Shopping and paying for corporate travel have always come with challenges. But rapidly advancing technology options are bringing some welcome progress to both travelers and travel managers.
“Corporate travel payments are undergoing rapid transformation as companies move toward integrated booking, payment and expense ecosystems,” says Chris Juneau, SVP and head of product marketing at SAP Concur. These systems offer a clearer view of how and where money is being spent, while removing a lot of the day-to-day friction for employees and finance teams.
Juneau notes that the continued move toward more automated, integrated payment and expense processes is reshaping the ways companies manage travel spend. For SAP Concur, work with Mastercard and American Express has led to expenses being captured and categorized at the moment of purchase, which reduces manual effort and improves accuracy.
He also points to the use of AI to take on more of the auditing and verification workload, helping audit and finance teams stay focused on resolving issues rather than wasting time looking for them.
Joel Bailey, global chief technology officer at CTM, notes that for many organizations, the bigger challenge isn’t the form of payment itself, but the number of systems involved. Payment workflows often span card providers, TMCs, virtual card platforms, booking tools and expense systems, creating friction for both travelers and finance teams.
“The major shift under way is the drive to connect these environments,” he says. “When payment, booking and expense data flow seamlessly, finance gains real-time visibility and travelers face fewer steps from reservation to reconciliation.”
Juneau also sees the addition of AI further enhancing these connected systems by providing real-time insights into spending patterns, compliance risks and cost-saving opportunities. The results help business leaders and finance teams make smarter, more informed decisions. “This level of visibility means companies can spot issues earlier, respond faster, and run their programs with far more confidence,” he says.
At the same time, Juneau notes that some booking tools and TMCs aren’t adapting fast enough to support the level of flexibility companies now expect, especially when it comes to maintaining existing card programs or shifting banking partners without disruption. “While the ROI is clear once companies implement integrated platforms, demonstrating that value up front can still be a hurdle for some organizations,” he says.
Ryan Schaffer, CFO of Expensify, cautions against advancements that are ‘AI-washed,’ promoting features that have long existed, but are now marketed as AI. “Making charts using AI is not innovation,” he says. “Similarly, you don’t need AI to create an expense policy.” He explains such features have been in the market for a long time, but while companies may be hyping them up as somehow new because they use AI, if you dig deeper, you can see that the customer hasn’t actually received new functionality.
Goodbye to Plastic?
The growing popularity of digital wallets and virtual cards is bringing some solid improvements. “Digital wallets are interesting in business travel because they sit at the intersection of traveler experience and corporate control,” says Michael Duffy, VP, product and innovation for Grasp Technologies. “We’re seeing a real shift toward ‘cardless’ trips, where travelers rely on a virtual corporate card loaded into a mobile wallet instead of carrying plastic.”
Duffy explains that travelers can tap to pay for hotels, meals and incidentals, while the corporate card controls still remain behind the scenes. Too, this format is safer than physical plastic from a loss/theft perspective.
“The two major advantages of digital wallets are security and convenience,” says Ralph Kaiser, president and CEO, UATP. This includes security through encryption, tokenization and most recently, with the adoption of biometrics. Convenient easy payments feature the ability to store several forms of payments in the same place.
Other beneficial pluses include storage of loyalty and rewards, financial and mobile inclusion in emerging markets, and the shift away from a traditional digital wallet to what we know today as SuperApps such as WeChat, Grab, Alipay, Rappi and Mercado Pago.
In addition, digital wallets offer a globally understood experience. “The concept of ‘tap-to-pay’ is second nature for consumers worldwide,” says Yuval Refua, chief product officer, payments and expense for Navan. “When you provide an employee with a payment tool that’s as simple to use as what they have in their personal life, adoption becomes effortless, which is a win for both the traveler and the company.”
However, Duffy cautions, more progress is still needed. “Digital wallet acceptance is not high in some markets and with some merchant types,” he says. “And since the wallet remains an individual rather than corporate wallet, there can be some friction in deploying payments to travelers’ mobile phones.”
