Results of a BCD Travel survey of 106 travel buyers in October stresses the relative importance of travel and expense spend management in the pandemic recovery. On the list of programme priorities, 76% of travel buyers consider payment and expense ‘very’ to ‘extremely’ important, an increase of 8 points compared to 68% in the previous survey in April. The top three priorities for payment and expense are process simplification (91%), traveller satisfaction (88%) and travel data insights (80%). Finance, travel management and procurement are the most relevant internal stakeholders to payment and expense management in business travel. Finance is typically the primary decision-maker, especially when it comes to selecting payment and expense solutions and VAT reclaim. When it comes to forms of payment used to settle travel costs, corporate cards are the most popular (used by 94%), followed by central billed accounts (56%), invoices (41%) and virtual cards (37%). Travellers on the road mainly use corporate cards (90%). The use of personal cash (32%), cash advance (24%) and consumer cards (22%) are nowhere near as prevalent. Travel buyers say the biggest pain points experienced around payment setup and administration are:
- Managing payment needs of non-employees
- Managing payment methods in multiple countries and emerging markets
- Suppliers not accepting certain payment methods or charging extra fees.
Ajay Singh, vice-president of digital payment and expense products at BCD Travel, said: “BCD Pay provides customers the flexibility to use the right form of payment to each booking, whether for different categories, suppliers, travellers (non-employees, infrequent travellers, remote workers). Respondents also shared their views on what trends they think will be shaping payment and expense:
- Popular at the moment are contactless payments (55%), paperless expense solutions (52%) and higher transparency and control over expenses (47%)
- Expected to gain traction in one to three years are mobile payment (41%), wide adoption of expense management apps (35%) and biometric authentication (35%)
- In five years from now, 52% expect to be using virtual cards more frequently, while the use of cash and invoices will go down.
For the full survey results, please click here.
