Natwest and Mastercard offer a mobile virtual card for businesses

American payment giant Mastercard has just announced its merger with British bank Natwest, formalizing their joint ambition to market a new payment offering for British businesses. This offer takes the form of a mobile virtual card, and is designed to optimize employee payments.

FACTS

• The new offering from Mastercard and Natwest is called Approval2Buy, and takes the form of a virtual mobile card.
• It is aimed at UK businesses of all sizes, enabling them to equip their employees. Employees will now be able to store virtual cards directly in their mobile wallets, like Apple Pay or Google Pay, to make business payments online and in-store.
• The 2 partners specify that their virtual cards can be generated instantly. Businesses will also be able to personalize these cards by limiting them in terms of :
  • usage (by specifying the merchants or geographical locations authorized for spending, for example),
  • amount,
  • duration.
• Mastercard uses its tokenization technology to replace sensitive card data with a unique number. Approval2Buy enables companies to create virtual card numbers instantly and dynamically for each transaction.

CHALLENGES

• A first in Europe: Natwest boasts that this is the first European initiative to deploy Mastercard's mobile virtual card application, enabling instant card generation.
• Adapted to needs: Mastercard and Natwest point out that the mobile virtual card model is particularly well-suited to the needs of employees on business trips or on short-term assignments. It also offers greater flexibility for companies.
• Reduce administrative tasks: Mastercard finally emphasizes that its offer enables corporate customers to reduce the administrative tasks involved in managing their employees' expenses.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• Mastercard has long been working on rolling out its virtual card offering, presenting a so-called “smart” version in January 2022.
• Today, its new model also integrates its tokenization technology, reinforcing its ambitions in this area as Mastercard aims to move e-commerce and online payments towards full tokenization by 2030.