Visa has expanded its partnership with Conferma Pay to enhance its B2B payment offerings.
The new collaboration, announced Thursday (Aug. 10), is centered around Visa Commercial Pay, the payments giant’s B2B suite.
“The pandemic exposed significant inefficiencies with traditional payment methods used by businesses,” Gloria Colgan, senior vice president, global product for Visa Commercial Solutions, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.
“Our collaboration with Conferma Pay brings together two leaders in their respective fields and the result is a far more efficient payments system. With our collaboration set to continue, more clients and end users will be able to take advantage of new features such as digital wallet tokenization and hotel cards.”
The four-year extension brings with it new investments to develop the suite of B2B payment solutions, while also representing a commitment by the company to make virtual commercial payments more widely available.
In addition, the expanded collaboration lets both companies expand the offering in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, “with the enhanced security, compliance and control provided by Visa Commercial Pay being an incredibly important driver for issuers seeking to reduce the risk of fraud on behalf of their corporate clients,” the release said.
The new partnership is happening amid a time of pronounced growth in virtual card use among businesses, as Dan Hanks, vice president of global product development at i2c, told PYMNTS in a recent interview.
“Virtual cards are a great tool for getting all that friction out of the B2B process; vendors can process them immediately with no wait,” Hanks said.
He added that for payors, virtual cards offer real-time insight into expense tracking by vendor and category. The cards’ technology can also mimic various traditional commercial card products, doing away with the need for a separate purchasing card. This lets companies tailor virtual cards for specific purposes, ensuring that expenses are allocated properly.
PYMNTS wrote last month that Visa’s B2B business was helping fuel the growth of the company’s Visa Direct offering, which saw transactions grow by 20% to 1.8 billion in its most recent quarter.
B2B remains a substantial opportunity, as it represents a $1.5 trillion global total addressable market, management said during an earnings call.
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