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Wednesday July 21, 05:16
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P-Card Programs Help Banks, Issuers Win Clients
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US corporations are looking to banks for assistance with integrating purchase card data to ERP and accounting systems, at a time when banks and card issuers are seeking to increase overall p-card use. Automated workflow is a particular focus for corporations wanting straight-through processing for their p-card transactions, according to Financial Insights analyst, Jeanne Capachin. Bank of America is meeting this demand by automating workflow on a web-based platform that also provides transaction reporting, purchase approval and sends pre-approval workflows to the card network before reconciliation occurs.
Electronic payments will not deliver true value until data can automatically be captured at both ends of a transaction, and Capachin believes credit card issuers have a crucial role in helping corporations to link to a network that consistently integrates information into back-office systems. In short, if banks can help enterprises streamline procurement by integrating data, the popularity of p-cards for payments will grow. About 80 per cent of US firms use p-cards, according to the MasterCard Advisors professional services unit of MasterCard, but the proportion of transactions on p-cards is not rising, even if overall volume is.
Citibank has, in a separate development, added a new commercial card feature to its p-card program, the Citibank Custom Reporting System, to enable multinational firms to access and analyze spending data while providing transparency across the procurement chain. The merits of p-cards are clear, with the state of Maryland recently receiving a USD 1.6 million rebate from US Bank Corporate Payment Systems for its use of the bank▓s p-card program. The state used over 7,600 p-cards instead of printing and issuing over 428,000 checks, which also saved local businesses the cost of sending bills to Maryland state agencies.
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