Visa Leads Wirecard Into Digital Fleet Card Industry

Visa and Wirecard are collaborating on a digital fleet card program, the companies revealed in an announcement on Thursday (June 21).

Wirecard announced on its website that it is collaborating with Visa to develop a digital, open-looped fleet card program that integrates fleet management, reporting solutions and payment authorization and security. The companies are also including fleet vehicle maintenance, accommodation and food services for customers.

According to the firms, the platform is built into Visa’s open-loop cards and supports real-time payment processing and the ability to integrate additional data into transactions and reporting, including mileage, productivity and spending patterns.

The solution will be available to businesses across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa before rollout in other geographic regions.

“Historically, organizations that run fleets have typically required several systems, linked to different service providers, to manage vehicles and drivers,” said Wirecard Executive Vice President, Issuing, Arne Matthias in a statement. “This is costly and time-consuming. The fleet card program we have built together with Visa brings everything together into one efficient solution.”

“Thanks to the combination of our tech knowledge and their open-loop payment system, we are now able to revolutionize the fleet card sector globally,” continued Matthias. “The fleet market will be significantly impacted by digitization, and, together with Visa, Wirecard sees itself as a disruptor in this market.”

The solution is currently in pilot phase. Matthias added that Wirecard will announce additional partnerships later this year.

This isn’t the first time Wirecard has worked with Visa. In 2016, the firm paired with the credit card conglomerate’s Visa Europe Collab innovation initiative. That deal saw Wirecard providing financial and banking technology to support FinTech startups under the Visa Europe Collab program with the development of their own solutions.

Visa has taken recent steps to heighten its presence in the corporate payments market, most notably through a deal to acquire Fraedom, a longtime partner and provider of corporate expense management solutions.