US Commercial Cards: A $5.1 Trillion Market by 2027
Commercial cards in the US and globally have insinuated themselves into corporations by replacing checks and bank wire transfers with dynamic iterations of payment cards. Commercial cards integrated into spend management platforms allow finance departments to almost eliminate fraud and to put the power of corporate purchasing into the hands of more employees while maintaining complete control over how/where/when and dollars spent with payments.
In the US alone, there are 6.2 million employer firms, with 135 million employees, payrolls totaling $8.1 trillion and sales/shipments of $50.3 trillion. These companies spend $13 trillion on procurement, $300 billion on T&E, $304 billion on company fleets and fleet management. We estimate that only half of all employer firms use commercial or corporate cards which means the market size for new cards is 3.2 million firms.
Both commercial cards and Real Time Payments (RTP) are targeting the 3.1 billion checks totaling $8.45 trillion as well as corporate payments made by wire transfer and ACH.
Through 2027, we estimate that US commercial cards will grow at a CAGR within the range of 16.6% to 21.0% while globally, commercial cards will grow to $81.6 trillion by 2027 with a CAGR of 5.0%.
Some of the most dynamic players in corporate payments are firms using expertise mastered over years in specific niches to develop comprehensive corporate spend and payments platforms using virtual payment cards. For instance, Corpay and WEX are the heavyweights of fleet cards and are experts at collecting time and location and buyer and seller details of each transaction. They have both leveraged their competencies with complex transactions to a larger corporate spend landscape.
The new Packaged Facts report, Commercial Payment Cards: US Market Trends, 13th Edition, profiles each of the largest players and platforms in the commercial card payments sector with a focus on both the market opportunity of the space as well as the barriers to widespread adoption faced by virtual cards.
The report provides a detailed analysis of commercial payment card trends in the US and sizes the method of payment’s global market. Commercial cards are a rapidly growing segment of the payment card market and the finance departments driving use demand seamlessness and evergreen innovation.
Executive Summary
Scope & Methodology
Scope
Methodology
Market Opportunity for Commercial Cards
Small Business Cards
Fintechs Use Niche Expertise to Build Out Market Presence
Global Market of Commercial Card Networks
Overview
JCB
UnionPay
US Commercial Card Market
Total US Commercial Card Volume & Volume Forecast to 2027
Small Businesses Tap Cred Credit Cards for Financing
Payroll Cards
T&E Spend
US Card Networks
Visa
Mastercard
American Express
Discover Financial Services
Leveraging Categories of Corporate Spend
Travel and Entertainment
Return to Business Travel Continues in 2024
US Business Travel Back to 2019 Levels in 2024
Fleet and Fuel Cards Become Platforms for Providers' Growth
Challenges and Solutions in the Commercial Card Business
Challenge: Stasis of Business Optimism Strains Commercial Card Growth
Solution: Fintechs Introduce Scalable Solutions to Specific Problems
Challenge: Visa/Mastercard Duopoly Challenged by the Credit Card Competition Act of 2023
Challenge or Solution? Real Time Payments
Challenge: Virtual Card Friction at Vendor Must Be Addressed
Global Market of Commercial Card Networks
Overview
Table Volume Processed by Largest Global Payment Networks, 2021-2023 ($ trillion)
Table Global Commercial Card Volume, 2021-2023 ($ trillion)
Table Global Commercial Card Volume, 2021-2027 ($ trillion)
JCB
JCB Dives into Europe with Fiserv Partnership
Table JCB Annual Transaction Volume, 2021-2023 (JPY in trillion and USD in billion)