FinTechs Expand The Value Prop Of Corporate Card Products

As B2B FinTechs and solution providers look to gain traction for their card products, they’re finding new ways to expand the card’s value proposition. Whether it’s Square connecting business debit cards to its newly announced checking account service or CAARY combining corporate cards with business insurance, commercial card innovators want to entice new users and make them stick.

CAARY Mixes Corporate Cards With Business Insurance

Canadian small and medium-sized financial management platform CAARY is gearing up for a full launch of its solution, which will offer businesses in the country a commercial card product to help SMBs shift away from relying on personal credit to make payments. In anticipation of its rollout, CAARY is offering a value-added service in partnership with insurance technology firm APOLLO. Their joint announcement said CAARY will offer its SMB clients insurance products through APOLLO to augment its spend and expense management solutions coupled with a business card offering.

Square Enhances Its Business Debit Card Value Proposition

With the introduction of Square Banking this week, Square is enhancing the value proposition of its Square Debit Card, which first launched in January 2019. Designed as a tool to help business owners separate their personal spend from business-related spend, the debit card has seen consistent adoption from Square users, the company said in a recent announcement.

Now, with Square Checking, Square said that businesses can gain immediate access to the funds they receive via their Square POS (point of sale), and spend those funds using the Square Debit Card. The product also supports the ability to both send and receive money via ACH.

Fuel Cards Prepare For Fleet Payments’ Future

In a recent conversation with PYMNTS, Coast Founder and CEO Daniel Simon said it’s time for the fuel card to embrace modernization. While the fleet industry looks ahead toward technologies like autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles and RFID tags that turn a vehicle into its own payment mechanism, Simon noted that fuel cards come with some outdated pain points that can hold the industry back from gearing up for this digital-first future.

Fleet card products need robust and customizable controls, and there are emerging opportunities to link these card products to sophisticated telematics platforms that can help bridge the gap between transaction data and vehicle data. That’s key to combating fraud and wasted spend, he said. “Today, Coast might help facilitate the purchase of diesel gas that fuels an internal combustion engine,” noted Simon. “But with developments in alternative vehicle energy, tomorrow we will be powering the transaction that charges an electric vehicle battery that gets the HVAC installer to his job, or gets the package delivery driver to her destination.”

Recurring B2B Payments Look Beyond The Card

Cards are a logical choice for recurring payments for both consumers and businesses. Often considered a more secure way to make these automatic payments rather than having to share bank account details, cards can support businesses’ embrace of the recurring billing model in new product categories.

Yet following an interchange rate hike last year, more B2B firms that bill on a recurring basis are finding value in ACH transactions, according to Andrew Abrams, president and CEO of Recur360. He recently told PYMNTS that in the B2B ecosystem, business customers can be more understanding than consumers when it comes to switching from card payments to ACH. They, too, feel the pain of interchange costs when accepting card payments themselves.

But by supporting both card and ACH transactions for recurring billing, B2B FinTech solutions can tackle significant points of friction and drive automation for more firms as they shift toward business models that require repeat billing and payments acceptance.