Visa and WEX Team Up to Offer Choice and Versatility to Commercial Payments Customers. New issuance helps meet virtual card demands for business-to-business payments, reducing reliance on checks.
Visa Inc. and WEX Inc., a leading provider of corporate payment solutions, announced a new relationship, uniting two of the world’s biggest commercial B2B payment solutions. „As part of this arrangement, WEX and their corporate payment customers have the ability to use a Visa virtual credit card to enable global business-to-business (B2B) payments, thereby accessing Visa’s network security, global scale and value added services.”, according to the press release.
Currently, 51 percent of B2B payments in the United States are made via check, costing businesses an average of $8 per check.(1) However, virtual credit cards are becoming a widely accepted form of payment for B2B transactions. In fact, virtual credit cards are the fastest growing commercial segment, expected to grow 24 percent by 2020.(2) Virtual credit cards can offer a variety of solutions to common payment challenges, such as additional security, precise controls for when, where and how payments are authorized, lower costs of doing business, easy reconciliations and global acceptance.
“As a world leader in payments, we are committed to creating payment solutions that help businesses of all sizes end their reliance on checks and take advantage of Visa’s secure, fast and reliable global network,” said Kevin Phalen, senior vice president, Global Business Solutions, Visa. “We are pleased to partner with WEX, an industry leader and innovator, to deliver B2B payments that will help our joint customers thrive in dynamic global markets.”
“A core component of our strategy is to be the only technology partner that provides choice to customers to generate virtual credit cards on various networks—allowing payers and payees to choose their payment mode,” said Jay Dearborn, president of WEX Corporate Payments. “And this team-up is a key step toward bringing that to life.”
As a leading commercial card issuer, with more than $30B in issued corporate payment spend, WEX serves the travel, insurance and media industries, among others. This new relationship with Visa demonstrates that WEX is committed to providing choice to its customers. The diversification of the WEX corporate payment portfolio emphasizes Visa’s growing role facilitating B2B payments, particularly within virtual credit card issuance.
About WEX
Powered by the belief that complex payment systems can be made simple, WEX Inc. (NYSE: WEX) is a leading provider of payment processing and business solutions across a wide spectrum of sectors, including fleet, travel and healthcare. WEX operates in more than 10 countries and in more than 20 currencies through more than 3,300 associates around the world. WEX fleet cards offer 11.5 million vehicles exceptional payment security and control; purchase volume in its travel and corporate solutions grew to $30.3 billion in 2017; and the WEX Health financial technology platform helps 300,000 employers and more than 25 million consumers better manage healthcare expenses.
(1 ) 2016 AFP Electronic Payments Survey, The Strawhecker Group B2B Payments Overview 2017
(2) Mercator Advisory Group October 2017
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
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