New products and services • By Catherine Chetwynd


FORGING AHEAD


Anything that eases the process of submitting expenses is appreciated by travellers and travel managers – and is increasingly expected


T


he rate at which technology develops ensures that sup- pliers can predictably make enhancements and the


following services are evidence of that. Airplus Connect sends details of a


transaction in real-time to the pur- chaser’s mobile phone, accompanied by a notification. “Because it is on your mobile, you can then photograph the receipt, swipe it and send everything to your expense management system,” says Paul Spelman, country manager, UK and Ireland, Airplus International. Airplus is also harnessing one of the last bastions of unmanaged spend, res- taurant bills. By embedding the Airplus payment solution in restaurant technol- ogy, Dine+go recognises customers on arrival, allows them to order on the app or personally, see how much the evening is costing during the meal and leave without waiting for the bill. It is being piloted in Germany and as restaurant software is updated more eateries will participate, with France next on the list. The company is also working with a number of travel agencies to automate the collection of hotel information and merge it with transaction data. Cur- rently, Airplus supplies the TMC with hotel, check-in/out data and maybe the address, and waits for the traveller to


In association with


supply the invoice or asks the hotel for it. Now, for a fee, Airplus collects the invoice from the hotel, digitises it and attaches the data to the transaction to show the exact breakdown and appli- cable VAT rate. American Express is introducing


Apple, Android, Samsung and Amex Pay functionalities in a number of European markets. It has launched Compliance Insights to give customers greater vis- ibility of non-compliance to company policy through analysis of clients’ em- ployee spend, while American Express Ready Response allows travel managers real-time visibility of cardholders’ where- abouts, with alerts about recent transac- tions made in the vicinity of an incident. “American Express Ready Response is an enhancement to our ability to leverage spend data insights to help companies offer a duty-of-care to their employees,” says Fabienne Cauli, general manager, global client group international. Development of its KDS expense management tool follows. Amex GBT is focusing on the booking tool but will look at the expenses element “nearer the end of the year”, according to Jason Geall, vice-president and regional general manager, Northern Europe. Three card options – prepaid, debit and credit – are now available on one


platform from Barclaycard, letting cus- tomers switch easily between settlement methods, according to preference, the travel booking process and customer billing cycles. Bank of America Merrill Lynch has initiated contactless technology, bringing with it authorisation that is seven times faster than Chip and PIN. It has also introduced Card Assistant, which allows programme administrators access to in- dustry and product updates, informative webcasts, fraud prevention tips, case studies and reference information in one place, saving time and effort.


A BETTER DEAL FOR THE SME Small and medium-sized businesses do not always get the best deal. Concur has launched Concur Travel to the sector, and Triplink, which enables smaller compa- nies to see and control spend. Triplink is also integrated into booking.


com, supplying a booking tool and content, whether booked via Concur or the OTA, which feeds back into Triplink. Another tool is Locate, instituted last year, which lets SMEs track employees, enhancing their ability to comply with duty-of-care legislation. Chrome River Technologies recently inaugurated Prosper, which integrates expense and sales data in its CRM system, highlights the levels and types of spend done on a prospect or account to measure the return on investment on travel and entertainment spend. Technical advances are ensuring that


corporate requirements continue to be met. This is advantageous to companies and their travellers; it can only improve compliance and, with increasing digital functionality, make life considerably easier for everyone concerned.


BBT CORPORATE CARDS SUPPLEMENT 2018 31


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