Mastercard Launches Program to Fuel Greater Adoption of Virtual Cards

Mastercard says it has launched a program to boost the adoption of virtual cards.

The effort, announced in a news release Monday (March 31), is powered by the company’s advances in virtual card number (VCN) technology, aimed at “delivering seamless and consumer-like commercial payments.”

The release notes that Mastercard is already working with enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms to automate end-corporate users’ workflows with VCNs.

“Other platform-partners range from working capital providers to expense tools, meeting and events technology providers, and hotel booking platforms,” the release added. “This has streamlined the implementation of virtual cards into corporate workflows.”

Starting April 1, the company said, banks using Mastercard’s VCN technology can enable their platform-partners that have enrolled in a new program to fuel the use of embedded consumer-like experiences in commercial payments.

“Banks will benefit from scalability and have access to more embedded payments opportunities,” the company said, while their platform partners will be able to offer embedded payments “with reduced integration effort.”

Corporate users, Mastercard said, will get a chance to provide “an easier, consumer-like payment experience with fewer clicks.”

The company’s effort comes amid a surge in virtual card issuance, and a corresponding effort by banks, FinTechs, companies and brands to get those cards into the market.

As PYMNTS wrote last month, this trend illustrates the way these cards are helping build new eCommerce ecosystems for businesses and consumers.

“The purely digital flow, from card design to issuance to use, underpins new payment experiences,” that report said. “For the banks and the brands launching card products, the platform approach shortens the time to market to introduce, say, a BNPL card or a B2B-focused instrument that tailors spend management across a supply chain.”

The ongoing embrace of credentials and program management that platforms use to manage compliance and risk remains a growth engine for the enablers, as cards and credentials are offered in real time. And the benefits of these cards gaining wider recognition.

“In just one example, PYMNTS Intelligence found in December that, among middle-market companies — defined as firms with annual sales of between $50 million to $1 billion — 56% of executives using virtual cards have cited the improvements in working capital management as among the key advantages of using those cards,” the report added.

“Yet the market is virtually untapped, as the data shows that just 3.3% of North American Growth Corporates use virtual cards.”

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