Visa Inc. has announced the Visa Meetings card, the newest member in its suite of commercial payment solutions to help businesses more strategically manage this expense category.   » Continue Reading

Fifty percent of surveyed small business owners stated that “economic uncertainty” is one of the biggest challenges faced in the growth and survival of their business, according to the National Small Business Association’s 2008 Survey of Small and Mid-Size Businesses. Chase Card Services has published a set of five tips for small business owners to help manage their credit relationships.   » Continue Reading

The U.S. Department of the Commerce (DOC) has selected JPMorgan as its provider for charge card services. The order is part of the U.S. General Services Administration’s (GSA) SmartPay 2 program, the largest government charge card program in the world.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Worldwide says it is 'the first payments company to offer small businesses automatic savings on fuel and maintenance through the addition of the Fuelman Network to the MasterCard Easy Savings program.' MasterCard says its BusinessCard credit and signature debit cardholders enrolled in the program will now receive a 1% automatic rebate on fuel and a 5% automatic rebate on maintenance purchases at more than 16,800 participating locations in the Fuelman Network nationwide.   » Continue Reading

On the Credit Slips blog, in a post titled "MasterCard's Machiavellian Twist", Angie Letwin, soon to be Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Law School in Austin, writes about her recent paper titled "Beyond Usury: A Study of Credit Card Use and Preference Among Low-Income Consumers" and compares some of her conclusions about control features useful to consumers in managing their credit card use to the new features MasterCard recently introduced with its "inControl" commercial card product designed for corporate purchasing use. She hopes that "perhaps eventually this could lead to products that would help consumers control their own spending as well."

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and MasterCard Worldwide have announced 'they have joined forces and implemented MasterCard's state-of-the-art payment platform, MasterCard inControl' with RBS marketing it as 'Approval-to-Buy' to its UK corporate banking customers.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that it will 'offer proprietary single-use accounts to its commercial card customers for business-to-business (B2B) purchases. Both Visa and MasterCard commercial card customers will be able to use the pre-approved accounts that reduce fraud and control spending.'   » Continue Reading

SunTrust has announced the launch of its Enterprise Spend Platform - calling it 'an industry-leading end-to-end commercial card management solution, offering businesses, government entities and non-profits comprehensive online capabilities for control beyond simple card management in travel and entertainment, procurement and payables.'   » Continue Reading

Visa has announced the global expansion of its merchant offers program for small businesses. 'Visa Business cardholders now can access more than 130 discount offers, including country specific, regional and global offers. Discounts are currently available on products and services in 17 merchant categories- including car service/rental, computer/electronics, entertainment and telecommunications.'   » Continue Reading

American Express and GE Money have announced that they have 'entered into an agreement for American Express to purchase Corporate Payment Services, GE’s commercial card and corporate purchasing business unit, for $1.1 billion in cash. The sale, which is subject to customary closing conditions and certain regulatory approvals, is expected to be completed by the end of the month.'   » Continue Reading

A new survey by CFO Research Services prepared in collaboration with American Express reveals that mid-size companies have a plan to weather uncertain economic times by adopting savvier ways of managing costs, controlling some areas of spending, and investing more in employee productivity tools. But the survey also shows that growing firms face a considerable challenge in taming their costs, since many forego the benefits of negotiated discounts by permitting employees to spend with vendors who are not preferred suppliers.   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook, in cooperation with Forte Financial just finished our first Payments Workshop on B2B payments, called "eB2B Payments at the Tipping Point".   » Continue Reading

JPMorgan has announced a new Corporate Platinum and Gold Card offering - calling them "the world’s most widely accepted travel and entertainment cards designed to enable business executives to maximize their productivity when traveling. Among the premium benefits and services available through the card programs are superior VIP airport lounge access, VIP Luggage Delivery, concierge services, travel accident and lost luggage insurance coverage, and emergency medical and dental coverage."   » Continue Reading

Capital One has announced the Preferred No Hassles Miles card, a card that it says "offers small business owners double rewards for travel and entertainment purchases."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Advisors, the professional services arm of MasterCard Worldwide, has introduced The Small Business Study, an in-depth report of cardholders’ spending, attitudes, and preferences across the leading small business card issuers.   » Continue Reading

The latest issue of Dove Consulting's On Payments newletter is now available. Articles include "Migrating Small Business Invoice Payments from Paper to Plastic" and "Implications of the 2007 Federal Reserve Payments Study Results" .

