Conferma has built a "substantial" customer base in North America, with a newly established dedicated team for the region and building from demand for virtual card use and reconciliation, according to North America general manager and head of travel Benjamin Alderman.
Alderman—a payment industry veteran who was worked with Ramp, Visa and American Express—joined Conferma last fall as part of the U.K.-based company's expansion of its U.S. team and coverage. While the U.S. was "very much a core market" for Conferma, "we've gone from not having a dedicated team to having a dedicated team, which I lead," Alderman told BTN during the recent Global Business Travel Association convention. Conferma currently works with about 80 issuers and 400 travel management companies around the world, and the U.S. makes up "a good chunk of that," he said.
Core product demand has driven much of that growth, as "virtual card usage in North America is gaining a lot of traction," he said. That has included "broader implementation," beyond the use of just hotel payments.
Conferma's "new-ish" Snap Plus offering also is facilitating much of the growth in North America, Alderman said. The tool collects hotel invoices, verifies information in them is correct, matches the data in the invoice to the relevant transaction and then presents the data in detailed reports. If transactions do not have a matching invoice, the tool begins a "chasing" process, including calls and emails, to secure the invoice.
While invoice reconciliation was historically "very much a Continental Europe solution" particularly around the ability to break out line items related to value-added taxes, demand has been strong in North America as well, Alderman said.
"We are finding a huge amount of traction for it in North America," he said. "In the broadest sense, it's when clients need to pass on that additional data, whether they have an onward billing or specific requirements from a reporting and audit perspective."
The entertainment industry has been one strong vertical of demand, as they have a need for "invoice reconciliation for nonemployees, especially ones that have complex billing structures." Entertainment businesses often set up companies specifically for certain projects or films, so "having a clear audit trail is especially important," Alderman said.
Alderman added that AI technology stands to add significant efficiencies to reconciliation and across multiple parts of payment transactions, though Conferma is taking a caution approach.
"We have a lot of work that we're doing there," Alderman said. "The models are still in relatively early stages. With financial transactions, the most important thing for us is safety of client data, so we're not rushing anything."
Growth in North America has come from the issuer side as well, especially as fintech companies have been adding travel components and moving into the "more traditional travel payment flows," Alderman said. "They look to bring in Conferma, where we facilitate for touch-free booking across the ecosystem, where they do not have those connections into the [global distribution systems] and booking platforms that we have."