JPMorgan Chase To Exit International Commercial Card Business

JPMorgan Chase will exit the international commercial card business by year-end, a bank spokesperson this week confirmed to BTN.

The decision came less than three years after JPMorgan Chase partnered with German payments firm AirPlus International to provide the bank's large, U.S.-based corporate clients a cobranded global payment solution.

"We are concentrating on areas where we can best meet clients' needs for a competitive offering and superior client experience," JPMorgan Chase commercial card business spokesperson Edward Kozmor said in an email. "We will move clients off EMEA platforms by December 13, 2015."

The Company Dime first reported JPMorgan Chase's intentions.

Kozmor said JPMorgan Chase is working directly with its multinational clients "to ensure a smooth transition for their international card programs to a new solution of their choice." The bank also is working with those clients to maintain their North American card programs, according to Kozmor.

Joint customers of JPMorgan Chase and AirPlus will remain with the latter firm, confirmed an AirPlus International spokesperson. "But in which way the further cooperation with [JPMorgan Chase] will continue has not been finally decided," the spokesperson added.

Aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman has been a JPMorgan Chase client since 2009. "Our existing program we have in the U.K needs to be replaced," said Northrop Grumman travel analyst and meeting planning manager Holly Walker. "We have abandoned hope that there could be a single card provider globally, and we are hammering out local relationships, which is far more challenging."

Still, Walker said, Northrop Grumman is sticking with JPMorgan Chase in North America. "I have no fear they're going to leave the card business. It's too profitable. There are just so many regulations that make it very challenging [abroad]," she said.

In 2011, JPMorgan Chase reported $6.3 billion in charge volume on U.S.-based corporate travel and entertainment accounts, according to BTN's 2012 Business Travel Survey. In 2012, AirPlus International offered a global payment solution to large, U.S.-based clients and prospective clients, and JPMorgan joined up. At the time, JPMorgan Chase corporate card executive and managing director Lionel Le Meur said, "We thought we could really leap ahead of many of our competitors in providing that solution to many of our clients."

Harsh Reality 

As companies expand internationally, many seek a single global card supplier to leverage cost savings, data consistency and workflow simplicity, but that goal also has proven challenging.

"We are seeing increasing demand from clients for international programs, given the growing needs for centralization, efficiency, transparency and standardized global expense policies," Citi global head of commercial cards Manish Kohli told BTN in an email. "Given the patchwork of different evolving regulations, it can be challenging for issuers to run global programs," but he added, "We will continue to invest in this business and support the growing needs of our clients."

According to BTN's 2015 Global View survey, 34 percent of 138 travel buyers with multinational programs surveyed negotiate with their primary corporate card provider on a global basis, while 26 percent allow different regions to have their own corporate cards.