Chase Card Services and Office Depot have announced the new Office Depot Worklife Rewards Visa Signature Card for both business owners and consumers.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Worldwide has announced that "Microsoft Corp. and Monster, the global online careers and recruitment resource, are the latest additions to a growing list of merchants now offering small business customers automatic savings as part of the MasterCard Easy Savings program."   » Continue Reading

Richard Gamble writes for Treasury & RIsk Magazine about purchasing cards and a shift in how they're being used that improves their effectiveness. Gamble writes "for years, banks marketed purchasing cards as a stand-alone product that worked best when a company could get as many suppliers as possible to accept it." But suppliers often balked at participating, leading to only partial success. Instead, Gamble reports that the "next generation of payments automation will have “a single user interface on the front end, but four pipes on the back end” that will deliver payments by card, check, ACH or wire."

MasterCard has announced the launch of MasterCard smartdata.gen2 - describing it as "a proprietary, web-based expense and information management solution that provides businesses with integrated, global expense spending analysis and multiple robust reporting options so they can better manage their expenditures."   » Continue Reading

Mercator Advisory Group has announced a new report titled "Small Business Credit Card 2007 Update: Competition for Segments Intensifies" that examines recent developments in the highly competitive small business credit card marketplace.   » Continue Reading

Visa has released a new white paper - “Commercial Cards and Financial Compliance” - "to help organizations meet financial accountability requirements in many countries around the world. The paper identifies best practices in electronic payment programs for the travel and entertainment (T&E) management process and Procure-to-Pay function deployed by companies worldwide to help satisfy compliance requirements and achieve more control and visibility over spending."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has announced the launch of World MasterCard for Business - calling it "a premium payment card that provides high-spending small businesses with more spending power, superior customer service and enhanced rewards." Chase Card Services is the first credit card issuer to introduce MasterCard World for Business cards.   » Continue Reading

Chase Card Services has announced what it is calling "the first-ever MasterCard World for Business credit cards" with the introduction of the new Continental Airlines World MasterCard for Business and the GM Business Card World MasterCard. The new GM card will include blink, Chase's contactless payment feature.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has announced the launch of MasterCard Easy Savings, a new savings program for MasterCard BusinessCard credit and signature debit cardholders offering them "easy, automatic savings on goods and services every time they use their MasterCard BusinessCard credit and signature debit cards for qualified purchases at participating U.S. merchants."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard and Orbiscom have announced an agreement to create MasterCard inControl - what the companies call an "innovative platform that offers an array of advanced authorization, transaction routing and alert controls designed to enable issuers to more quickly and cost-efficiently introduce new and enhanced products."   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has announced IntelliLink - calling it "an intuitive, Web-based service designed to improve business efficiencies for government agencies by organizing data from commercial purchasing card programs into valuable business intelligence."   » Continue Reading

Arden Dale writes for the Wall St. Journal that "credit card use is soaring among small businesses. Many entrepreneurs find it's faster and simpler to sign up for a card than to apply for a bank loan." Or, because they can't qualify for a bank loan.

Visa USA, Visa International and Arcaneo have announced a "strategic alliance aimed at helping companies integrate commercial payment cards with enterprise meetings management technologies. Both organizations are working together to create solutions that provide businesses with the information they need to accurately manage meeting expenses and assess their return on investment."   » Continue Reading

JPMorgan Chase has announced a new report titled “Controlling and Cutting Travel & Entertainment Costs” that examines how "some of the nation’s leading companies share cost- and time-saving steps that they have taken to maximize their travel program and help minimize the impact of rising business travel costs."   » Continue Reading

CashEdge has announced that "CashEdge usage data for online payment, invoicing and collections during 2006 and through the first quarter of 2007, reflects the growth in adoption that was predicted by BAI's Small Business Payment Strategies research study in 2006, Aite Group's April 2006 survey of small businesses, and CashEdge's 2006 Small Business Survey. In June 2006, Bank of America became the first U.S. bank to offer electronic invoicing presentment and payment (EIPP) to small-business customers (through its Online Business Suite) and reports that the service has been extremely successful."   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has released a "detailed analysis revealing key insights into how U.S. businesses large and small are spending their money. The Visa Commercial Consumption Expenditure™ (CCE) Index for 2006 analyzes government data sources and research methods to provide a useful assessment of business expenditures."   » Continue Reading

