Visa and Lloyds Bank partner to create new virtual card solution

By Gloria Methri

Visa has teamed up with Lloyds Bank to launch a next-generation virtual card solution for businesses of all sizes.

Available now to Lloyds Bank customers, Visa Commercial Pay meets businesses’ payments and purchasing administration challenges, such as controlling spend, simplifying processes, reconciling invoices, and reporting on expenditures.

Offering many practical benefits to businesses and their employees, the new solution enables efficient online purchasing by issuing virtual cards instantly. Employees can issue a virtual card for their business-related purchases, whether it be contracted or ad-hoc spending, subscription payments, or business travel.

The virtual cards – which can be single or multi-use – adopt existing approval workflows and include the business’s own unique reference fields. They can be issued individually or by batch and offer real-time control, allowing business administrators and managers to closely manage spending within their teams. Controls can be applied to enable where, when, what, and who can be paid.

Mandy Lamb, Managing Director, UK & Ireland, at Visa said, “Visa Commercial Pay is a next-generation payment platform that provides the technology to help businesses simplify and streamline the way they make payments, all in a secure and controlled way. We are delighted to launch this in the UK in partnership with Lloyds Bank, delivering seamless payment experiences for UK businesses.”

James Sykes, Head of Commercial Cards at Lloyds Bank also said, “We are proud to have partnered with Visa and to be the first in the UK to launch Visa Commercial Pay to customers. We have worked hard to create a solution that offers a secure, simplified process that enables businesses to pay their suppliers earlier while protecting their working capital.”

Jon Helyer, Director of Financial Control, Smart DCC added, “Lloyds Bank’s VCP solution enables us to make transactions, with the necessary approvals by budget holders, quickly and securely, and simplifies reconciliation as we can code them accurately and attach evidence too.  The system, which was configured by the Lloyds Bank Commercial Cards team, is very simple to use and full training was provided before we went live. The enhanced security of Virtual Cards also means there is no need for additional One Time Passcodes and so online transactions are easier to process.”