American Express announced the @Work expansion Wednesday, giving corporate finance teams the ability to generate, configure, and deploy virtual cards without switching platforms — a structural change targeting the single biggest reason virtual cards have struggled to move beyond niche travel payments: the cost of adding a new tool to an existing workflow. The announcement covers two separate expansions: virtual card creation built directly into the company’s @Work administrative platform, and an expanded partnership with Conferma that lets Business Travel Account holders issue Amex virtual cards through Conferma’s mobile app for on-the-go travel expenses.
Why Embedding Is the Point
The commercial virtual card market is expanding fast. Virtual card transaction value reached $6.43 trillion in 2026 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 19% through 2031, reaching $15.14 trillion, according to Mordor Intelligence. Mastercard research from 2025 found that 74% of B2B buyers expect virtual cards to account for at least a quarter of their transactions by 2028.
Despite those projections, commercial cards — virtual and physical — still account for less than 3% of B2B payments, according to FIS, even as global commercial card spending surpassed $4.3 trillion in 2024. The gap is not a technology problem. Virtual cards have been technically capable of replacing paper checks for corporate supplier payments for well over a decade. The documented barrier is operational: adopting virtual cards has historically required finance teams to introduce a new platform, a new login, a new set of processes — on top of the card management tools they already use daily.
That is what American Express is targeting with the @Work integration. By building virtual card issuance into the same interface corporate administrators use to process card applications, monitor employee spending, and pull reports, the company has reduced the switching cost to zero for existing @Work users. A finance manager who logs into @Work every morning now has virtual card creation available without opening anything new.
“Businesses want to simplify how they pay for things while maintaining control and visibility into spending across employee expenses, supplier payments and business travel,” said Eva Reda, Executive Vice President of Global Commercial Services Products at American Express. “Virtual cards can help solve many of these challenges, which is why we’re making it easier for customers to create and manage them in the software and digital wallets they’re already using.”
How @Work Virtual Cards Actually Work
Each virtual card generated inside @Work consists of a unique 16-digit Primary Account Number (PAN), expiration date, and CVV security code — the standard card credential set, but dynamically generated rather than printed on plastic. The card exists only for the specific transaction window it is configured for: finance administrators set a spending limit, a usage timeframe, and optionally a set of merchant category code or country restrictions at issuance. Once those parameters are met or the expiry triggers, the credential is worthless.
This architecture is what makes virtual cards structurally more secure than physical corporate cards for B2B spending. A compromised virtual card number has a maximum exposure equal to the configured limit — not the company’s underlying credit facility. American Express cited its lowest U.S. fraud rate record among major card networks for 19 consecutive years as part of its security positioning for the @Work launch.
Beyond security, the structured data return is the feature finance teams typically underestimate until they use it. When a virtual card transaction settles, detailed reconciliation metadata — vendor, amount, cost center coding, and transaction context — flows back to whatever ERP or expense management software @Work connects to. The manual month-end process of matching statement lines to invoices becomes largely automated. That is the operational argument for corporate adoption that goes well beyond fraud prevention.
Virtual cards issued from @Work can be extended to contractors, interns, company guests, and other authorized users who do not hold a traditional corporate card — expanding the program’s reach to the kinds of irregular spending patterns that most often end up on personal cards requiring manual reimbursement.
Conferma’s Role: Solving Tail Spend in Business Travel
The second piece of the announcement — the Conferma Business Travel Account integration — addresses a specific and persistent problem in managed travel: the tail spend that falls outside central billing.
A Business Travel Account is a centrally billed instrument traditionally used for high-ticket, pre-booked travel items: airfare, hotel reservations made through a corporate booking tool. What it has not covered well is the incidental spending that happens during a trip — the restaurant meal, the rideshare to the airport, the pharmacy stop. That spend has historically landed on an employee’s personal card, requiring reimbursement processing that is slow for employees and administratively burdensome for finance teams.
The Conferma integration routes that on-the-go spend through a new path: eligible BTA customers can now generate Amex virtual cards directly in the Conferma mobile app, configurable in real time, for the expenses incurred during travel. Multi-level approval workflows, digital receipt capture, and enhanced transaction data are all included per the Amex announcement.
Conferma, now a subsidiary of Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR) after Sabre’s 2022 Conferma acquisition, functions as what the industry describes as a token facilitator: it sits between the card issuer (American Express) and the travel management company ecosystem, generating and managing the virtual card credentials that flow through that ecosystem. Conferma connects issuers to more than 700 travel management companies, all major global distribution systems, and over 100 online booking tools — an infrastructure footprint that makes it the connective layer most corporate travel virtual card programs already depend on. Mastercard also holds a minority investment in Conferma, taken at the same time as the Sabre acquisition.
The Conferma BTA integration is currently available to U.S.-based Business Travel Account customers and requires enrollment.