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Purchasing Cards, Integrated Procurement Solutions, and the Commercial Card Market" that "examines new levels of sophistication in the domestic commercial credit space with respect to purchasing card programs, and supporting solutions such as Electronic Invoice Presentation and Payment (EIPP).   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has announced a new small business spending report titled "Visa Small Business Spend Insights" that concludes that, while small businesses remain relatively bullish about revenue growth, increasing expenditures on energy, healthcare and taxes are pressing concerns for small business owners. Visa will be publishing the report on a quarterly basis to provide a "comprehensive view of the U.S. small business climate by combining a poll of U.S. small businesses with the most current Visa spending data on small business cards."   » Continue Reading

Visa International has announced results from a recent global survey titled, "Global Commercial Payment Cards: Cutting Costs and Boosting Control on a Global Stage" that finds "companies worldwide primarily implement corporate card programs for enhanced visibility into spend (nearly 70 percent), and that the number one priority for companies around the world for implementing purchasing card (P-card) programs is reducing administrative costs for transaction processing (86 percent), but the goals and growth drivers for the programs differ by region."   » Continue Reading

AOC Solutions has announced that "Commerce Bank has selected its Encompass technology to meet the unique needs of the bank’s Purchase, Fleet and Travel Card customers. Encompass is redefining the commercial card market and offering businesses more ways to integrate card payments into their purchasing and payables systems."   » Continue Reading

JPMorgan Chase Commercial Card Solutions sent along the following article about how to take full advantage of purchasing card programs. "Companies around the world have implemented purchasing card programs to help reduce processing fees and simplify the way they do business. But once a PCard program is in place, what can a company do to increase volume and further drive efficiencies and savings? Jim Nelson, Senior Product Consulting Manager for JPMorgan Chase Commercial Card Solutions, recently sat down with purchasing card coordinators from three very diverse industries to learn what tactics users are taking to increase their PCard volume and adoption rate."   » Continue Reading

Cyndia Zwahlen reports for the Los Angeles Times about how credit card companies are focusing on increasing the payment card usage of small businesses - saying that "Although small-business owners spent $4.9 trillion in 2006, less than 5% of that was with the aid of a credit or debit card, according to Visa USA research."

Visa has released results from a new global survey finding about 25 percent of companies plan to increase their use of corporate payment cards and decrease their reliance on checks in the near future. According to Visa, these companies "believe that corporate payment cards will reduce costs and enable greater cash flow management as a result of more transparent financial data for payables and receivables."   » Continue Reading

Visa has released its global Commercial Consumption Expenditure (CCE) measurement for 2006. "Using the CCE index, a standardized metric to track business and government spending globally, Visa Commercial calculates global CCE in 2006 to be US$66.7 trillion, which represents an increase of 8.0 percent over 2005 expenditures of US $61.8 trillion."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Worldwide and Ariba have announced an agreement "to enhance payment solutions for companies around the world. Under this agreement, Ariba and MasterCard will connect enhanced transaction data from the MasterCard global data repository with Ariba Supplier Network, resulting in integration of purchasing and corporate card programs available for companies globally."   » Continue Reading

The October 2006 edition of the First Annapolis Navigator is now available. This month's issue features article on Gas Price Volatility Ripples Through Payments Markets, Debit Centricity in Western European Acquiring, Discount Rate Structures in the Small Merchant Market, Variation in Acquirer Deployment of Web Based Services and The March of Progress for Commercial Cards in the U.K.

