Virtual Cards Market

About USD 20.07 billion in 2025, rising to USD 61.51 billion by 2035 at 11.85% a year: that is the answer to how big the Virtual Cards Market is. The Virtual Cards Market covers the fee and interchange revenue that issuers, card networks and programme managers earn on card numbers created in software, with no plastic, for business and consumer payments. Douglas Insights multiplies 5.2 billion blocks of USD 1,000 in virtual card spend (USD 5.2 trillion) by an average revenue yield of USD 3.86 per block to reach USD 20.07 billion. The newest marker is the Mastercard release of 28 July 2026, which extended its In Control virtual card platform to 43 countries and 174 currencies, with Citi named as the first issuer to deploy the new controls globally. The study belongs to our banking, financial services and insurance coverage and follows the Douglas Insights research methodology.

How much do issuers and platforms earn in fees per USD 1,000 of virtual card spend?

USD 3.86 per USD 1,000 of virtual card spend is the 2025 blended revenue yield in our model, about 0.39% of value. Large-ticket business payments in the United States earn more than European business cards or consumer single-use numbers, so the blend sits below the US benchmark set by fleet and travel issuers.

The cleanest public anchor comes from WEX. Its fourth quarter 2024 results, released on 5 February 2025, report a net interchange rate of 0.52% in Corporate Payments, USD 16.5 billion of purchase volume in the quarter and USD 487.8 million of segment revenue for the year. A 0.52% take equals USD 5.20 per USD 1,000, the top of what a mature virtual card issuer keeps after paying partners and rebates.

Douglas Insights puts the realised bands as follows, all per USD 1,000 of virtual card spend in 2025:

Card-issuing processors take a thinner slice. Marqeta reported USD 625 million of net revenue on USD 383 billion of total processing volume for 2025, which works out to USD 1.63 per USD 1,000. Our price leg falls 2.4% a year to 2035, so the yield ends near USD 3.03, because buyers negotiate rebates as their annual virtual card volume passes USD 50 million.

Which virtual card application makes the money, accounts payable or travel settlement?

Accounts payable automation makes the most money, USD 7.71 billion or 38.4% of 2025 virtual card revenue, because supplier invoices are large and recurring. Travel and hospitality settlement follows at 21.7%, ahead of consumer online shopping, healthcare and insurance payouts, and media buying and SaaS subscriptions.

Accounts payable automation holds USD 7.71 billion and grows 12.4% a year to USD 24.81 billion, since every supplier converted from cheque or ACH (Automated Clearing House) transfer adds a virtual card number to each payment run. Travel and hospitality settlement is worth USD 4.36 billion; online travel agencies pay hotels with one card number per booking, but the 10.2% rate is the slowest because that use matured first. Consumer online shopping brings USD 3.59 billion, mostly from bank apps and wallets that mint a fresh virtual card for each merchant, at 11.1% a year. Media buying and SaaS subscriptions add USD 2.15 billion at 12.3%, as finance teams give each software vendor its own capped card.

Healthcare and insurance payouts are the fastest segment at 13.9% a year, from USD 2.27 billion to USD 8.33 billion. Insurers and claims administrators push provider and claimant payments onto virtual cards because each payment carries its own remittance data and closes in days rather than weeks.

Single-use or multi-use: which virtual card type suits a supplier payment run?

Single-use virtual cards carry about 64.8% of 2025 virtual card spend in our estimate, because one number per invoice fixes the amount, the payee and the expiry date. Multi-use virtual cards, the other 35.2%, sit on file with subscription and media vendors that bill every month.

Corpay, in its latest annual report, describes its virtual card as a single-use number issued for a set amount and time window, carrying full remittance data, running on the Mastercard network. American Express sells the same idea as vPayment, where a programme administrator sets the amount, the date range and whether each virtual account number is single-use or multi-use. The trade-off is simple. Both work. Single-use numbers cut fraud and reconciliation work; multi-use numbers cut set-up work for suppliers who are paid 12 times a year.

Why are finance teams moving cheque spend onto virtual cards?

Spend on virtual cards rises 14.6% a year to 2035 in our base case, to about USD 20.3 trillion, as four separate shifts add volume. Each shift below carries its contribution in percentage points, and the four add up to the 14.6-point volume leg.

Accounts payable automation adds 6.4 points. Business payments made up 71% of virtual card transaction value in a Juniper Research forecast for 2026, yet most supplier spend still leaves companies as cheques and bank transfers. Each supplier moved onto a virtual card earns the payer a rebate and the issuer a yield near USD 5 per USD 1,000, so procurement suites now bundle virtual card enrolment into invoice approval.

Travel and hospitality settlement adds 3.1 points. Online travel agencies and bed banks create one virtual card per hotel stay, and Mastercard named Juniper Travel, HBX Group and TravelSoft as partners in its July 2026 expansion. Travel spend grows with trips, not with conversion, so this leg is steady rather than fast.

Wallets and embedded payments add 2.8 points. Visa, in a release on 29 October 2024, extended push-to-wallet for commercial virtual cards to Apple Pay and Google Pay and cited a forecast of more than 121 billion virtual card transactions by 2027, up 340% from 28 billion in 2022. A card that lands in a phone wallet can be used in a shop, which widens virtual card use from back-office invoices to employee purchases.

