The first of the large Canadian banks to partner with
Conferma, BMO Financial Group is making business travel easier and
more secure
TORONTO, July 16 2018
/CNW/ - BMO Financial Group (BMO) today
announced a partnership with Conferma, a leading global fintech
company specializing in virtual payment innovations, to bring
virtual card payment technology to BMO corporate card clients. This
new, joint solution, backed by Conferma's extensive ecosystem of
travel management companies and partners, makes business travel
more convenient, cost-effective and secure for BMO clients across
North America.
"We're helping our clients manage payments effectively and
efficiently by removing the need for manual processes," said
Steve Pedersen, Head of North
American Corporate Card Products at BMO Financial Group. "Paper can
be cumbersome for travelers and accounts payable teams, who often
need to delay payments because required back up detail is missing.
Together, we're solving this problem by capturing all the
information companies need to reconcile – before the transactions
occur. Settling is finally accurate, easy and fast."
BMO is the first of the big five banks in Canada to partner with Conferma to provide an
enhanced virtual card solution for both Canada and the
United States. The new offering enables simplified, digital
payments with the creation of a single-use virtual card number that
can be used within booking platforms to pay travel suppliers.
Simon Barker, Conferma's CEO
said, "Adoption of virtual cards is growing at a phenomenal rate,
yet there are still too many businesses missing out on this
incredible opportunity. Our virtual payment technology adds
additional control, security, and flexibility, as well as enriched
data analysis to meet the needs of the business travel industry. As
innovators at heart, we are pleased to be working with BMO, who is
known as an innovator in the corporate card space, and believe our
partnership will provide greater efficiencies and value to their
clients."
The solution is designed to keep account information safe. A
unique token is tied to one travel reservation with set parameters
on what can be charged. This token is used to match that specific
information to the corresponding supplier payment, which makes
reconciliation much easier.
"The spending controls prohibit the card from being used for a
purchase it's not intended for. This significantly lowers
vulnerabilities and reduces costs for all companies involved in the
transaction process, while taking stress off the traveler, because
there's no ambiguity about approved spending," added Pedersen.
The new product will be available in July
2018, and promises time and money savings for participating
organizations. Flight Centre Travel Group, one of the world's
largest travel agency groups, has already seen tangible operational
benefits from using the technology.
"BMO's Conferma-powered virtual cards bring tremendous
efficiency and control gains for both our internal team and our
clients. The thought of reconciling booking and payment data no
longer keeps us up at night. The process happens automatically when
the unique card codes are used, saving us hours of back office
file-checking and bill back headaches," according to the Flight
Centre Travel Group. "We can also give clients as much transaction
detail as they want up front, making internal tracking and spend
reporting much easier for organizations."
Virtual card technology can save travel management agencies an
average of 25 minutes on each transaction, and over 300 hours a
year through efficiency gains in the reconciliation process. The
approach also enables agencies to hedge against fraudulent activity
and get paid for all their bookings – avoiding almost $8,000 annually in write-offs.
About BMO Financial Group
Serving customers for nearly 200 years and counting, BMO is a
highly diversified financial services provider – the 8th
largest bank, by assets, in North
America. With total assets of $744
billion as of April 30, 2018,
and a team of diverse and highly engaged employees, BMO provides a
broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management
and investment banking products and services to more than 12
million customers and conducts business through three operating
groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, BMO Wealth Management and
BMO Capital Markets.
About Conferma
Leading Fintech company, Conferma, is the world's foremost
provider of virtual card technology. Founded by CEO Simon Barker in 2005, Conferma combines
innovation and expertise to consistently find success when they
push the boundaries of what can be achieved in the world of virtual
payments. Conferma connects issuers to more than 400 travel
management companies, all five major global distribution systems
and more than 70 corporate booking tools. Conferma is fully
integrated with all the major card schemes and serves more than 30
banking partners, who have issued Conferma-generated virtual cards
in 96 currencies across 197 countries. www.conferma.com
SOURCE BMO Financial Group