Virgin Money partners with Expend for SME expense management

In one of the first partnerships of the new year, Virgin Money has teamed up with fintech Expend to add expense management to its business banking offering.

The tie-up will see Virgin quickly able to offer Expend’s platform to its customers, letting SMEs and employees submit and manage their expenses.

“Businesses want to be able to do tasks quicker and more effectively – and this expense management service is exactly the kind of help many of them need,” said Virgin Money’s interim head of business banking Graeme Sands. 

“Not only will it solve a core business pain point, but it will also enrich the data they have, giving an accurate view of their expenditure.”

Expend launched in 2015 and today has 20 employees, its offering is similar to that of Pleo or Expensify, with Expend-branded expense cards and a portal for filing and administering claims.

CEO and founder Johnny Vowles called the partnership with Virgin Money “a real statement of our intent to bring powerful spend and expense management tools into the hands of small and medium businesses.”

It’s not the first time Virgin has looked across the fintech landscape to boost its business banking proposition either.

Last year the bank joined forces with Trade Ledger in order to improve its experience for its business customers applying for lending.

Today Virgin said it will continue partnering with fintechs in order to improve its Working Capital Health product, which includes business term loans, asset finance and invoice financing for SMEs.