Visa to Launch New Solution for Virtual Card Transactions

Visa, a global leader in payments, is set to pilot the Visa AR Manager, an innovation aimed at reducing the friction commercial merchants experience with virtual card acceptance.

The Visa AR Manager

The solution, scheduled for a limited pilot in November, highlights Visa’s dedication to creating a seamless digital payment experience for issuers and suppliers alike. It’s part of the company’s expanding offerings designed to support the commercial B2B community.

Virtual cards have quickly become the preferred method for processing accounts payable for businesses. A recent study from the Institute of Commercial Payments revealed that 84% of commercial merchants cited getting paid more quickly as a key reason for choosing virtual cards as a preferred acceptance mechanism. However, virtual card acceptance can currently be a very manual, time-consuming, and costly process.

Streamlining the Virtual Card Transaction Process

The Visa AR Manager aims to address this issue directly. It automates the virtual card transaction process by retrieving card account details, initiating authorization and clearing steps on the supplier’s behalf, and then providing meaningful and timely reconciliation data to close out invoices in the supplier’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.

Abhishek, Global Head of B2B Acceptance at Visa Commercial Solutions, stated that this innovation came from significant discussions with partners and customers who expressed their struggles with the current virtual card transaction process. He added that Visa AR Manager would transform the way they work by automating an outdated process.

The Visa AR Manager will be open for pilot customer onboarding from November and will become more widely available in the new year. This solution supplements the strategic partnerships that Visa already has in place to continually innovate around merchant friction with commercial payment acceptance.