American Express Boosts Uber’s B2B Target In India

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Uber is targeting the corporate traveler with new features aimed at facilitating expense reporting and management, and in India, the ride-hailing service has scored a big partner to boost its B2B focus even further.

Reports on Wednesday (Sept. 28) said Uber India struck ties with American Express to integrate Amex’s commercial card program with Uber for Business. Corporate users of Uber who also hold Amex corporate card products can use the cards through Uber throughout 70 countries, reports said, and the billing for those commercial cards will occur at the company’s India account.

While Uber allows payments to be made using international cards globally, the app does not accept India cards across borders. Uber halted use of credit cards in India altogether after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised concerns over forex and two-factor authentication policies, but cards have again been accepted by the platform since July 2015.

Uber is looking to comply with RBI rules that card-not-present transactions within India must be processed through Indian banks by allowing cross-border transactions to be billed in India.

Before the company was allowed to resume accepting card payments in the country, Uber paired up with MobiKwik to process payments that comply with local rules.

Analysts last year said India is likely to become Uber’s largest market on the planet.