Connecting Card Issuers
and Merchants
Card issuers and merchants lose significant revenue due to declined card transactions. Automated checks for insufficient funds, fraud, or policy concerns result in about 15% of transactions being declined by an issuer. These declines frustrate cardholders, damage customer relationships with merchants, and push cards to the “back of the wallet,” leading to financial and reputational losses for issuers.
Founded in 2021, Kipp was created to tackle this challenge head-on. After 15 years in the financial industry, our founders experienced the frustration of both card issuers and merchants over the staggering revenue lost to legitimate transaction declines. They saw no solution on the horizon—until a lightbulb moment sparked clarity. What if issuers and merchants could communicate in real-time to approve more legitimate transactions at scale?What if a merchant could compensate an issuer for some of the additional risk borne by the issuer when approving a borderline transaction?
Kipp bridges this gap by empowering issuers to make smarter authorization decisions through real-time collaboration with merchants. Merchants offset the issuers’ risk by paying a premium to prevent declines, turning lost payments into revenue opportunities.
With Kipp, issuers retain their top-of-wallet position, increase approvals without compromising security, and build stronger, more loyal customer relationships.
Co-Founders
Chanan Lavi
Chanan Lavi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Kipp, bringing deep expertise in payment solutions and financial optimization. Before founding Kipp, Chanan held senior leadership roles across payments, management, and business development for top-tier merchants and financial firms.
Most recently, Chanan served as Senior Vice President of Payments & Pricing at Credorax (Shift4), where he led partnerships with card schemes and optimized approval rates, pricing, operational costs, and foreign exchange. Previously, he headed the Payments team at 888 Holdings, one of the world’s largest online gaming operators.
Chanan holds an MA in Economics and an MBA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Nir Levy
Nir Levy is the Co-Founder and CTO of Kipp, and brings extensive expertise in product development for the payments industry. Before co-founding Kipp, Nir served as VP Product at Credorax (Shift4), where he managed acquiring and payment processing products.
He also spent seven years leading technology projects at Cal-Israel Credit Cards Ltd., one of Israel’s largest issuers and acquirers.
Nir holds a BSc in Industrial Engineering & Management from Ben Gurion University and an MBA from Tel Aviv University.
