Business-to-business (B2B) payments dominate the global landscape, and Visa is introducing a platform aimed at connecting major industry participants.
The card company highlighted that its Commercial Integrated Partners program facilitates an ecosystem banks can use to offer enterprise clients a variety of services, including expense management, a mobile application, and virtual card tokenization.
In this model, Visa’s APIs serve as the infrastructure through which banks can access fintech products and embed them into their business clients’ enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The goal is to provide a seamless solution that enables all parties to focus on innovation and enhancing the customer experience.
“This is an interesting move,” stated Hugh Thomas, Lead Commercial and Enterprise Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research. “The most comparable program I can think of at Mastercard is their Accelerate initiative, which includes Start Path and Fintech Express. However, the key difference here is the focus on commercial applications.”
“Where Mastercard’s initiatives span from emerging technologies like blockchain to consumer-focused offerings such as person-to-person (P2P) payments, Visa’s program is strictly oriented towards commercial activities,” he continued. “This approach seems strategic given that the ecosystem for B2B payments has fewer and more manageable potential partners, with different drivers of change compared to the consumer market.”
Streamlining Fleet Payments
Via its partnership with fleet technology provider Car IQ, a financial institution could use Commercial Integrated Partners to offer its business customers software that enables virtual card payments through a mobile app at fuel stations. Physical cards continue to be a challenge due to their vulnerability to loss or misuse.
This integration aims to reduce the need for extensive supplier onboarding or development and potentially save a company “18-24 months of due diligence, integration work, and project management.”
Security Concerns and Certifications
Despite the potential benefits, financial institutions may have reservations about the security implications when sharing data with multiple parties. This concern has intensified following the collapse of fintech Synapse, which left millions of dollars in at-risk funds.
To address these concerns, Visa asserts that all fintech partners on the Commercial Integrated Partners platform have already been pre-evaluated and integrated with the company.
“The other noteworthy aspect is the certification process,” Thomas observed. “Certifying solutions implies having in-house expertise to understand your own products and certifying their use in others’ products.”
“While it’s a positive idea in theory—enabling issuers and partners to bypass 18 months of certification work before launching a product that drives spend volume—it also means being responsible for ensuring the product works as intended,” he concluded. “This underscores Visa’s commitment to growing the card network-driven commercial ecosystem by taking on this role.”