Visa, Wells Fargo Dive Into The Virtual Commercial Card

The virtual commercial card is heating up in this week’s roundup of the latest in commercial card innovation. Visa and Wells Fargo are among the latest players to drive virtual card adoption for employee spend management and vendor payments, while other solutions from the likes of BBVA and Zact aim to close the gap between corporate card payments and expense management. Plus, Mastercard drives corporate card adoption across the MEA region.

Visa Debuts Commercial Pay Offering

Visa is launching Visa Commercial Pay, a virtual commercial card solution with integrate B2B payment features, through a new collaboration with Conferma Pay. Announced this week, the new offering aims to streamline cash flow management and upgrade what are traditionally manual payment processes for corporates. With remote workers in mind, Visa Commercial Pay offers commercial card management capabilities and on-demand virtual card issuance for businesses to empower employees to make necessary purchases. Virtual cards are sent to employees via their mobile device in a new mobile app designed by Visa and Conferma Pay. In addition to employee expense management, Visa Commercial Pay also includes functionality for supplier payments, automated payment processing, expense reconciliation and enhanced spend data.

Wells Fargo Debuts Virtual Corporate Card Service

Wells Fargo is also driving adoption of the virtual card with its new WellsOne Virtual Card Payments Service, a solution designed to eliminate paper checks in the accounts payable department. WellsOne allows businesses to generate one-time virtual cards to pay invoices, enabling firms to retain a more secure payment method while accelerating supplier payments, Wells Fargo said in its announcement. Pointing to the need for solutions that support a remote workforce, the financial institution said the technology streamlines digital B2B payments adoption that supports straight-through processing for more streamlined movement of money into vendor bank accounts.

Mastercard Drives Biz Card Adoption Across MEA

Via its partnership with Network International, Mastercard is expanding its commercial card presence across the Middle East and Africa (MEA), the payments technology company said recently. Together, the firms are rolling out the Commercial Payment Platform, slated to go live before the end of the year. In addition to offering commercial card products including corporate cards, fleet cards, travel cards and procurement cards, the platform will integrate other corporate payment services for businesses of all sizes. Corporate end-users will also gain access to Mastercard’s Control for Commercial Payments to facilitate an enhanced user experience.

BBVA Streamlines Corporate Card Spend Management

The launch of Global Commercial Cards by BBVA aims to help businesses retain greater control over employees’ use of commercial cards, the bank said in a recent announcement. With its new offering, BBVA is allowing its corporate customers to bridge the gap between commercial cards and expense management, centralizing card spend data and integrating that information into businesses’ existing expense management or ERP solutions. The solution, BBVA said, is available in eight countries today and is designed for businesses of any size.

EnKash Releases Prepaid Corporate Card

India-based corporate card FinTech Enkash recently announced the launch of its prepaid corporate card solution. The product is developed for businesses that manage multiple branches or retail locations, allowing for a central office to control spend across business units while still enabling individual outlets to manage spend through their own prepaid cards. The tool is designed to address the needs for smaller businesses, Enkash said, and to eliminate paper from the process of managing spend across business branches or offices.

Zact Moves To ‘Democratize The Corporate Card’

With its new expense management solution, Zact is looking to “democratize the corporate card” and enable an “employee card for all,” according to the company’s Product VP Jayant Ramchandani. Zact recently announced the launch of its expense management platform, developed to integrate payments and expense management into a single solution, and to address the needs of both the employee and accounting departments. The platform allows employees to make the purchases they need while ensuring those transactions align with company spend policy; that transaction data is then integrated to automate reconciliation and expense reporting.