City National Bank Joins with Extend to Launch Virtual Visa Commercial Credit Card

Innovative payments capability offers commercial card clients a simple, easy and secure way to make payments.

LOS ANGELES — City National Bank, America’s Premier Private and Business Bank®, today announced that it has joined with New York City-based fintech startup Extend to launch a virtual Visa commercial credit card solution that is able to generate true virtual cards on demand that can easily be added to Google Pay and Apple Pay mobile wallets for simplified and secure contactless payments at point of sale. With Extend, City National is the first issuer in the U.S. to launch this competitive solution.

With this new virtual Visa card capability, City National commercial card clients can instantly send virtual credit cards to employees, contractors and vendors with enhanced digital capabilities, distinct spending limits and expiration dates, giving companies more oversight and control over how corporate cards are used. Once the cards are issued and enabled in the digital wallet, employees, contractors and vendors can use the cards for online purchases or use Apple Pay and Google Pay mobile wallets to make contactless payments at point of sale with a mobile phone, without having to wait for a physical card.

“We’re all about providing our clients with state-of-the art, efficient and secure payment solutions,” said Linda Duncombe, executive vice president and chief marketing, product and digital officer of City National Bank. “City National has a long history of serving our clients in new and innovative ways, and providing our clients with easy-to-use digital solutions for their payment challenges allows us to better support them — especially at a time when many are working remotely. We’re proud to work with Extend and Visa on this terrific and groundbreaking functionality.”

Specifically, the new virtual card solution:

• Makes it easier for clients to issue credit cards to their employees: The program administrator can quickly issue a virtual Visa card to an employee, contractor or vendor via the Extend mobile app or web-based application.
• Simplifies the payment process: Employees, contractors and vendors can quickly load the virtual card into their Apple Pay and Google Pay mobile wallets for easy and contact-less payments. Other perks include automatic reconciliation, receipt and invoice attachments and expense integrations.
• Provides enhanced security: Businesses can distribute virtual Visa cards safely without exposing card numbers and have the ability to cancel cards at any time. Visa Token Service, Visa’s tokenization technology, replaces a cardholder’s 16-digit Visa account number with a secure token that protects the underlying card number from fraudsters.

“Working with City National and Visa has been one of the most exciting opportunities of the last year,” said Andrew Jamison, CEO and co-founder of Extend. “This is a huge industry first. Until now, no one has been able to tokenize true virtual cards for mobile wallets, which brings virtual cards to the point of sale — a hurdle that has stood in the way of serious mass adoption. Now virtual cards can be used just like plastic cards. We’re very excited to see the new value it can create for City National and their business clients.”

“According to Visa Back to Business Study – 2021 Outlook, two-thirds (65%) of consumers would prefer to use contactless payments as much as, or even more than, they are currently,” said Kevin Phalen, global head, Visa Business Solutions. “Our collaboration with City National Bank and Extend to bring Visa virtual card capabilities to their commercial clients delivers innovation that makes B2B payments as simple and effortless as consumer payments are today.”  

This new capability is especially beneficial to City National’s entertainment clients that have resumed production during the pandemic. Clients are now able to make contactless payments on set whenever possible, increasing safety by removing the need for petty cash. City National banks more than 75% of business managers who manage the wealth of actors, directors, writers, musicians, athletes, producers and other firms in the entertainment business.