UPDATED 23:13 EDT / SEPTEMBER 10 2019

APPS

Stripe launches new corporate card pitched at small businesses and startups

Payment processing technology startup Stripe Inc. Tuesday launched the Stripe Corporate Card, a credit card designed to cater to small businesses and startups.

The card, linked to Stripe’s payments platform, is aimed at solving challenges for smaller companies that have trouble securing credit cards to buy supplies and to issue to employees.

“We’re really targeting all businesses on Stripe but are focusing on fast-growing startups and small businesses,” Stripe spokesperson Cristina Cordova said. “A lot of these businesses are using their personal cards.”

Stripe is pitching the card as being flexible including not freezing access based on late or no payments, at least initially. “A pretty common reason for non-payment is that a person switched bank accounts and forgot to update the information,” Cordova told TechCrunch. “But we think we’ll have fewer problems because we have banking information for accepting revenue, by way of our payments business.”

The launch of the credit card, linked to Visa Inc., is yet another launch from the increasingly popular San Francisco-based payments firm. On Sept. 5, Stripe entered the business lending market with a new service that offers loans to online companies in the U.S.

Called Stripe Capital, the lending service offers cash advances to small businesses and online companies utilizing Stripe’s existing customer data, negating the need for a lengthy application process. Funds under the service are promised to hit a customer’s account the next day.

Stripe isn’t alone in offering credit cards to small businesses and startups. Brex Inc., a fellow San Francisco-based startup backed by $382.1 million in venture capital funding from the likes of Kleiner Perkins and Peter Thiel, offers a similar corporate credit card service for small businesses and online startups.

As with Stripe’s new offering, Brex pitches itself in similar terms: easy to sign up, interest-free terms and flexibility when it comes to repayments. The main difference between the two offerings is that Brex has partnered with Mastercard Inc., not Visa.

“It makes sense for younger companies to target startups with corporate card products,” Brian Riley, director of Mercator’s credit advisory service, told Bloomberg. “The fintechs don’t have a strong play into the mainstream businesses, but there are different niches they can go in to,’’ he added, while noting that “the challenge comes in the burn rate and how many unicorns really survive.”

Image: Stripe

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