Interview: MasterCard Global T&E Products Group Head Richard Crum

MasterCard Worldwide in February hired former AirPlus International Inc. president Richard Crum as its group head of global travel and entertainment products and solutions. Crum came to MasterCard after eight years as head of the U.S. subsidiary of AirPlus International, preceded by nearly eight years at the airline-owned Universal Air Travel Plan. Crum spoke to Business Travel News executive editor Mary Ann McNulty about the new position, focus and needs of corporate clients. 

What is your job at MasterCard?

The job is focused on T&E products—so payment and reporting products—dedicated to helping companies manage travel expense. It is a new position, created to add a level of focus at MasterCard on this important segment. We have in our regions plenty of experts when it comes to T&E. This position, though, is at the global products level across those regions and across all MasterCard issuing partners, so we can grow the focus on how we deliver travel payment solutions through the issuers to the end customer.

Was it also created because more customers want to take their programs global?

That fact is true, but I can't say that's why position was created. More companies—yes, the big global brands, but even the midmarket companies—are becoming multinational and want to manage their program across all regions on a consistent product basis. They want to make sure the data they get can be consolidated and used across their enterprise.

What are your biggest challenges in the corporate market?

One is the need for more companies of smaller size than we'd typically think of wanting to be multinational or to manage their program across their enterprise. So it's important that the products and solutions made available through our issuing bank partners enable companies to consolidate their information, to have a global view of their spend and the ability to use that data, whether for the simplicity of accounting or complexity of trying to manage a global program and policy. It's very important that we continue to build the data and analytical platforms to make that work across a multinational organization.

Coupled with that, the data challenge continues to grow. The typical airline, car and hotel product [sales] are now broken out into different ancillary charges. Data becomes that much more important, as does providing the platform to understanding the real cost of travel, account for it correctly and be able to build and manage relationships with these suppliers in this new world of pricing and product. The industry will be best served when there is a standard that suppliers and intermediaries take advantage of so we can consistently report the different types of charges across different types of suppliers and geographies. Today it's much more difficult.

How is the level-three air data you are seeing, given your past experience?

For an air ticket, I'm very impressed with what MasterCard offers customers today in the depth of the itinerary information coming through. It's one of those foundation points that gives us an opportunity to build on in developing solutions for the future. MasterCard for many years has invested in a global data repository, a central data warehouse that collects for commercial spend and T&E not only all the transaction information from the acquirers and merchants, but also gathers information directly from travel agencies, global distribution systems, from suppliers directly and other points in the travel ecosystems to generate a very rich, comprehensive database of a company's spend. The data repository contains data for more than 440,000 companies in 47 countries. The Smartdata.gen2 reporting platform is what customers use to access that data warehouse, to analyze and report on and manage their travel program. The investments that MasterCard has made in building this data network is one of the most valuable assets we have in building the travel product suite of the future.

As you talk to corporations, what are they requesting?

The word that comes up most is data. It's moving beyond having lots of it to having what really matters in a consistent way across their programs, so they have the right information and tools to help them manage their travel programs. Unfortunately, that's not a new phenomenon. It's been an age-old challenge and why MasterCard invested so much in building the global data warehouse and smartdata platform. Being able to deliver a product that has the information necessary is so important.

Recent mobile payment announcements have focused on consumer applications. What impact will mobile have on corporate travel and when?

The end corporate traveler—the cardholder—is very much in focus. What MasterCard has announced, most recently PayPass Wallet and other platforms, will be part of a traveler's corporate card reality. There's nothing more to announce now. We believe very much that the cardholder experience will be based on a mobile world using the phones and technology that travelers are given, not only to make the travel experience and way you pay for it more convenient, but also to make it safer, easier and make travelers feel that they truly are in control. It is a focus.

MasterCard also announced plans for EMV or chip-based card security in the United States with the creation of an industry advisory group. Can you explain?

Eventually the United States will migrate to EMV. That is what we announced, the roadmap to change the infrastructure in the United States to EMV [from magnetic stripe]. That will help lay the groundwork for mobile and other things we're talking about. It all kind of fits together.

We recently reported some of the new developments with single-use account numbers and expectations in Europe in working with travel management companies to ensure that card numbers are in the passenger name records. What's your take on the developments?

Single-use numbers have been in existence for many years, and MasterCard has a platform that issuers take advantage of to generate and manage those numbers. But it isn't just the fact that there's a single number per transaction. It's the control that comes with how those numbers are used and managed. It's being able to say, "It's only good at one vendor, for a certain amount or certain period of time." It takes the classic format of charge card and gives you a tremendous amount of control over how those numbers are used. It also enables you to do more to collect data on the back end, whether that's matching it up with data that comes from other sources or collecting more data when the number is used so it adds value. The issue is how we, together with partners, build technology that makes it easy in the agent or self-booking environment to be entered into PNRs or booking system being used. I'd expect it to be deployed all over the world.