Conferma is the pioneer of virtual cards in corporate travel. And what it does, other industry players follow. It has always worked on the basis of partnerships, with issuing banks, suppliers, travel management companies, corporate clients.
But its deals with Concur and American Express this summer, both of whom were already existing partners, point to where travel management is going, not where it has been.
The arrangement with American Express allows virtual card transactions to appear on the BTA — Business Travel Account. The BTA previously did like all lodge cards and carried traditional air transactions while hotel and low-cost air would have been on a separate statement. The ability now to use a Conferma virtual card on any transaction which could also happen via a corporate card needing a CVV means in practice that all transactions can appear on the BTA and, effectively, be on one statement, not two.
The Concur deal similarly integrates the virtual card into the travel and expense platform and business travellers will be able to use Conferma for payments — another step in integration.
Virtual cards are now entrenched in managed travel programmes. When the concept of a unique 16-digit card number being generated at the time of an online booking for a single traveller with one supplier for a set amount was launched it was met with scepticism in some quarters. However, virtual cards enabling of a transformation of the reconciliation and payment of invoices from a labour-intensive chore to an automated process reducing the potential for error, fraud and abuse has won them many fans over the past decade.
Seamless travel and systems integration is one of the business travel holy grails of the moment. It ticks the traveller centricity boxes of user friendliness and efficiency — simple at the front end, all bells and whistles at the back end. That means that people will want to use it and more uptake of preferred booking channels and increased compliance will ensue.
And data integration is a key benefit of systems integration. Virtual cards are especially useful for data analytics because they can carry all the detail of the data generated by TMCs at the time of booking and the accuracy of the payment data of cards or expense management reports. The numbers correspond not to what was planned but what was actually spent.
There is also the matter of a reduction in points of data integration. Every additional point increases the certainty of more work and the potential for inconsistency or error.
The more comprehensive and consistent is that data the more useful it will be in reporting and analytics.
Easy to see why it's a holy grail.
- Paul Raymond, director of strategic relationships, Conferma will be one of the panellists on "The EU and your card programme" at September's Amsterdam Business Travel Summit