However it is a product that has also been static for
many years, with limitations that inhibit its use across the full spectrum of
corporate travel.
Heavily dependent on exterior data flows, the transportation
of files is a process that is highly susceptible to error. It is difficult to
standardise file deliveries across geographies as different organisations have
different file creation capabilities and processes.
Lodge cards inherently lack rigid controls on manually
collating disparate sources of information to produce a reconciled view. Therefore
the industry standard matching rates hover around approximately 95-98%
accuracy. You may think that this sounds a satisfactory matching rate. However,
the outstanding 2-5% of unmatched data is highly costly and inefficient for the
corporate. Consequently banks don’t value it and therefore don’t search for
innovative resolutions.
Corporate travel settlement is changing. Using a virtual
card, with its PAN serving as a unique reference number, guarantees 100%
matching rates to eradicate the cost and time lost to the unmatched data that
we mentioned earlier. With nearly real time data flows, virtual card data is
managed within the booking process in the GDS, and can be processed in monthly
or periodic batch processes.
Not reliant on the creation and transmission of exterior
data, the systematic reconciliation means human intervention is not required,
eradicating the risk of human error involved with lodge cards.
However the virtual card’s most valuable attribute is its
applications across all areas of travel spend. Not just air, but also hotels,
rail, car hire and all other areas of online spend.
·
Commercial benefit:
o
Applies lodge card controls across areas of
incremental spend
o
Enables significant increase in billings
without additional operational costs
·
Enhanced security:
o
Order and authorisation data captured prior
to secure payment is deployed
o
Creates a secure PCI-DSS compliant Passenger
Financial Record (PFR) for each transaction
·
Increased controls:
o
Control of variables such as amount, validity
and merchant category
o
Enhances workflow and enables real time
refunds and amendments
·
Flexibility:
o
Single process applicable to multiple content
sources, not just IATA air
o
Allows secure deployment of CVV2 number
·
Reconciliation:
o
Unique PFR applied to each transaction
o
Need for manual/additional reconciliation
process eliminated
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