The payments sector is constantly innovating – Mark Frary looks at the latest products and services on offer
xpense management and payments providers are often seen as the supertankers of the business travel industry,
taking an age to change direction, but looking at what is happening in the sector at the moment shows that nothing could be further from the truth. While cardholders can still swipe a card in the old-fashioned way, there is an increasing number of places you can wave cards over a reader and pay within a couple of seconds. Devices equipped with near-field
communication (NFC) chips will also mean that plastic itself is under threat – passing a smartphone over the reader could soon be the payment method of choice for the business traveller. Lodged accounts have not seen many changes since they were first introduced either, but all the major providers seem keen to innovate in this area. And card providers are not
14 Buying Business Travel 2012
the only agents of change – expense management providers are innovating rapidly, too.
REWARDING BUSINESS Since Buying Business T
ravel ’s last
corporate card round-up in 2011, American Express has launched a corporate version of its Membership Rewards programme with the initial roll-out taking place in the UK and aimed at the small- and medium- sized enterprise (SME) sector. On the
Devices equipped with near- field communication (NFC) chips will mean that plastic itself is under threat
back of its success, the company is now launching the scheme in the US. “We continue to add partners to
that programme after listening to customers on the type of partners, and in what areas they want to spend their reward points,” says American
Express’s corporate card head of marketing, Robert Ancona. “We have seen growth in the SME sector where companies are getting smarter about doing business.” This is reflected in higher-spend among mid-market companies which have increasingly been travelling long-haul to do business in export markets. American Express is doing more
to give managers additional data on transactions, particularly those in areas beyond traditional travel and expense (T&E) spend. An AT Kearney report for the company last year showed that of the estimated €155 billion spend in indirect categories in the UK, around a third of this goes to suppliers who are not on companies’ preferred supplier lists. Ancona says that companies
are now more sophisticated. Whereas they did not necessarily have preferred suppliers in place before, they now do, but the focus has moved to getting compliance using preferred suppliers. Card programmes and expense