Cards

HSBC Innovation Banking Virtual Card

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Our Virtual Card solutions provide secure payment for goods and services, giving you the ability to use Virtual Card Numbers (VCNs) to settle supplier invoices without the need to deploy physical cards across your organisation.

This could be the right solution for you:

  • If you require a flexible payment method to settle supplier invoices, either over the phone or online
  • If you want to streamline your supplier spend by consolidating all card-based spend into one simple monthly payment
  • If you want to improve efficiency, security of your processes and gain in visibility over your spend
  • If you want to book travel for staff without corporate cards
  • If you have a manual hotel billback process

How it works

Virtual Card Portal

Simply order the goods or book the services through the supplier as normal. When a payment card is needed, access HSBC’s Virtual Card portal to input reference details and transaction information before a card number is generated and displayed to complete the transaction. The transaction details and the reference information will then be matched together to provide accurate payment reconciliation data, for example matching of order/booking reference to an employee/cost centre.

Central Cards Booking

Our central travel booking solution can be integrated into your existing process with the added benefit of integrating the booking and transaction data to match the traveler with the transaction activity, highlighting policy spend, enhancing travel policy compliance.

Central Cards Booking

Batch Payments

Our secure batch payment process allows you to request cards in bulk directly from your ERP system for multiple supplier payments whilst still providing automated matching.

T&Cs and other eligibility criteria apply.

Key Features

Control

  • Can be used instead of issuing physical cards to departments or individuals
  • Secure management of all card data to PCI DSS standards
  • Pre-transaction approval steps with user profiles to manage limits, functions and approval adds an additional layer of security
  • Add transaction or invoice data up-front to simplify reconciliation of transactions

Monitor

  • Achieve enhanced purchasing policy control through greater visibility of spend data
  • Data integration allows matching of booker details, invoice, cost centre, and card transaction data
  • Automated matching of transactions with the ability to monitor and review online

Efficient

  • Simple solutions which can be tailored to your requirements
  • Automate invoice reconciliation by using virtual card data provided daily, weekly or monthly as required

Flexible

There are three flexible options available:

  • An online portal with the ability to set up an approval flow, restrict users access to specific supplier profiles and an unlimited amount of custom data fields
  • A central travel booking system which integrates with your travel management company to support hotel spend capture with travel agents or procurement systems
  • A batch payment process gives you the option to enable automatic invoice settlement through your card programme

The benefits

  • Business-to-business payment solution that doesn’t require a physical card
  • Create and manage unique Virtual Card Numbers (VCNs) to facilitate payments to suppliers
  • Single or specified multi-use with powerful user-defined controls
  • Access to the Mastercard network for maximum global acceptance

3 currencies

  • Available in GBP, EUR, USD

Flexibility

  • Pay suppliers over the phone, online or on receipt of an invoice
  • Integration with your accounts payable system

Control

  • Improved security through authorisation controls (i.e. spend limit, validity range etc)
  • Add approval flows for additional security

Visibility

  • All spend flows into one consolidated programme with a monthly statement
  • Automated and simplified reconciliation through unique VCNs matched to non-financial data
  • Access to an online reporting platform

Deployment options

An HSBC Innovation Banking Virtual Card is a highly configurable solution with options for generating VCNs via a web-based portal, batch file upload or API integration into e-procurement systems or booking tools.

Web-based portal

  • The buyer orders goods or services directly from a supplier’s website
  • When a payment is required, the authorised buyer accesses the HSBC Virtual Card portal. The buyer can pre-enter invoice or reference information in to customised fields
  • A VCN is generated and used to complete the payment
  • Reference and transaction information is automatically matched to give accurate reconciliation data, e.g. matching order/booking reference to cost centre
  • A ‘workflow’ can be optionally set up for the routing of VCN requests to a supervisor who will approve the request

Batch file upload

  • Upload a batch payment file to request multiple VCNs
  • A simple file format detailing the suppliers you want to settle with
  • A batch file can be submitted daily, weekly or monthly.
  • Each supplier is assigned a unique single-use VCN with an authorised amount
  • Reference and/or transaction data included in the batch file is automatically matched to give accurate reconciliation data, e.g. instruction reference with payment reference
  • There is no cost to include batch file as an option on our virtual card web-based solution

API integration¹

  • Generation of VCNs through direct connection to an enterprise resource planning system (ERP), e-procurement, accounts payable or financial system
  • Existing procurement processes can be used to order goods and services as normal from suppliers using an e-procurement tool
  • When a payment is authorised, a VCN with the authorised amount is created and can be sent directly to the supplier for processing
  • Full IT integration is required

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