Plug and Pay VISA is the Next-Gen Corporate Card Finance Teams Have Been Waiting For By Jonah Balfour Security is Paramount with the Industry’s Only Numberless Card Corporate cards started out simply enough. Companies needed to pay for goods and services, and the standard credit card seemed like it could be a good fit for businesses as well. For a while, that was a sufficient solution. But in today’s business world, the corporate card isn’t keeping up with the pace of change, the demands of businesses, or with new models of remote and distributed work forces. Corporate cards limit finance teams with several drawbacks, including low levels of control, limited visibility into spending, and critically, insufficient levels of security. They often introduce extra work reconciling payments at the end of the month and can lead to uncontrolled spending as team members pay with the card without sufficient supervision. Understanding these challenges is what led Mesh Payments to create Plug & Pay — a next-generation physical corporate card that provides businesses with all of the benefits of spend management platforms. What that translates to is a corporate card that provides the highest level of security and total control for finance teams. So, how does it work? A Physical Card or a Virtual Card? Why Not Both? Many businesses today looking for payment solutions are weighing the strengths of physical corporate cards or spend management platforms with virtual cards. Plug & Pay is both. A numberless physical card that allows you to plug in any of your virtual cards from Mesh’s spend management platform. Linking your physical Plug & Pay card to any of our virtual cards takes just a few seconds in the app, and you can switch from one virtual card to another in seconds. This means that you can easily change limits, expiration dates, or other controls whenever you like. The Highest Possible Security for a Physical Card How does Plug & Pay enable such high security? First, it’s a numberless card, so there’s no way for someone acting maliciously to copy the number from the card. Second, if somehow the virtual number is compromised, you can simply swap to a new virtual card in seconds and cancel the other. Mesh also provides instant notifications about suspicious transactions and provides 24/7 monitoring to prevent fraud. Even if you lose the physical card, you don’t necessarily need to cancel the virtual card associated with it. You can simply “unplug” the virtual card from Plug & Pay. Why is this important? If you used that virtual card number for a subscription or other recurring payment, you might not want to cancel it. Plug & Pay enables more security, with even more convenience. The Convenience of a Physical Card; the Controls of a Virtual Card Why is it still important to have a physical card in a world where virtual wallets and mobile payments are so common? Simply because there are still many businesses all around the world that aren’t set up to receive payments from mobile wallets. Having a physical card ensures that you can make payments no matter what. However, that shouldn’t mean sacrificing the high level of control that virtual cards and spend management platforms like Mesh can provide. With Plug & Pay finance teams remain in control at all times. They can change limits on the fly, cancel or suspend cards, or make sure that any new virtual cards linked to Plug & Pay are automatically in line with company expense policies. Spend management platforms are increasingly becoming must have solutions for finance teams precisely because of this high level of control, and with Plug & Pay, companies no longer need to sacrifice on these controls when they make payments with a physical card. Great Visibility into Purchases Made in the Real-World Virtual cards and spend management platforms provide a high level of visibility into spending, helping businesses understand what their expenses are. This is critical for businesses that are looking to control or cut back on costs. However, visibility can break down when purchases are made in physical stores rather than online, leaving many categories of expenses opaque and difficult to measure. Plug & Pay can help illuminate those expenses made with physical cards since they link directly with the virtual cards Mesh provides. This ensures visibility across corporate spending, no matter where or how it’s made. The Best of Both Worlds for Finance Teams Plug & Pay slots in exactly where finance teams are looking to streamline and cut costs. It helps them stay in control of payments, no matter where or how they are made, and it does so while providing the highest level of security. It provides finance teams with a no-compromise solution for payments just as the economic climate is placing all kinds of demands and limitations on corporate spending. To find out more about how Plug & Pay can help you take control of spending, sign up for a demo of Mesh today. Get the latest blogs from Mesh by subscribing to our newsletter Manage Your Payments With Full Control & Visibility Get Started Jonah Balfour Jonah Balfour is a Content Manager at Mesh Payments. He has experience creating content for multiple tech companies, and previous experience managing PR campaigns for emerging startups. Originally from Los Angeles, Jonah chose to leave the ample sunshine of Southern California to study at the University of Wisconsin. He is an avid fan of both Star Wars and Star Trek, and spends most of his time chasing after his two young daughters.
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