US Bank Canada has announced it has acquired CIBC's Visa purchasing and Visa corporate credit card portfolio. U.S. Bank Canada is a division of U.S. Bank, which is a subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp, one of the world's largest issuers of Visa commercial cards.   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has announced the launch of “Business Breakthrough, Presented by Visa”, an "experiential and engaging online resource designed exclusively for small business owners."   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has announced results from a recent survey concluding that 68 percent of the financial executives and cash managers surveyed plan to reduce their reliance on checks for commercial payments and that 63 percent plan to increase their use of corporate payment cards.   » Continue Reading

US Bank has announced that it has begun offering a tool, U.S. Bank Access Purchase, that extends the power of its commercial card beyond payment processing and automates its entire purchase-to-pay (P2P) process. The tool connects buyers and suppliers over the Internet, allowing commercial customers to purchase and pay for goods and services from existing suppliers online, and still receive the detailed tracking information required to manage the procurement process.   » Continue Reading

Visa International has announced that the value of all purchases and cash withdrawals made with Visa Commercial payment solutions worldwide reached US$317 billion for the four quarters ended June 30, 2006, growing 24 percent year over year.   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has announced the introduction of Visa Signature Business, a new premium business payment card Visa says is "designed to address the business and lifestyle needs of small business owners by delivering valued and relevant benefits, greater purchasing power, and flexible features."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Worldwide has announced a "business-to-business advertising campaign to support the company’s recent unveiling of a new corporate identity and tagline, The Heart of Commerce™. The campaign, which targets customers, acquirers, issuers and merchants, builds on the company’s new corporate positioning, demonstrating its globally integrated structure and strategic vision to advance commerce worldwide."   » Continue Reading

Mercator Advisory Group has announced a new report titled "The Small Business Credit Card Challenge: Capturing The Large, Messy Opportunity" that explores "the challenges of small business credit card issuing, a key strategic segment for card issuers seeking to grow payment volume at rates above overall industry averages and to add to their portfolio outstandings."   » Continue Reading

Visa International has announced that the sales volume of Visa Business cards worldwide, represented by global small business spend, has reached US$190 billion over a 12-month period, as Visa says small businesses continue to adopt payment solutions that are more convenient and secure than cash and checks.   » Continue Reading

Karen Klein writes for Business Week about the advantages a business credit card can bring to small businesses: "Using it and paying it on time builds up their good credit history, just like with a personal card."

Wachovia has announced a strategic partnership with GE Money - Corporate Payment Services to provide commercial and purchasing cards to its wholesale and treasury services customers. Under the terms of the partnership, Wachovia will sell, underwrite, manage and own the asset portfolio, which will feature MasterCard as its preferred brand. CPS will provide all back-office functions and a rich information- reporting and analytical toolkit that is essential to enhancing companies cash management and procurement capabilities.   » Continue Reading

Aberdeen Group has announced findings from companies that participated in a recent study of payment card usage reporting significant benefits in three primary areas with their payment card program. A recently published report that benchmarks payment card usage within the enterprise found that over 60% of companies still allow personal credit cards to be used for company purchases, in spite of the compelling benefits achieved by best in class users of corporate payment card programs.   » Continue Reading

Experian has announced the results of a new study that takes a deeper look at the makeup of small-business owners and identifies key characteristics between owners of incorporated and unincorporated microbusinesses.   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has announced that, for the first time, small business spending on Visa Business cards (sales volume) in the United States surpassed $100 billion over a 12 month period. According to Visa, for the four quarters ended June 30, 2006, small businesses made $103.5 billion in purchases with their Visa Business cards, a growth rate of 32.2 percent.   » Continue Reading

Discover Financial Services has announced the launch of the Discover Business Card, a "single payment solution for small business owners designed to fundamentally change how they pay for everyday business purchases."   » Continue Reading

A friend writes: "I recently received a letter from Citibank telling me they're replacing my existing Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards card with a CitiBusiness card? Among other things, they're reissuing my card with a new account number. What's this all about?"

We can only speculate about the reasons behind Citi's replacement - and our speculation is that this reissuance is all about card interchange economics. Cards classified as business cards have historically had higher interchange fees associated with them - paid to the issuer by merchants - primarily because to get issuance the card associations had to make the cards economically viable for issuers who wouldn't typically be receiving any significant revolving interest income from such cards. In today's rewards-oriented environment, higher interchange fees to the issuer are the power behind the funding of rewards programs for cardholders. So, who loses? Merchants lose -- because of the higher fees they'll be paying on those new business card transactions.

OPEN from American Express and Sovereign Bank have announced that Sovereign will offer American Express Business Cards to its small business customers throughout the Northeast. The agreement calls for the companies to jointly market small business charge and credit cards that carry the Sovereign Bank and American Express brands.   » Continue Reading