What’s a B2B Virtual Card and Why Would I Want It?

A B2B virtual credit card (sometimes called a vCard or Single Use Account) is a unique 16-digit computer generated number used to settle a specific vendor payment transaction issued for a specific dollar amount. Designed as a more secure alternative to ACH and check payments, virtual cards are essentially “card-less” credit card payments.

With virtual card spend projected to grow to $355 billion by 2022, there are several reasons why AP departments will want to include them in their arsenal.

First, in addition to enhanced security, virtual cards are a more efficient, quicker alternative to traditional payments. Given instantaneous payment, you can improve working capital by holding on to your cash longer.

vCard issuers and processors and offering significant rebates to promote their use and adoption. Depending upon your AP spend, this could amount to hundreds of thousand or even millions of dollars.

Virtual cards consume much less of your staff’s time and energy to process. Think of what it takes to process, print and mail checks (which still represents about 40% of all B2B payments).

And since vCard transactions are easily recorded and tracked, audits are addressed more efficiently and accurately.

If you haven’t considered Virtual Cards as part of your payments portfolio, perhaps you should.

Estimate your potential savings by incorporating ePayments and vCards here.