Choosing a business credit card that can keep up with your growth

Business credit cards can help companies cover expenses and capitalize on opportunities – but fast-growing startups and venture-funded companies need more than that. The right commercial card program should be tailored to support your business through every stage of growth. Here’s what you should look for when choosing a business credit card.

Not all card providers are the same, so look beyond promotional offers and eye-catching incentives. Along with supporting your evolving credit needs, your business card should empower you with spend management capabilities and expert advisory to help you increase efficiency and control costs as you scale.

Here are some key considerations for exploring business credit card options and tips on how to choose a business credit card that’s right for you.

Innovation economy expertise

While there are many different business credit card types, startups have unique needs and situations, and most card issuers lack the experience and underwriting to support that. It's important to choose a provider that’s more than just a card issuer, but that also has deep expertise in your industry and understands your stages of growth.

For instance, a business card provider with tech startup expertise (like SVB), will have better insight into your growth potential and can consider it when setting credit and spending limits. A knowledgeable financial partner can tailor your card program to best support your finance team and employees, and help you optimize as your needs evolve.

TIP: Ask SVB specialists to share examples of how startups similar to your company are gaining strategic advantages with their commercial card program.

No personal liability

Many business credit cards options, including from top banks, require a personal guarantee. That means founders or legal owners are personally liable for paying the debt if the business cannot. It may create a worrisome concern that fast-moving startups don’t want to take on. If the business closes and owners have to deal with the debt, on top of the financial burden their personal credit score could be impacted.

At SVB, we’re committed to helping innovators by providing commercial cards with no personal liability. We understand what it takes to grow innovation economy companies and we provide the solutions and expertise to help our clients thrive.

Spend control and visibility

As your teams and spending needs grow, so does the complexity of managing finance. It becomes essential to have precise control over who can spend, how and how much, including enforcing expense policies for business travel, supplies and so on. You’ll also find that manual expense reporting and reconciliation is too time-consuming and error prone, and derails people from doing more strategic work.

That’s why the best business credit card options are about more than a card – they include an integrated spend management platform. Look for a robust system that enables you to efficiently control card spending and automate expense reporting, approvals and syncing data to your accounting system.

Flexible limits

Fast-growing companies can quickly outpace their spending limits, and traditional card providers may not be able to increase them quickly enough in response. Unlike many banks, SVB takes a venture-friendly approach to credit approval and can proactively scale your credit limit to match your growth rate.

Rewards

Rewards cards are pretty ubiquitous, but they don’t all provide the same value. For example, sometimes the high earn rates for points only applies to specific categories. Consider a card that enables you to earn rewards on all of your spend, so you have more value to put back into your business.

For example, with points earned across all employee cards are rolled into one account, it can add up to a valuable monthly revenue stream as cash back statement credit. Or you might want to redeem points for business travel or to equip your teams with top brand laptops and headphones. It’s all about having more ways to put your spend to work when choosing a business credit card.

Tailored support and a range of business credit card options

While you’re busy growing your company, will your card provider be watching out for your needs over time? Most banks won’t. However, it’s valuable to have a financial partner that actively monitors your growth and card usage, and proactively advises you about when and how to further optimize your card program. With dedicated support, they can help you get the most value from your commercial card and spend management solution.

Need some help choosing a business credit card? Learn more about commercial cards, designed to meet the needs of fast-growing startups and venture-funded companies.