i2c and Bento team to offer SMEs more spending control via prepaid card
i2c has joined forces with expense management specialist Bento for Business to launch a new prepaid card designed to give small business owners and their employees a better way to manage spending and expenses. Powered by i2c’s Agile Processing payments platform, the Mastercard-branded Bento employee expense card features integrated alerts, card-level restrictions and digital dashboards to enable companies to track and control employee spending in real-time, the companies said.
Small businesses have shown strong interest in prepaid and emerging payments tools that can streamline expense management—a time-consuming process often prone to complications. With many SMBs not large enough to qualify for a corporate credit card, SMB owners often resort to giving employees cash, personal credit cards or signed checks for business expenses—a risky method that makes it difficult to track employee spending.
Bento for Business launched in 2015, with the goal of solving the expense management process for the SMB segment, which was being underserved by existing financial services. Founded by longtime payments veteran Farhan Ahmad, the San Francisco-based company designed a prepaid platform tailored for SMBs, which can set limits on dollar amounts and specific spending categories where the card can be used. Unauthorized transactions are automatically declined, and cards can be switched on and off with a single click. Real-time interactive dashboards and two-way alerts enable small businesses to instantly track and monitor expenses and help employees stay on budget. Meanwhile, mobile integration enables employees to keep track of their receipts on their smartphones.
“Managing employee expenses is an important but time-consuming process for small business owners whose time could be better spent focusing on growing their business,” said Ahmad, who serves as Bento CEO. “The i2c processing platform allows us to deliver a feature-rich expense card solution with all the tools and real-time controls to make administration easy.”
