U.S. Bank Breaks Ground With Commercial Cards For Apple Pay

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U.S. Bank will enable its  corporate customers to use their commercial cards via the mobile Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay solutions, reports said Monday (March 20). According to the bank, this makes it the first to support mobile payments for Visa commercial card transactions.

According to U.S. Bank, the move is part of its broader efforts to make corporate travel payments more efficient.

“Business travelers are increasingly expecting the same convenience and security in their business transactions as they experience with their personal transactions,” said U.S. Bank Corporate Payment Systems President Jeff Jones in a statement. “Consumer use of mobile payments is growing every day. Launching a corresponding capability for business travelers is the next logical step.”

“This new functionality is a great compliment to our U.S. Bank Access Online mobile app,” he continued. “Together, they become a powerful mobile toolkit for managing commercial card accounts on the go.”

U.S. Bank stressed the security of mobile payments that corporate payers can deploy by using these mobile payment options with their commercial cards. Tokenization of mobile payments reduces the risk of fraud, the company said in its announcement.

But Vicky Bindra, global head of products and solutions for Visa, also stressed the convenience of mobile payments.

“More and more consumers are enjoying mobile payments in their personal life and expect to use the same easy ‘one-handed’ payment solution when they are working and traveling in their professional life,” the executive stated. “For this reason, we are thrilled to work with U.S. Bank to help enable security and convenience of mobile payments to U.S. Bank corporate card customers.”

The solution is available for business clients of the bank using the U.S. Bank Corporate Travel Card, while U.S. bank will expand its support for use of commercial cards in these mobile payment platforms later this year, it said.

While U.S. Bank may be the first to support its Visa commercial cards for use with Apple Pay and other mobile payment platforms, American Express became the first major card issuer in the U.S. in 2015 to link its commercial cards to Apple Pay.