Mastercard, TSYS & Extend introduce mobile virtual card solution for commercial clients

By Pavithra R

Mastercard and its partners, TSYS, a Global Payments company, and Extend has announced the launch of a mobile virtual card solution that enables virtual corporate cards to be loaded into a mobile wallet for fast and secure contactless payments.

The new solution intends to address the growing demand for digital, contactless commercial payments, which has been escalated by the changing nature of work and business expenses during the pandemic, and the rise of the work-from-home economy. 

Earlier, virtual cards’ inability to load into a mobile wallet for use at physical point-of-sale terminals was considered a major hurdle in its mainstream adoption. With the solution, employees or contractors can load their virtual corporate card into their mobile wallet to initiate contactless payments with their mobile device. Additionally, Companies can easily set controls, including specific time frames, amounts, and approved merchant categories.

“Now, more than ever, companies are looking for flexible, virtual payment solutions. By providing a truly virtual end-to-end solution for generating virtual commercial cards and taking them mobile, we’re helping businesses streamline their expense processes while providing employees with fast, simple and secure ways to pay,” said Ron Shultz, executive vice president, New Payments Business, North America at Mastercard.

The solution leverages Mastercard Digital Enablement Services (MDES) to tokenize virtual card numbers (VCNs) for secure mobile payments. MDES turns card numbers into tokens that become useless to fraudsters and eliminates the frustration of manually updating card numbers. Businesses can use this solution to issue a single or multi-use virtual card to employees, enabling them to fund and manage authorized purchases. TSYS generates the virtual card number, which is accessed in the Extend app and then seamlessly loaded into a mobile wallet. 

Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. The firm is committed to building a more inclusive digital economy that works for everyone. It is also making Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) central to its business model.