Key takeaways
  • Benefits of virtual cards including saving time and reducing costs with custom spend controls for any use case.
  • They empower employees to act fast.
  • Virtual cards provide real-time visibility and greater control over spend.

Successful companies learn to channel their intense sense of urgency into business processes that help them move faster. To accelerate growth, they selectively invest in the right initiatives and dynamically adapt as market conditions change. This is easier to do when the business is still in earlier stages, but through rapid growth, financial controls and capabilities don’t always scale as quickly. Finance leaders face a challenge: how do they empower employees to spend without losing control?

The benefits of virtual cards make them an important part of a commercial card program. They help save time and reduce costs with fast issuance and custom spend controls for any use case. But perhaps more importantly, they can help to accelerate all kinds of business workflows.

What is a virtual card?

Like a plastic credit card, a virtual card can be used online or in mobile app, yet it has distinctive benefits. It has a randomly generated 16-digit card number for tighter security, and you can assign specific controls and policies about how and when the card can be used.

Benefits of virtual cards include faster action

Card program administrators can set custom spending limits, expiration dates, merchant category, and other restrictions. You can fine-tune the level of control based on projects, departments, roles, or individual employees to meet your business requirements.

Equally important benefits of virtual cards are that they enable faster action for both the finance team and employees. Admins can instantly issue or modify cards on the fly, so employees get the spending power they need at the office or on the go.

The business impact of virtual cards

Based on our experience working with clients in the innovation economy, the benefits of virtual credit cards can deliver critical business impact, including:

  • Faster project ramp-up: Once a project is approved, we’ve seen client teams immediately spin-up cloud infrastructure, order extra laptops, license new datasets, and obtain other resources without having to wait for plastic cards to be issued or checks to be cut.
  • Increased agility to take advantage of market opportunities: Sometimes opportunities arise unexpectedly, and startups have to act fast. With a virtual card, marketing can purchase a last-minute conference sponsorship instantly. And with preapprovals and automated exception routing, sales teams can quickly book trips to meet with prospective clients while adhering to your expense policies.
  • Breakthroughs in the lab: The last thing a biotech startup needs is to blow a milestone because they couldn’t order lab equipment or consumables fast enough. Instant virtual card issuance, or an on-the-fly adjustment to spending limits, enables lab employees to quickly make purchases as needs evolve.
  • Smoother reconciliation and faster month-end close: One of the greatest benefits of virtual cards comes from using the data that’s available before the transaction even takes place. Virtual cards enable businesses to streamline month-end reconciliation by embedding key data—like GL codes, cost centers, and project tags—at the time of the original request. By coding transactions upfront within the purchase request, you eliminate manual tracking and guesswork later, creating a more efficient, accurate, and automated reconciliation process.
We can issue a virtual card in under 60 seconds, from when we approve it until it's in the employee’s inbox, so it’s very easy to enable our people on the fly to do what they do best.
VP Finance, Omnidian (SVB Client)

Take advantage of real-time visibility and greater control

We’ve seen how powerful real-time card data can be, enabling clients to consistently track transactions and capture spending insights for better budgeting and forecasting. You don’t need to wait for month-end statements to arrive. You can spot patterns—and exceptions—as soon as transactions occur.

As part of a spend management platform integrated with your commercial card solution, your benefits of virtual cards are further amplified. For example, SVB’s solution offers AI capabilities, integrated travel booking, mobile expense reporting, and automated reconciliation – at no extra cost.

Virtual cards also help reduce both the risk of card misuse and fraud. Granular controls, single-use cards, and enhanced audit trails help to keep spending accountable and in-policy. And with no plastic card to be skimmed or stolen, and secure unique card numbers, you can reduce fraud risk.

While virtual cards help to accelerate project timelines, your business also increases financial oversight. Robust spending controls combined with real-time visibility give your business the agility you need.

Want to learn more about SVB’s corporate cards and virtual cards? See how we combine technology solutions with in-depth expertise to help you save time and money.