Online business travel booking and expense management company Serko is entering the “world of virtual card payments,” the company said this week, announcing a partnership with virtual card company Conferma.
Conferma will integrate its virtual card solutions into the Serko Online platform, allowing users to pay using virtual cards when they book business travel.
“We’ve seen the demand for virtual cards grow recently as TMCs and corporates look for more efficient ways of controlling spend and managing travel programs,” said Serko CEO Darrin Grafton in a statement. “Our Serko Online integration with Conferma will allows customers to use virtual card products from all the major card programs when booking travel on Serko Online, ensuring that Serko maintains its position as an innovative platform for travel management.”
In their announcement, Serko and Conferma highlighted the security virtual cards can offer over physical cards, as well as the ability for the payments technology to let corporate payers control exactly how much is spent with a virtual card.
In another statement, Conferma CEO Simon Barker, who highlighted the company’s role in the Australiasia market, said virtual card adoption is ready to take off.
“We expect virtual cards to overtake physical cards as the primary form of payment for travel in the next three years,” Barker stated. “Integration with Serko is key to getting mass adoption.”
Conferma has brought its virtual card technology to the corporate travel and expense management space before. Last year, the company partnered with another T&E firm, Sabre, to integrate its solution into the Sabre platform. That deal saw users of Sabre be able to automatically use virtual card numbers generated by Conferma to pay for services booked via Sabre; previously, users had to manually copy and paste the VCN into the Sabre platform.
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