, debit, prepaid, core banking, and money movement, and today it calls the combined product PowerOne. Clients have included First Abu Dhabi Bank, CIBC, Comerica, and Australia Post, and client renewals and expansions rose 42% over two years to 2026.
Much of the engineering happens in Lahore, where i2c grew its team toward more than 2,500 people. Wain is known there for standing in line for the free staff meal like everyone else. It competes with SoFi Technology Solutions, Marqeta, and Zeta.
Twenty-Five Years In
In 2026 Juniper Research gave Wain its Fintech Leader of the Year award. He has talked through the company’s history on the Leaders in Payments podcast, and the thread is the one he started with in 1996: one platform that many issuers can configure for themselves.
