Latest / Leaders In Payments / AR Automation Special Series: The Virtual Card Revolution with Dean Leavitt, Boost Payment Solutions

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AR Automation Special Series: The Virtual Card Revolution with Dean Leavitt, Boost Payment Solutions · Leaders In Payments

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This special series of the Leaders in Payments podcast is being brought to you by American Express.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: In today's fast-evolving payments landscape, businesses are increasingly turning to automation and innovative payment solutions to help improve efficiency, cash flow and the customer experience.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: From accounts receivable automation, streamlining financial operations, to virtual cards, transforming B2B transactions, technology is reshaping the way companies manage payments.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: In this series, we'll explore how these advancements are helping businesses reduce friction, enhance security and make smarter, data-driven financial decisions.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Greg Myers, and on today's show we have a very special guest, Dean Levitt, the founder and CEO of Boost Payment Solutions.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: So, Dean, welcome, the founder and CEO of Boost Payment Solutions.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: So, Dean, welcome to the show.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Great, great to see you.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you Absolutely.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: So if you don't mind, let's start by having you tell our audience a little bit about yourself, maybe where you're born, where you grew up, where you currently live, a few things like that Sure, I am born and raised in New York, I do currently reside in New York.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: I went to school at Emory University in Atlanta and University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: I have two magnificent daughters.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: One is married, one is about to be married.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: I've been married to the same incredible woman for 38 years now?
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, congratulations.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: So why don't you tell us a little bit about Boost Payment Solutions?
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Well, we just celebrated our 16th anniversary on January 1st.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I started the company after being in the payments arena for over 20 years at that time and it was really started to really solve for what had been a complete vacuum for companies serving the enterprise level B2B space, the enterprise-level B2B space.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Certainly, companies had well-supported travel and entertainment transactions, procurement cards, but there was really nobody out there with any type of purpose-built platform or technology that appropriately served essentially very large companies and institutions paying their suppliers, where the payments get very large and where there may be many, many invoices within those payments requiring the data that's associated with those payments to be properly delivered to the supplier.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: So Boost was founded really, that being the North Star how do we help large companies pay their suppliers, which may themselves be huge companies or maybe small contractors and everything in between?
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: So that was really the founding principle of Boost and that has remained really the core of our business.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: It's now expanded, we now serve 182 countries, but at its essence has been how do we help big companies pay their suppliers?
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, and in that space, relatively I would say relatively new is the virtual cards as opposed to traditional debit and credit cards.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: So maybe talk about what exactly are virtual cards and how do they differ from the more traditional credit and debit cards when it comes to these B2B transactions that you're talking about.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Sure, I think the term virtual card also needs a little bit of a definition.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: By definition, it's something that is virtual.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: It doesn't exist.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: It's not a piece of plastic.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: However, most of us that live within the B2B payments arena think of virtual cards as a single-use product.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: So, unlike traditional cards, be it a piece of plastic or even a virtual static card, as it's commonly referred to, where anytime the card is used, it could be used over and over again to make various payments to various payees Unlike that, virtual cards, or single-use virtual cards, are essentially spun up by the issuer each time for a new payment, so that card number can only be used for that particular payment and typically for that exact amount, so that if anybody tries to use that card in an unauthorized manner for a different amount or to pay a different payee, the transaction will be declined.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: So it offers up a host of security related elements as well as operational efficiencies, which we could discuss more of as well.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Sure sure.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: So what are some of those primary benefits of using virtual cards in this B2B transaction world?
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: Sure, so typically virtual cards are embedded into a corporate or institutional's AP platform so that it is merely an extension of the process by which a company reviews, approves invoices and then somebody in the AP department, accounts, payable department hits the button OK to pay.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: To the extent the company is utilizing virtual cards, that automatically tells the issuer, out of typically their ERP platform or their accounting system, to please spin up a card number and send it to supplier X, y or Z for this amount, for these invoice numbers, et cetera along.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: You know all the remittance detail associated with those transactions.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: So it really makes for a very automated, seamless process for the buyer it also allows.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: The differential between using a virtual card versus other traditional payment modalities is from a security perspective.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Not only is that card used one time, with the secure benefits I mentioned earlier, but it also eliminates the need for that corporate entity or that institution to hold banking information of their suppliers Right.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: So traditionally, if you're sending wires or ACHs, let's say, you have to have all of the banking information, financial data, within your system someplace so that you could send that wire, ach to the appropriate account Utilizing virtual cards.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: That completely eliminates the need for that payer to have to hold that information and, you know, with the rise in fraud and various types of cyber-related security threats, not having to hold that data within the organization is a big deal.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, and it's hard to have a conversation about cards and not bring up Amex.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: So you guys recently signed a collaboration with Amex, so Can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: Sure Super excited about this new collaboration.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Our teams are working very closely together.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: The design of the collaboration is virtual cards are typically sent via email out of a issuer's platform.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: If I, as a corporate, want to pay my suppliers and I want to pay via virtual card, when I go through that process, I approve the invoice and I essentially tell my issuer be it a bank or a non-bank issuer, in this case American Express to please send out that transaction.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: It's going to go via email.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: If you are a supplier that receives a large number of these, a high velocity of these virtual cards, it can be very cumbersome, right?
