Visa has enabled Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay for
corporate cards, and U.S. Bank will be the first corporate card issuer to
enable them for clients, said U.S. Bank general
manager of corporate and public sector bank card programs Jeff Rankin. Once
companies approve the use of mobile wallets for their travelers, employees
download the mobile wallet app of their choice and input their corporate card
details. U.S. Bank has piloted the capability with multiple companies across
"hundreds to thousands" of cardholders.
Clients'
requests for mobile solutions for their workforces drove the move, according to
Rankin. Because mobile wallets use tokenization, Rankin said the payment method
is safer than magnetic stripe cards. "It's similar to using a chip
card," he said. "It decreases the chances of fraud and the chance of
account numbers and information being stolen."
American Express was the first card issuer and network to enable Apple
Pay capability for U.S. corporate cards in 2015. Later that year, MasterCard enabled
corporate card use with Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.