Business cards, commercial credit cards, prepaid cards and fleet cards represent a large portion of North American Commercial Expenditures. According to a report by Mercator Advisory Group of the $28.7 Trillion in North American Commercial Expenditures in 2018, $1.6 trillion was spent using credit card payments with about $600 million spent by mid to large market businesses alone. According to the Mercator, Advisory Groups forecast this number is expected to continue to grow in the coming years. According to the report, annual growth revenues for these markets are in the $15 billion range and Mercator believes growth could double or triple if ease of use programs are implemented.
The report also found that the growth in commercial credit card use within the United States was mostly due to the continued rise of non-cash payments, a healthy economy and more people moving to digital currency from paper money.
Another interesting part of the report is that currently credit cards only represent a small number of commercial expenditures with 8x the number of business transactions completed by checks. In fact, $13.5 trillion in expenditures are made by check, the largest type of payment method by far. Checks likely represent a vulnerable share of the commercial market that credit cards might be able to easily overtake. Evidence of the trend towards credit card use from check use is evidence by the fact that from 2000 to 2012 the numbers of checks written declined by more than 50% while easier to use services such as direct deposit tripled.
The Mercator report highlights the increasing growth and importance of credit card use in business to business transactions and consequently how important it will be for B2B companies to accept these credit card payments as the trend towards digital currency continues.