With more companies moving to remote or hybrid office
models after the Covid-19 pandemic
upended business as usual, many also will have to take a second look at their
corporate payment strategy.
A dispersed workforce likely will be traveling for
occasional in-person meetings, and the lines between commuting and business
travel have started to get blurrier for some travel managers. This means new
groups of employees who previously had little or no business travel in their
job description suddenly will need to be business travelers, and they will need
a tool to handle payment for that travel.
This reality is giving a new momentum to virtual payment
providers, as the ability to issue virtual cards tailored to enforce policies
will be an easier solution than issuing a huge new batch of corporate cards for
some programs. At the recent UATP Airline Distribution conference, BCD Travel
VP of commercial payment solutions Mario Kriebel also said he has seen a big
recent shift, especially in Europe, of companies moving to company liability
rather than individual liability payment tools.
Payment tool providers also tightening their links to the
travel world, as evidenced by a recent trend of acquisitions in the industry.
U.S. Bank parent company U.S. Bancorp, for example, last year acquired
SME-focused travel and expense platform TravelBank, and spend management
platform Coupa scooped up Pana to build its own travel module, set for
integration into its payment platform.
As companies take a harder look at their
policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion, there’s also been
increased scrutiny of payment policy’s role in that discussion, as policies
that put a burden on employees to cover expenses and wait on reimbursement—or
even maintain a strong personal credit score—could put some employees at a
disadvantage. As such, this year more than any other might be a good time for
companies to take stock of whether their payment program is meeting both their
own and their employees’ needs.