News & insights

What is driving virtual card adoption?

Virtual cards are here to stay. An advanced digital payment technology that allows for instant, fully trackable payments, virtual card usage has skyrocketed in recent years and is predicted to hit a transaction value of £6 trillion by 2026. But what is behind this rapid growth?

What is driving virtual card adoption?

As part of episode two of The Payments Insider Podcast, Sabre’s Chief Commercial Officer, Roshan Mendis joins Conferma’s Chief Operations Officer, Dave Wood, to discuss the key factors driving this accelerated adoption of virtual cards.   

Traveller demand 

In our consumer lives we’ve not just grown accustomed to seamless payment experiences, we now expect them. Whether it’s making a contactless payment, sending money to friends and family, or placing orders online, consumer payments are defined by their instantaneous nature. 

Now, employees are looking to corporate travel to deliver the same frictionless experiences. Motivated by the self-serve nature of leisure travel, which allows customers to access and manage bookings with ease, more and more businesses are adopting software and technologies to make corporate travel management simpler. 

And it’s not just travel bookings that employees are expecting to be optimised. The Invisible Bank Report explores how employees in the UK are effectively lending their employers £321 million a month through expenses. This can lead to dissatisfaction amongst employees who, as a result, feel like a bank, financing their employer. 

Virtual cards offer an attractive solution to traveller demands. As cards are created digitally for bookings, travellers do not have to worry about keeping track of a corporate card throughout a trip. They simply arrive at the hotel, where staff will have already received the virtual card details for the stay via their preferred communication method, and check-in seamlessly.  

Another popular outcome of virtual cards is that employees are no longer left out of pocket covering trip expenses on their personal cards. Gone are the days of meticulously submitting expense claims post-trip and restlessly waiting for reimbursements to be approved. Now, businesses can digitally deploy virtual cards straight to employees who can add the card to their smartphone’s digital wallet for simple spending on the go. 

Education and understanding 

Virtual cards offer a myriad of benefits for businesses. From enhanced security to improved reporting and bespoke spending controls, to name a few. Where these were previously unfamiliar to many, now more and more businesses and suppliers are becoming aware of the benefits of adopting virtual card payments. 

Reports and research such as The Growth Ignition Index Report are educating more businesses about the importance of their payments strategy, encouraging finance leaders to look to novel solutions to support their growth.  

Optimising a payments approach can unlock efficiencies, streamline processes, improve security, and increase cashflow – all key factors in facilitating growth. Globally, we’re seeing businesses become more aware of this, with 57% having invested to a significant degree in payment capabilities over the last five years.  

Of the many solutions available to businesses looking to optimise their payments strategy, virtual cards are standing out for their simplicity and versatility.  

Virtual cards offer an array of benefits from streamlined invoicing and expensing to enabling smoother traction processes. This allows them to be used for a diverse range of B2B applications including supplier payments, employee expenses, subscription services, and cross-border transactions. 

Enhanced security 

80% of organisations were victims of payment fraud attempts last year. Of these attempts, cheque payments (which remain a popular payment method in the US) were the most vulnerable to fraudulent activity (2024 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report). 

Of the many benefits of virtual cards, the enhanced security they offer is vitally important to businesses. In fact, 46% of organisations already using virtual cards reported improved security and reduced fraud risk as their primary benefit. 

Virtual cards can play a key role in fortifying payments processes. When a card is created, it is pre-loaded with a specific monetary value, approved by managers, that cannot be exceeded by the user – a secure alternative to traditional corporate credit cards which typically have limits far beyond their intended use.  

As well as this pre-approved spending limit, businesses are turning to virtual cards for the custom spending restrictions that they offer. Managers can limit the merchant category codes and geographical locations where the virtual card can be charged, as well as set custom expiry dates to ensure the card is only charged within a certain timeframe (e.g., for the duration of a trip).  

In the unlikely event that a virtual card is used outside of its intended purpose, businesses can instigate a chargeback for a virtual card in the same way they would for purchases made on a traditional credit card, offering an additional layer of security and peace of mind for finance teams.  

How to start using virtual cards with Conferma 

Conferma connects over 150 procurement platforms, 80+ card issuers and hundreds of corporate travel agencies to service thousands of customers.  

We’re on a mission to make is simple for any company, anywhere, in any ecosystem to connect and do business through our trusted virtual payments platform. Say goodbye to complex, fragmented payments processes and simplify your payments strategy with one centralised solution that offers enhanced security, efficiency, and control.  

To get started, book a free demo with our specialists and learn more about how virtual cards can revolutionise your payments processes.