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: You have to manually open the emails, you have to unpack the information in it, which is a combination of the card number that has been spun up for that event, as well as all the remittance detail that then needs to be manually posted into your accounting system.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: What this collaboration is all about is automating that process.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: So, instead of these emails going out from the Amex buyer to the supplier, they instead come to Boost, and what we do is we ingest all of these emails and we convert it into what's commonly referred to as a straight-through processed experience, acronym STP.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: So we convert all of these transactions into a straight-through experience, so that the payee, the supplier, does not have to manually process these transactions and, in most cases, not manually post these transactions to their ERP or accounting system, and in order to automate the posting process.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: We also work with the supplier to make sure that we know exactly what kind of formats and delivery protocols they need to receive this remittance detail in.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: So it's a phenomenal collaboration.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: It has really skyrocketed since we started not that long ago.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: The reception has been really incredible and the two teams, as I mentioned, are just working beautifully together.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, and one of the solutions that Boost has is the Intercept product, so can you talk about Boost Intercept?
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: So Intercept, as the name implies, was designed to intercept all of those emails that would typically go from American Express on the issuing side to the suppliers.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: And you can think of Boost Intercept as kind of a large funnel or a lockbox essentially, for these virtual card transactions coming in.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: So instead of them going to the supplier, we intercept them and we convert them to a straight through process experience.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: So it's really like a large funnel that's designed to just capture all of these so that the supplier doesn't have to manually unpack and process these transactions.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Can you explain PARTS P-A-R-T-S?
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Just for those who are listening and may wonder what the acronym?
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: That is an acronym, but how does it tell us about what it is and how does it separate BOOST from other payment processing options?
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: we consider to be the five mission-critical items that go into the calculus of a supplier when they are considering card acceptance at all.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Perhaps considering the expansion of a card acceptance program, that now may be very small, just across a small group of their customers, but they're considering opening it wide up to all of their customers.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: And the acronym stands for pricing, automation, reporting, timing of payments and security.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: And what we have found over our 16-year lifetime is that these are the five components that go into the mindset when a supplier is considering card exception acceptance.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Rather so some suppliers may focus maniacally on one or two of them, some may just focus on automation, or others might just focus on pricing, or others might focus on pricing and security.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: What Boost does is we make sure we optimize all five.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Whatever the specific focus might be of the supplier across these five elements that go into that decision process, we make sure all five are optimized for that supplier.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, and you mentioned security, so let's double click on that.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: So how do virtual cards enhance security and fraud prevention for business buyers?
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: security and fraud prevention for business buyers.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Sure, so you know, as I mentioned earlier, one of the big aspects of it is that buyers no longer have to maintain the financial or banking information of their suppliers.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: That is a huge deal.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: That is really a huge deal, and as all companies spend enormous amounts of money and effort and other resources on reducing the attack surface of their organization from a cybercrime perspective, these crimes still do take place, unfortunately.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: So if you can eliminate the need to have all of this financial data of what could be thousands of suppliers in your universe, that's a really big, big deal.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: The other thing is, as I mentioned earlier, virtual cards have zero value to anyone other than the purchaser that has asked American Express to spin up this card or the supplier to which this payment is being made.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: So, unlike traditional card products that are static, meaning they have a value that can be tapped into for a host of different buyer-supplier profiles.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: This is very specific to that particular payment in terms of the amount and secure.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I could tell you just at Boost, we are 100% virtual cards.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Whether they're single-use cards or static cards, the common thread is that we never, ever, across our entire network, have a single supplier that ever sees the card data and that's really important because that means it is virtually impossible for a supplier to initiate an unauthorized transaction and that's often where problems stem from.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: That relates to chargebacks and other concerns.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: But to the extent you utilize these products, you don't provide kind of open access to an open-to-buy on a card.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: It just changes the game enormously on the secure front.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would assume the fraud rate is incredibly low.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm very proud to report that in its 16 years of existence, boost has never had a single chargeback on a business to business transaction and we have never lost a nickel of fraud, so we're very proud of it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: I'm knocking on wood as I'm saying that, but it is largely because of the instruments that we use for corporations to make and receive payments via the card rails.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and you talked about sort of on the buyer side, but how does Boost Intercept enhance security and fraud prevention on the supplier side?
