Visa Inc. is stepping up its efforts to compete in the business-to-business payments space with a new platform to replace its existing suite of information management tools.
Wednesday, the San Francisco payments company unveiled Visa IntelliLink Spend Management, an "information and spend management" payments platform that Visa issuers can offer to their commercial card clients. The platform, which offers a combination of reporting, data services and program support functions, was developed in partnership with Spendvision Holdings Ltd.
Darren Parslow, Visa's head of global commercial solutions, said in an interview Tuesday that the platform's flexibility and ability to serve a variety of business types will help Visa to compete with more established products. "It allows us to serve all kinds of companies, whether you're a microbusiness or the largest company in the world, and truly be global," he said.
The platform will eventually replace Visa's existing information management tools, as the company migrates all of its current banking clients to the new system. Parslow said Visa has already signed up some issuers to use the system, but he would not name them.
Although other companies, including American Express Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., have offered similar products for several years, Parslow said Visa expects to reap a "competitive advantage" with the new platform's functionality, but would not elaborate on specific features that Visa offers that its rivals do not.
