Barclaycard Partnership with Coupa Pay – P2P Becomes P&P

Following the recent announcement that Barclaycard has partnered with Coupa Pay (part of Coupa’s business spend management [BSM] suite) we talked to Barclaycard to more fully understand how the partnership works and what the benefits are for both. We spoke with the knowledgeable Rob Tuckwell, Director of Partnerships & B2B at Barclaycard Commercial Payments.

The first important thing he noted, before we got into the interview, was that we are not to confuse this with P-cards. This is a Virtual card payment solution (V-cards). The P-card, like a charge card, allows the procurement of goods and services without using the traditional purchasing process; the V-card is an electronic (or virtual) allocation of a card number per transaction, not per person, allowing greater control and reconciliation benefits.

The press release describes the relationship as a “Coupa Pay with Barclaycard offering commencing with virtual cards that create a fast, secure, and convenient way for businesses to manage payments as part of their broader business spend management strategy,” so we asked:

“Commencing with …?” Does that mean there might be more to come? …