American Express V-Cards Now Available In WEX AP Platform

American Express has struck a new partnership in its latest B2B payments push, announcing a collaboration with commercial payments firm WEX to support corporate use of virtual cards in accounts payable.

In an announcement on Monday (Nov. 5), American Express said it will link its corporate customers using American Express business and corporate cards to WEX’s Synaptic accounts payable solution. Businesses will be able to pay supplier invoices with both single and multi-use American Express virtual cards from within the Synaptic platform.

The Synaptic solution enables companies to send payment instructions from their accounting systems to the AP platform. American Express virtual payments are then sent to vendors, with users having the option to integrate approval steps into the workflow and to access reporting for streamlined reconciliation.

In a statement, American Express VP of B2B Digital Payments Automation Rajeev Subramanyam said the collaboration aims to streamline accounts payable processes to help business professionals spend more time on more strategic initiatives.

“Synaptic is helping us transform accounts payable from a cost center to a department that positively impacts a company’s bottom line by reducing costs incurred with manual processes,” he said.

“This initiative with American Express demonstrates our commitment to growing our commercial payments business through partnerships with the world’s most dynamic financial institutions,” said WEX VP, Head of Global Product and Solutions, Corporate Payments Greg Sassone in another statement.

WEX previously emphasized its commitment to the commercial payments portion of its operations when it released its Q3 2018 earnings data last month, pointing to M&A and strategic partnerships as a key driver of expansion and growth.

Last month also saw another initiative from American Express to streamline B2B payments, when the company debuted its Early Pay tool, which mixes supply chain finance and early payment discounts. The tool links large corporates’ suppliers to a digital platform, where they can finance their invoices and receive payment before invoice due dates at a discount.