FREENOW launches a prepaid card dedicated to mobility

FREENOW, the European mobility super-app, is launching a new payment method for its customers using the Mobility Budget, a monthly allowance that employers can offer their employees as a salary benefit.

FACTS

• The mobility card is a virtual prepaid card that allows users to use the budget allocated by their employer on the mode of transport of their choice.

• They can therefore have access to the most suitable means of mobility for their personal and commuting needs, even when the means of transport is not yet available in the FREENOW application.

• Companies can freely decide the amount of the budget allocated on the mobility card and adapt it to the different needs of the employees.

• In addition, the Mobility Budget can now be spent in France as well as abroad, a feature requested by many users: The new payment card is now available to all FREENOW for Business customers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK and is to be extended in 2023 to other countries.

CHALLENGES

• Responding to the new norm of hybrid work and standardising the user and employee experience: Until now, the Mobility Budget, offered to companies as an "employee benefit", was linked to transport expenses related to business trips or home-to-work journeys. With the prepaid card, the platform is extending its multimobility offer to include services such as public transport, train tickets and car or bicycle hire.

• Developing multimodality which makes FREENOW a mobility super-app: the individual mobility budget can now be spent for daily, weekly or monthly trips, for private travel or for commuting.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• The Tripactions app, which has just announced its name change to Navan, offers companies the opportunity to rid them of expense reports through the automatic sending of credit card payment authorisation forms (CPFs) and a pre-authorisation system for expenses that works in conjunction with a virtual card issuing system.

• Mooncard, a fintech specialising in business expense management, is also developing around mobility services by enabling automatic payment receipt feedback from over 1,300 service stations in France. This integration enables all the details of expenses (fuel, recoverable VAT, etc.) to be entered into the Mooncard software, saving time and money on the dematerialisation of expenses and avoiding the loss of receipts.