Online Businesses Expanding the Use of Virtual Cards
Many online businesses such as Orbitz and Expedia, have empowered their customers to make travel arrangements and schedule activities quickly and efficiently using their online payment systems. However, with travel and activity sites transmitting huge amounts of data worldwide to hotels, airlines and other travel providers, the need for increased security and efficiency has increased as well.
Virtual cards have stepped into this void by offering these travel sites a randomly generated, single-use, sixteen-digit account number to pay their customers’ travel expenses which eliminates the need to store their customers’ credit card information. This makes virtual cards one of the most secure forms of payment available today.
However, virtual cards offer an even better benefit beyond security – cash back. Unlike other forms of payment, virtual cards offer a quarterly rebate between .50% and 1.50% of your AP spend. This is a huge incentive for businesses to switch to this new payment system. Finally, virtual cards offer increased efficiency and a much lower cost of doing business.
With the many advantages of using virtual cards, more brick and mortar businesses are looking to join their online counterparts in implementing virtual cards systems. If your business is looking for a more efficient, secure and less expensive way to manage your accounts payable, read on to learn how virtual cards may be a great fit.
Cash Back and Reduced Cost
One of the most compelling reasons to switch to Virtual Cards is the rebate. Virtual cards pay between .50% – 1.50% cash back on your annual AP spend. This additional revenue combined with reduced costs of managing your accounts payable can significantly reduce the cost of doing business for your AP department.
Payment Efficiency
The ability to transmit payments quickly and efficiently is important to any company. But the beauty of virtual cards is that they work with any ERP system to deliver both scheduled and on-demand payments with a significant reduction of AP staff time. Additionally, virtual card providers that offer push-pay services can integrate your ACH, wire, and check payments as well to increase efficiency in payments to your suppliers that don’t offer virtual cards.
Increased Security
Every day we read about another major business that was hacked with thousands of customer data stolen. Virtual cards circumvent hackers by generating a new one-time use unique number that is only valid for that transaction. Because companies no longer need to store customer’s credit card information along with the sixteen-digit uniquely generated number means that virtual cards offer an almost unparalleled level of payment security.
Virtual cards are truly a win-win for businesses offering a significant source of revenue along with increased efficiency and secure payments. With benefits like these, it won’t be long before the brick and mortar businesses are jumping on the virtual card bandwagon along with their online counterparts.