Commercial Credit Card Spend on the Rebound

The United States remains the most mature market for commercial credit cards, having essentially invented the industry with travel and entertainment cards. Business travel in North America is projected to return to 2019 card spending levels sometime in 2024, but wide variability exists, as we will discuss in the report. Given the massive commercial consumption spend available, product diversification and expansion of cards into the commercial payables space continue to be the long-term focuses of the industry, with VCNs being the main growth driver during the next five years. In this report we discuss economic and business travel impacts, as well as the main trends that we see are driving near-term industry growth. Mercator Advisory Group’s latest research report, North America Commercial Credit Card Market Review and Forecast, 2020–2026 provides a review of the commercial credit card markets in Canada and the United States.

"Commercial credit card spending in North America during 2021 rebounded from the 2020 lockdown nadir, with strong improvements in business-to-business transactions and a partial return of business travel. This was driven by generally improved economic output as well as a continuing trend toward digital financial operations, a primary driver of which is electronic payments," commented Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service, author of the report,  "Although still a relatively small part of payables transactional flows, commercial credit cards are filling a need for speedier cash recognition on the part of suppliers, which creates opportunity as the shift away from using paper checks continues."

This report is 17 pages long and has 6 exhibits.

Companies mentioned in this report include: American Express, Association for Financial Professionals, Bank of Canada,  Billtrust, Boost, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Currecncycloud, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Global Business Travel Association, JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, Reuters, TD Bank, US Bank, Versapay, Visa.