Use of virtual credit cards is also growing. These cards have taken a significant step forward in the past 12 to 18 months, both in capability and acceptance, particularly in the hotel sector, Bailey notes. “The biggest advantages are the controls,” he says. “They can be merchant-category restricted, time-bound and amount-limited, which materially reduces fraud exposure and simplifies liability.”
Virtual cards can be given out with confidence thanks to the controls that can be added around the payments, Schaffer says. “The cards can expire upon trip ending. You can add merchant-level controls. And you can spin up and wind down cards easily or programmatically.”
Stewart Harvey, partner and strategic advisor at Kintela Group, a communications and events agency based in London, says streamlining of reconciliation and automation is another great advantage of virtual cards.
“They can be tied directly to a specific booking, traveler, cost center or trip, making reconciliation far easier,” Harvey says. “Expenses are automatically matched to reservations and invoices, reducing manual work and increasing accuracy.” An added plus: This improves reporting and duty-of-care tracking.
Ongoing Progress
A number of other developments offer the promise of greater efficiency and less hassle. “There’s meaningful progress across the payment landscape, even though the ecosystem remains complex,” Bailey says. “Some of the most promising developments are in real-time virtual card issuance, merchant-category controls, and mobile-first payment experiences that reduce traveler friction.”
Still, fragmentation is one major area where the payments industry still has work to do, according to Bailey. Many organizations don’t realize how many different providers sit behind a payment workflow, which can make costs, data flow and responsibilities difficult to interpret. “Streamlining these connections is where I see opportunities for the next wave of improvements,” Bailey says.
Duffy sees potential in several areas. “The move toward embedded commercial payment APIs and ecosystems, like VCN APIs, MC Commercial Express and similar programs, is critical,” he says.
Among other areas of progress, Duffy also points to using payment data as a real time signal, not just a historical ledger. “Data can be captured even during the authorization process, prior to the charge occurring, which gives the corporate visibility on tentative charges at the earliest possible stage,” he explains.
Another promising development is improved fraud prevention, verification and immediate time control, Harvey notes. “Using AI to detect patterns and identify unusual expenses right down to transaction levels is a step in the right direction,” he says. “Focusing on increased control of expenditure, spend levels, spend locations and items can be achieved by deploying AI to recognize behavior trends, technology adoption, biometric controls and identity matching.”
In addition, the capability to identify applicable value added tax (VAT) on receipts and report the values distinctly is a highly valued feature that finance departments should appreciate.
Choosing Best Options
As payment options expand, some careful considerations are in order. “Payment technology has become a crowded space, and not every solution delivers the same level of value,” Bailey says. A good start, he suggests, is to begin mapping the outcomes that matter most to your organization – such as traveler experience, efficiency, data visibility or stronger financial controls – and assessing payment options against those priorities.
“Remember, payments touch everyone,” Duffy advises. “It’s important to communicate clearly ‘here’s how you’ll pay now and why it’s better’ with internal stakeholders as well as with suppliers,” he says. “The tech can be excellent, but if a traveler doesn’t know they’re supposed to tap with a wallet instead of their personal card, you’ll still have friction.”
It’s important to make the traveler experience simple, Juneau stresses. “People should be able to book and pay the same way across mobile, web and direct channels,” he says. “The easier the experience, the more likely employees are to stay within policy.”
Put the traveler experience first, Harvey recommends, recognizing that adoption depends on how easy your payment tech is to use. “Payment should be frictionless before, during and after the trip,” he says. “Look for features like instant card provisioning, mobile wallet support, automated receipt capture, and easy dispute and fraud reporting.” He also suggests considering edge cases: Offline payments, international acceptance, and emergency card replacement. “If the system isn’t intuitive or practical for travelers, even the best tech will be underused,” Harvey warns.
Refua advocates looking for solutions that treat travel and expense as one unified problem, not two separate ones. “When you solve for the traveler experience and provide automation for the business, you turn a cost center into a true driver of growth,” he says. “The best technology should take the work out of the work trip for everyone.”
