Small business credit card enhancements from AmEx, Citi and Visa
Three credit card companies unveiled enhancements to their small-business products during the last 10 days of June. Here are the highlights of their announcements.
American Express, the Plum Card and cash flow
First up, American Express, which sets out to help entrepreneurs with their cash flow. For those with the company’s Plum Card, this help can take two alternative forms:
- Discount for early payments — If you settle 10 percent or more of your balance within 10 days of your statement’s closing date, you stand to receive a 1.5 percent discount on the sum you pay.
- Extra time to pay — As long as you pay at least 10 percent of your due balance on time, you can take up to 60 days from your statement’s closing date to pay the rest. And, if you choose to do so, you won’t be charged any penalties or interest.
Citi adds to its small business credit cards
Editor’s Note: Thank you for your interest, the CitiBusiness ThankYou® Card offer expired and is no longer available.
Here’s an all-new rewards credit card: the CitiBusiness ThankYou® Card. It comes with all the benefits you’d expect from a new entrant in this highly competitive sector.
Visa’s new expense-management application
Visa issues six of its own small business credit cards, and its logo appears on countless others issued by third-party financial institutions. Whether you can take advantage of the company’s new online tools will depend on whether your institution has chosen to participate in this new offering.
If you can, the tools look very useful. According to Visa’s press release, they’re designed to bring “enhanced efficiencies and transparency” to record keeping and expense management.
As importantly, they also deliver an ability to restrict the card usage of individual employees by location, dollar amount and spending category. So, Visa says, a construction company could restrict its drivers’ plastic so that only gas purchases were possible, and its foreman’s cards so that they could be used only to buy construction materials.
At a time when so many SMEs are struggling to stay afloat, it’s good to see these card issuers working to make life easier for entrepreneurs through enhancements to their small business credit cards.
Disclaimer:The information in this article is believed to be accurate as of the date it was written. Please keep in mind that credit card offers change frequently. Therefore, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information in this article. Reasonable efforts are made to maintain accurate information. See the online credit card application for full terms and conditions on offers and rewards. Please verify all terms and conditions of any credit card prior to applying.
This content is not provided by any company mentioned in this article. Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed here are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any such company. CardRatings.com does not review every company or every offer available on the market.
Published (Modified )