First Abu Dhabi Bank Collaborates With Visa On B2B Virtual Cards

To roll out an in-depth collection of digital payment offerings for business customers, United Arab Emirates (UAE) financial institution First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) has teamed with Visa, according to a Monday (Dec. 14) announcement.

Ramana Kumar, executive vice president and head of Payments and Digital Banking, Personal Banking Group, FAB, said in the announcement that the bank has been at work on bolstering its business and corporate payment offerings in conjunction with Visa.

“We are delighted to launch these solutions which are intended to facilitate payments for corporates, in addition to enhancing security features for these processes,” Kumar said in the announcement.

The rollout unveiled a central travel account offering that was created to make it simpler for firms to supervise their travel payments in one place. That feature will assist companies with monitoring and supervising their travel spending, while allowing them to make in-depth reports showing savings.

The bank also revealed the inaugural Visa virtual corporate cards in the UAE bolstered by Visa’s Payables Automation (VPA) offering, which is meant to provide transaction processing and remittance posting of payments made by virtual card to vendors.

Shahebaz Khan, Visa’s general manager for the UAE, said in the announcement that virtual corporate cards and the Visa central travel account are quickly expanding and broadly accepted digital payment methods for transactions between companies.

“These solutions provide an increased layer of security and visibility and help to lower the costs of doing business by providing easy reconciliations and worldwide acceptance,” Khan said in the announcement.

According to news in June, Dubai-based ridesharing firm Careem had entered into a collaboration with Visa to grow digital payments. The agreement was anticipated to accelerate cashless payments and online banking throughout the Middle East in addition to North Africa.

Visa is integrated into the Careem Pay Super App, which will offer Careem drivers, called Careem captains, access to payments and funds with the terms of the arrangement.

Marcello Baricordi, Visa’s general manager for MENA, said at the time that “enabling secure, immediate movement of money for gig economy workers, like Careem captains, is especially vital as we support economic recovery efforts.”