Mathieu, let’s start with a general observation. Why does payment management in business travel still seem so underdeveloped compared to other areas of corporate finance?
Mathieu Volondat : It’s a finding shared by many CFOs and travel managers. The operational burden linked to payments accumulates gradually, until a significant portion of the finance team’s time is spent handling exceptions rather than steering expenses. What appears to be a simple constraint for the traveler becomes, at the organizational level, a structural problem. The payment tools and processes have not kept pace with the maturity reached by other financial functions.
Quelles en sont les causes profondes ?
Mathieu Volondat : The principal cause is structural. Travel bookings, expense reporting, and accounting typically rely on separate tools that were not designed to interlock with each other. Each transfer between systems creates a friction zone where data gets lost or travel policy rules are not transmitted.
À quoi ressemble cette configuration unifiée ?
Mathieu Volondat : Rather than forcing companies to choose between a corporate card solution and an expense management tool, Pliant weaves together three complementary levels:
● The centralized payment for preferred suppliers, airlines, hotels, rail operators, with visibility on each transaction at the moment it occurs
● Business expenses with virtual cards parameterized by supplier or by team, tailored limits, and automated reconciliation of transactions
● Collaborator cards, physical and virtual, for teams needing travel flexibility, with a mobile app enabling receipt capture
The result is a setup in which the traveler moves without friction, while the finance leadership retains its control levers without tying up its teams on an ongoing basis.
L’authentification forte est devenue un vrai point de friction en Europe. Vous avez évoqué les exemptions SCA/3DS prévues pour le secteur du voyage. Qu’est-ce que cela change concrètement ?
Mathieu Volondat : It changes one key thing: the ability to run automated payments without human intervention. In travel, many transactions occur when the traveler is not available, for example during late check-ins, after schedule disruptions, or at the moment of a rebooking. A 3DS challenge at the wrong moment breaks the chain.
When travel purchasing cards can be used without 3DS challenges, companies can build truly reliable workflows. The payment goes through, the data is captured immediately, and the back office no longer has to chase after exceptions. The result is fewer manual interventions and, most importantly, a higher acceptance rate where it matters.
La lutte contre la fraude est toujours un exercice d’équilibre. Quels contrôles sont les plus utiles en travel sans dégrader l’acceptation ?
Mathieu Volondat : The most effective controls are those that are specific and easy to understand: merchant and MCC restrictions, clear limits, validity windows, and time-based rules when needed. In travel, a one-size-fits-all policy creates many false positives. Legitimate transactions get blocked, and teams end up relaxing controls to keep operating.
The pragmatic approach is to contextualize. If a card is intended for a hotel chain or a TMC, restrict it to that scope. If it is linked to a travel period, align the dates. You reduce the risk surface and preserve a good approval rate, because the authorization logic matches the use case.
Même quand les paiements passent, c’est souvent la réconciliation qui fait dérailler les programmes. Quelles données et quels reportings faut-il pour une réconciliation rapide et fiable, y compris sur les refus et les remboursements ?
Les dépenses de voyage sont par nature difficiles à anticiper. Comment maintenir un cadre de politique voyage dans cet environnement ?
Mathieu Volondat : It is indeed the central challenge. The solution we offer relies on configurable controls that adapt to context without adding friction to workflows. With Pliant, each card can be configured to reflect the company’s travel policy: per-transaction or per-period limits, merchant category restrictions, usage windows, validation levels. These parameters can be adjusted at any time, without delay.
Qu’est-ce que cela change concrètement pour les équipes financières au quotidien ?
Mathieu Volondat : For teams managing business travel, the real cost is not limited to the expenses themselves. It includes the time spent handling anomalies: following up with employees for receipts, processing reimbursement requests, reconciling card statements with invoices that sometimes arrive weeks after the transaction, correcting data before the monthly close.
With Pliant, every transaction is visible as it happens. Payment refusals come through in real time. Policy breaches are blocked at the source rather than detected afterwards. And because each card is configured with its own rules, the system enforces policies without the finance team having to intervene systematically.
The reduction in administrative burden is measurable: less time spent on reconciliation, fewer expense reports to process, and a consolidated view of travel spend available at any point during the month.
Pour un directeur financier qui évalue des solutions, quels sont les critères de sérieux à prendre en compte, et que représente Pliant sur ce plan ?
Mathieu Volondat : In business travel, where compliance and risk management are ongoing priorities, the robustness of the infrastructure is a prerequisite. Pliant is a licensed electronic money institution and a principal Visa member, PCI DSS and ISO 27001 certified. We issue Visa cards in 12 currencies across more than 30 countries, and our solution is already deployed at thousands of companies in Europe. Deployment typically takes about two weeks.
For CFOs, the benefits are concrete: better control of spend, more reliable data, streamlined reconciliation, and a simplified traveler experience without requiring a overhaul of existing systems. The solution also includes a cashback mechanism on card spend, which provides a direct financial return on top of operational gains.
Un dernier mot pour les travel managers et directeurs financiers présents au Forum des Pionniers ?
Mathieu Volondat : Solutions exist. The question companies face today is more about when they will take the leap. We will soon enrich our offering in France with a hosted card solution dedicated to centralized travel payments, which will complement our setup for travel and finance teams. This is a milestone we are eagerly looking forward to.
👉 Discover the Pliant solution for business travel.
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