(Bloomberg) -- Shares of Marqeta Inc. tumbled more than 40% after the payment card partner for firms including Block and Affirm forecast disappointing results for the fourth quarter. 

The Oakland, California-based company cited increased regulatory scrutiny of the banking environment as a contributing factor to the outlook. Marqeta, which went public in 2021, gave fourth quarter gross-profit guidance growth of 13%-to-15%, lower than a consensus of 23%, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analysts. 

Heightened regulatory scrutiny has delayed the timelines for getting clients card programs up-and-running, Chief Financial Officer Mike Milotich said on a conference call Monday after Marqeta released third-quarter results. Card launches that were planned for the third quarter have been pushed into the fourth and into early 2025, affecting gross profit, he added. In the first half of 2024, the time it took to launch a client program went from an average of 150 days to over 200 days.  

“That just gives you a little more color on sort of the magnitude of what’s happening,” Milotich said on the call. “We had 15 programs that were delayed on average of 70 days.”

The stock fell as low as $3.52 on Wednesday during the record one-day plunge. It is down almost 50% this year. 

Analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley cut price forecasts to $5 from $6 and $7, respectively. Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev reduced his forecast to $5 from $7, writing that the third quarter results were perhaps “the most disappointing quarter in Marqeta’s short history.”

Marqeta’s third-quarter loss narrowed to $23.6 million, or 6 cents a share, from $55 million, or 10 cents, in the year-earlier period. Revenue rose 17% to about $128 million. Analysts forecast revenue of $127.9 million.  

The altered guidance comes as regulators are grappling with oversight of partnerships between fintechs and banks. The bankruptcy of banking-as-a-service provider Synapse has left fintech customers without access to money held in their fintech accounts for months and further highlighted a stream of consent orders levied against the banks partnering with fintechs.  

Marqeta is working with existing bank partners to make program approval and onboarding more efficient, Milotich said. The company plans to add at least two new bank partners to its network to meet client demand, he added.   

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