What Corporate Finance Teams Need to Know
The @Work virtual card feature is currently in staged rollout, available to select U.S.-based American Express Corporate Program customers, with broader availability planned. Finance teams at eligible companies should contact their American Express representative to request access. The @Work platform already integrates with ERP and expense management software, which means virtual card transaction data flows into existing financial reporting infrastructure without additional configuration for most standard integrations.
For companies with significant contractor, intern, or guest-user spending currently handled through personal card reimbursements, the @Work expansion offers a practical alternative: issue a configurable virtual card with the spending limit and expiration appropriate for the engagement, and the transaction appears directly in corporate reporting without a reimbursement cycle.
For companies using the Business Travel Account, the Conferma integration is the more operationally significant change. Getting incidental travel spend on a centrally issued, policy-controlled virtual card rather than a personal card tightens compliance with travel policies and eliminates the most time-consuming part of post-travel expense reporting for both travelers and finance teams.
The Race to Claim B2B Corporate Card Spend
American Express is not alone in accelerating its commercial virtual card push. J.P. Morgan Payments launched virtual cards in Europe in March 2026, in collaboration with Mastercard, targeting accounts payable automation in insurance, healthcare, travel, and commercial real estate. Marqeta expanded its embedded finance and virtual card platform in September 2025, deepening its infrastructure role in the commercial card space. Mastercard’s embedded virtual card program, launched in 2025, expanded across more than ten global B2B and travel and expense platforms by year-end — including SAP Concur, SAP Taulia, and several other ERP integrations — more than doubling its 2024 footprint.
The timing of the @Work integration is deliberate in that context. AmEx’s closed-loop network — unlike Visa and Mastercard’s open-loop infrastructure, which splits merchant discount fees across issuers, acquirers, and the network itself — allows the company to capture more of the economic value from each virtual card transaction while controlling the end-to-end data. Embedding virtual card issuance in @Work deepens the stickiness of that proprietary corporate software at a moment when competitors are actively building comparable capabilities.
The 2025 Mastercard whitepaper that produced the 74% stat was based on responses from over 1,100 global procurement leaders, and the research also found that 79% of that group named digitizing procurement as a top organizational priority. That demand signal is what American Express, JPMorgan Chase, and Marqeta are all racing to convert into platform share.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do American Express @Work virtual cards differ from traditional corporate card programs, and who specifically benefits from the new feature?
Standard corporate card programs issue physical cards with fixed numbers that go to named employees. @Work virtual cards generate a unique, configurable card number — with a spending limit, expiration, and merchant restriction set at creation — and can be extended to contractors, interns, guests, and authorized users who don’t hold a physical Amex corporate card. The practical benefit is that irregular or project-specific spending (a contractor’s equipment purchase, an intern’s business travel meals) can stay on the corporate card program with full visibility and controls, rather than landing on a personal card requiring reimbursement. The feature is currently in staged rollout for select U.S.-based Corporate Program customers; companies should contact their Amex representative for access.
Why have virtual cards — with their well-documented security and efficiency advantages — remained under 3% of global B2B payments for so long?
The documented barrier has not been technological. Virtual cards have been technically capable of replacing checks and ACH transfers for discretionary corporate spending for well over a decade. The persistent obstacle is workflow friction: until now, using them required corporate finance teams to add a new platform, a new login, and a new set of processes on top of the tools they already use daily. Most finance teams have been unwilling to absorb that switching cost for a marginal upgrade. By building virtual card issuance directly into @Work — where corporate card administrators already spend part of every workday — American Express has reduced that switching cost to near zero for existing @Work users. Commercial cards account for under 3% of global B2B payments, per FIS. The Conferma piece applies the same logic to business travel: the Conferma mobile app already exists in the BTA workflow, and adding virtual card issuance to it costs users nothing in terms of behavioral change.
What does Conferma actually do, and why does it matter that it’s now owned by Sabre?
Conferma is a Manchester-based virtual payments technology firm that acts as the infrastructure connecting card issuers (like American Express) with the corporate travel ecosystem — travel management companies, global distribution systems, and online booking tools. When a business travel transaction is paid with a virtual card, Conferma typically handles the generation and management of the card credential that flows through that chain. Sabre acquired Conferma in 2022 and Mastercard subsequently made a minority investment. That ownership structure means the virtual card plumbing for a significant share of managed corporate travel runs through a Sabre subsidiary — which gives the AmEx BTA partnership immediate reach across Conferma’s existing network of more than 700 travel management company connections.
What practical steps should a finance manager take after reading this?
For companies using the American Express Corporate Card Program: contact your American Express representative to request access to the @Work virtual card feature. While in staged rollout, it is being made available to eligible U.S.-based Corporate Program customers now. For Business Travel Account holders: reach out to Conferma or your travel management company to ask about enrollment in the Amex Virtual Cards integration through the Conferma mobile app, currently available to U.S.-based BTA customers. In either case, review your current contractor and guest-user expense workflows — the use cases that generate the most personal-card reimbursement burden are likely the best candidates for virtual card substitution.