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, great question.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: So when you have to receive these payments outside of virtual cards, typically an accounts receivable department would normally have on the system someplace, presumably in a safe place, the card data presumably in a safe place the card data right, so that anytime they receive a request for the payment to be made by their customer, the buyer, the cardholder, they would have to access that data and then manually process that payment Again, having that card data accessible, if you're a large or medium-sized company, to many, many people could be very scary, you know, just to have that kind of card data floating around.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: So from the supplier's perspective, the CFO's office of the supplier especially, and the chief security officer all the way down, not having that active, open card data available to the accounts receivable department is huge from a security perspective accounts receivable department is huge from a security perspective.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's move off of the security and fraud side and let's talk about virtual cards from the perspective of how they can streamline the expense management process for these companies.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: So the fact that they are embedded into let's start with the buy side.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: They're embedded into a buyer's system.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: It does, in fact, streamline the process.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Other payment modalities require the AP department or finance department, wherever it may sit, to kind of go outside of their ERP or accounting system and have to manually facilitate the payments.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: When you have a customer that is plugged in, hardwired into American Express's virtual card platform again, once that invoice is approved, that okay to pay button is pushed, they're done.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: They're done.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: The rest is completely automated and the card will be spun up and it will be sent out.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: Boost will catch it via intercept and convert it into a straight through process or completely passive experience for the supplier.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: So by having this system in place, you're not only benefiting the buyer from an operational efficiency perspective, you're also really helping out the supplier.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: So anytime you can create more stickiness between a buyer and a supplier in terms of how payments are made or received, obviously it's a win for both parties.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, so specifically to this new collaboration with Amex, what problem are you hoping to solve?
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Sort of part one of the question, Part two what will the addition of this Boost Intercept product allow Amex merchants to do?
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: So the problem that it's going to solve is most American Express corporate customers want to migrate as much of the spend as they possibly can from current payment modality be it check, wire, ach over to the Amex product.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: And one of the friction points that often curtails that is supplier acceptance.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: If you are a supplier, as I mentioned earlier, that gets a high velocity of these, you may be resistant to be willing to take a lot of them.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: So by automating the process all the way through, we're allowing these American Express customers to put more and more of the spend that they would like to their supplier base on the cards.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: The problem we're solving really helps both sides of the equation.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: Both are American Express customers.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: You have buyers that want to put more on card and you have suppliers that, while they may be willing to accept cards, the operational lift of having to support all these card remits is significant.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: So by, I would say, completely but largely, eliminating really any HR process for them opens up the door dramatically for additional acceptance.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: So that's the goal of the collaboration.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: That's what we have been working on very closely with the American Express team for quite a while and that's going to continue to be.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: The goal is how do we make this process seamless for both buyers and suppliers through the use of technology.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Our five times patented technology allows for that conversion from what might be a manual process to a completely passive or automated experience.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: In terms of part two of your question, it's actually very, very simple.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: There is a simple link to a website that the supplier would click on.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: They would fill out a one-page form and then, from that point forward, an American Express rep would contact them and kind of walk them through the process, along with a Boost representative.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: So we've designed it to be a very simple process to get set up.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: There is no additional cost for American Express suppliers to participate in this program and have their entire virtual card acceptance program automated, so it's really a win-win for everybody.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, and so specific to this collaboration, how is it different, or what are the specifics that make it different, than maybe some of the other solutions out there?
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Well, let's first start with the technology.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: It is, in fact, a patented technology that allows for this migration from what are email-based, manually processed transactions to a fully automated process.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: It's also, frankly, about the people.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: The ways in which the American Express team and the Boost team just are completely aligned in terms of the goals and the aspirations of the program.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: The method by which we're introducing it to the community, both on the buyer and supplier side, has really been unique.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Boost has a lot of partnerships with a lot of different entities.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: I have found this to be unique in the way in which both teams are just completely aligned, rowing absolutely in the same direction with equal excitement on both sides of the equation.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: So that's really the heart and soul of it.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, and we're coming towards the end of the show and I think you sort of mentioned this, but I want you to reiterate, if you don't mind is how do businesses sign up for Boost Intercept through Amex?
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Sure, the website that they would need to access is wwwboostb2bcom slash American Express.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: So that's Boost letter B, number two, letter Bcom slash American Express, and that will present them with a simple form they need to fill out and, as I mentioned, somebody from American Express will get back to them in short order.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, great.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: So obviously we've talked a lot about you and the company and what you're doing with Amex and all the benefits there.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up the show?
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Well, just you know.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: I think American Express customers should know that this was born out of a real strong desire of the senior management team at American Express to make life easier for both sides of the equation.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Amex cards are magnificent instruments, but there are aspects of virtual cards that do require manual processes, and Amex and Boost have focused intently on how do we eliminate those manual processes.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: And a lot of it started with senior management at American Express wanting to make life a lot easier, smoother and streamlined for their corporate customers.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, great.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: So, dean, thank you so much for being on the show today.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: I know your time is very valuable, so I really appreciate you being here.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: It's a pleasure.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: And to all your listeners out there.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us today as we discussed how automation and digital payment solutions are helping to revolutionize the way businesses manage transactions, improve cash flow and make smarter, data-driven financial decisions.