Announced around the summer, the partnership between BNP Paribas and Expensya aims to offer the bank's customers a paperless expense management solution is entering its active phase. At the end of September, the French bank will begin marketing this new service, which will simplify the administrative processing of business expenses. " With this additional component, we are completing the range of services that BNP offers to businesses" says Alena Djurovic, Head of Strategic Partnerships Commercial Cards, adding that BNP Paribas is "the only institutional bank to offer this".
Based on the Smart Spend offering from the fintech founded in 2014 by Karim Jouini and Jihed Othmani, this new product is linked to the BNP Paribas Corporate card, with Procurement and virtual cards following the same path. As the Corporate card flows are integrated, users can scan their expense receipts using a dedicated applicationAll this in an application in the bank's colours, with only the words "powered by Expensya" underlining the technology behind the solution. All this in an application in the bank's own colours, with only the words "powered by Expensya" underlining the technology behind the solution.
" This really is a grey brand. Everything has been designed for them and adapted to their specific needs.says Fabrice Clauzon, Expensya's Director of Partnerships. This is a bank product, marketed by BNP, which combines the agility of a fintech and the strength of a major bankwith all the customer relations that this entails" . Initiated at the end of last year, then unveiled last June, this partnership is now taking shape after the solution has been tested with a number of customers. " Expense claim management is a complex subject that requires expertise. Hence the decision not to develop a solution ourselves, but to partner with a specialised player, not one with multiple roles" says Mikaël Masson, Head of Commercial Cards at BNP Paribas.
This packaged solution offers a number of advantages, including archiving of supporting documents with probative value, support for customers and, of course, automated integration via an API. " As soon as the transactions are made, the information arrives natively in the app.says Mikaël Masson. There's no need to create new users either - everything is pushed into the system." .
While the move to combine payment and expense reports has been in the air for some time now, this new solution accompanies the ongoing dematerialisation of the entire process. All the more so as BNP Paribas already has plans for a corporate card in 2023, based on the Visa Commercial Paytotally virtual and dematerialised. " If the expense reports are not, something is missing" says Mikaël Masson.
