Marqeta Forms Europe-Focused Spend Management Pact With Spendesk 

Card-issuing platform Marqeta has become the issuer processor for Spendesk Financial Services (SFS) in Europe.

“Expense management and procurement solutions are vital for medium-sized businesses looking to increase financial control, achieve consistent growth, and improve cash flow,” Stephane Dehaies, CEO of Spendesk Financial Services, said in a Monday (March 10) news release.

“Marqeta’s open API platform is the perfect fit for our business, and will support us as we continue to lead the industry with innovative, end-to-end spend management solutions, providing businesses with greater visibility and control, even as they scale.”

Marcin Glogowski, Marqeta’s senior vice president and managing director for Europe and U.K. CEO, added that the partnership will help businesses remove friction from spend management while helping small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) access better financial tools.

“Marqeta’s platform makes it simple for employees to make safe, policy-friendly purchases while keeping spending aligned with company goals,” Glogowski said. “We’re a trusted ally for them, seamlessly embedded into Spendesk’s systems to help their customers scale, ultimately simplifying their spend management at a time of added competitive pressures.”

According to the release, the partnership has allowed SFS to integrate Marqeta’s card processing services into its core banking platform, giving customers both physical and virtual cards and enhancing Spendesk’s B2B spend management with controls that let businesses screen and approve expenses in real time.

The partnership is happening as the benefits of virtual cards are gaining greater recognition, as covered here last month. For example, research by PYMNTS Intelligence late last year found that, among middle-market companies — businesses with yearly sales of between $50 million to $1 billion — 56% of executives using virtual cards have seen improvements in working capital management as one of the key benefits of using those cards.

“Yet the market is virtually untapped, as the data shows that just 3.3% of North American Growth Corporates use virtual cards,” PYMNTS wrote.

Virtual cards are emerging as a game-changer in corporate payments, PYMNTS wrote in a separate report last week.

“Virtual card numbers offer a modernized solution with flexibility in transaction amounts, merchant types and frequencies,”  Marcos Gelfi, vice president and global head of commercial fraud/dispute products and cardholder solutions at Discover® Global Network, said in an interview here last fall.

“By leveraging data and defining clear corporate policies, businesses can achieve greater efficiencies and robust fraud prevention. … The data that you capture is pretty important and can help you negotiate better with suppliers, and help you manage your budget better,” Gelfi said.

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