BNP Paribas Boosts V-Card Adoption Within Coupa

Bank-FinTech collaboration continues as more industry stakeholders consider the value of open banking and areas of operations most prime to benefit from the business model.

This week’s examination of the latest tie-ups include a new partnership between Coupa and BNP Paribas, as well as a broader discussion of the impact of “open finance” on small businesses by Plaid.

BNP Paribas, Coupa Pair On V-Cards

Corporate spend management platform Coupa is expanding availability of virtual commercial card payments as a result of a partnership with BNP Paribas, according to a press release from the financial institution. The bank announced this week that its BNP Paribas Virtual Card is now integrated within Coupa Pay, a B2B payments solution on the Business Spend Management portal, allowing companies to use BNP Paribas v-cards to pay their suppliers and then manage and analyze that transaction data.

“We developed Coupa Pay to improve the business payments process and help our customers to pay simpler, smarter and faster,” said Udo Gruenhoff, vice president of Coupa Pay EMEA, in a statement. “It is exciting that this is now also possible using BNP Paribas virtual credit cards.”

The companies cited the heightened fraud mitigation capabilities resulting from virtual card adoption, streamlined supplier onboarding support from both Coupa and BNP Paribas, as well as greater transparency into transaction data as key benefits from their collaboration.

“The ability to use BNP Paribas virtual cards within the Coupa Pay module enables our corporate customers to benefit from an end-to-end procurement solution for their indirect and direct spending,” added Karim Bennaziz Houmane, global head of Commercial Cards Sales for BNP Paribas. “This integrated solution enables corporations to generate additional process savings when paying suppliers and financial benefits, amongst which extended payment terms are becoming even more critical for customers’ cash optimization.”

Railsbank Extends Aspire Functionality

Open banking platform Railsbank is collaborating with Singapore-based neobank Aspire to expand its services for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), according to recent reports.

As a mobile-native platform, Aspire will use Railsbank technology to enhance its own core infrastructure to optimize the bank account experience for SMB customers. Specifically, the companies noted, Aspire will adopt Railsbank’s Singapore Dollar bank account, making it the first neobank in Southeast Asia to adopt the tool.

“We consider it a great achievement that although we have been in Singapore for such a short time, we have introduced these bank accounts,” said Railsbank Co-Founder and CEO Nigel Verdon in a statement. “We are also having a great dialogue with companies throughout the whole region on how to leverage Banking-as-a-Platform.”

Saxo Inks Give Bank Deals

Challenger bank Saxo Bank is collaborating with five traditional banks in Denmark to allow these financial institutions to white label Saxo’s trading and investment technologies, Saxo said in a recent press release.

The result of a collaboration with IT infrastructure firm SDC, the collaborations mean SDC member banks will gain access to Saxo’s technologies for their own customers. Collectively, the banks service about 500,000 clients, the announcement noted. SDC was formed and is owned by 120 member banks to access its core banking infrastructure and support bank digitization. Working with Saxo will connect these five banks to a tool that provides a holistic view of clients’ overall portfolios.

In a statement, Saxo Bank CEO and Founder Kim Fournais said the collaboration “has been a very constructive process, where we have leveraged our expertise of building white label solutions and worked closely with the participating banks to fully understand their clients’ and advisors’ needs.”

Plaid Dives Into Open Finance

In partnership with FinTech 11:FS, Plaid, a FinTech that facilitates the connectivity of bank account data to third-party apps, published a new report on the concept of open finance and its impact on the overall financial services arena.

Their joint report, “Open finance: shaping the future of financial services,” discusses various ways industry stakeholders can approach and implement the concept of open finance and the value of such a business model. Identifying a range of use-cases, Plaid and 11:FS highlighted SMB finance as one key area of focus for this strategy.

“Between bookkeeping and payroll, it can be challenging for a business to organize and track their finances,” the report stated. “Open finance will allow faster payroll, simpler expense management and streamlined invoicing and budgeting.”