Healthcare and insurance payouts add the last 2.3 points. Claims payers issue a virtual card per settlement and the provider runs it through an ordinary card terminal, which removes printed cheques from a process that runs millions of times a year. Douglas Insights expects these payouts to lift their share of virtual card revenue from 11.3% in 2025 to 13.6% by 2035.

Add the four legs and the arithmetic closes: 6.4 plus 3.1 plus 2.8 plus 2.3 equals 14.6 points. Accounts payable is the swing factor. If procurement suites enrol suppliers at half the pace we assume, the accounts payable leg falls to about 3.2 points and total virtual card spend grows near 11.4% a year instead of 14.6%. Travel cannot make up the gap. Its 3.1 points depend on trips, and trips grow with incomes, not with software. Wallet use is the upside surprise: every corporate virtual card that sits in a phone can also pay for a taxi, a lunch or a conference ticket, spend that never reached a card before.

Which supplier acceptance barriers slow virtual card conversion?

Three barriers remove about 4.0 points a year from what virtual card spend would otherwise grow, and supplier resistance to card fees is the largest at 1.9 points. Suppliers pay the merchant discount, so many accept a virtual card only for small invoices or add a surcharge.

Supplier acceptance removes 1.9 points. A supplier paid USD 1 million a year by virtual card gives up thousands of dollars in merchant fees that a bank transfer would not cost, and large suppliers often refuse card payment above a ticket of USD 25,000. Issuers concede. They answer with lower large-ticket rates, which is part of why our price leg falls 2.4% a year.

Real-time bank payments remove 1.3 points. Instant account-to-account schemes settle in seconds at a fraction of the card cost, and buyers who never earned a rebate see little reason to adopt a virtual card. Interchange limits and data rules remove 0.8 points, mainly in Europe, where business card economics are thinner and our 2025 yield bands start at USD 2.10 per USD 1,000.

Which networks and card issuing companies win virtual card mandates?

The top three virtual card networks and issuers hold an estimated 52.4% of 2025 virtual card revenue, a Douglas Insights estimate built on disclosed segment revenue where it exists. Mastercard and Visa carry most volume, while WEX, Corpay, American Express and Marqeta run issuing and processing.

Mastercard is the network to beat in business virtual cards. Its 28 July 2026 release added Issuer Enforced Controls, enhanced Clearing Controls and a single Commercial Connect API, said virtual card fraud runs below one-fifth of the rate on other cards, and recorded that Coupa and HSBC completed a live embedded virtual card payment for Pact Group in Asia Pacific. Visa competes on wallet reach through push-to-wallet for commercial cards.

Issuers and processors fill the other side. WEX reported USD 487.8 million of Corporate Payments revenue for 2024, built on travel and accounts payable virtual cards. Marqeta, in its results of 24 February 2026, reported USD 383 billion of total processing volume for 2025, up 31%, and USD 625 million of net revenue, up 23%, as the card-issuing platform behind many fintech programmes. Corpay runs single-use cards on the Mastercard network, and American Express sells vPayment to corporate customers.

Shares above are Douglas Insights estimates of each firm’s slice of virtual card fee revenue, not of total company revenue; banks that issue under the two big networks hold most of the remaining 41.4%.

Do banks or fintech programme managers issue more virtual card value?

Banks issue about 68.7% of 2025 virtual card spend in our model and fintech programme managers about 31.3%, because the largest corporate treasuries buy virtual card programmes from their lending bank. Fintech programme managers grow faster, near 17.8% a year in spend, by embedding virtual cards in expense and procurement software.

The split shows in Marqeta’s 31% processing-volume growth for 2025 against the low-teens growth of bank commercial card books. Readers following the software side should compare our Subscription Billing Management Market report, since subscription vendors are now the largest group of multi-use virtual card payees.

Where is virtual card spend growing fastest, North America or Asia Pacific?

North America leads with USD 9.27 billion of 2025 virtual card revenue, 46.2% of the total, but Asia Pacific grows fastest at 15.4% a year. Asian growth comes from wallet-based consumer virtual cards and cross-border supplier payments, while US growth rests on converting cheques.

North America reaches USD 23.99 billion by 2035 at 9.97% a year; the United States still writes business cheques at scale, so conversion has years to run. Europe holds USD 4.38 billion, 21.8%, and grows 10.4% a year to USD 11.77 billion, held back by thinner card economics. Asia Pacific rises from USD 4.54 billion to USD 19.00 billion, already a little ahead of Europe and nearly 1.6 times its size by 2035 in our model. Latin America brings USD 1.12 billion and grows 13.8% a year, led by travel settlement and marketplace payouts. The Middle East and Africa is the wildcard: USD 762.7 million today, growing 13.3% a year to USD 2.66 billion, with Gulf travel agencies the swing buyers. Fleet buyers in the region often start with fuel cards; see our B2B Fuel Cards Market study for that adjacent product.

Which PCI DSS and interchange rules shape virtual card programmes?

PCI DSS version 4.0, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, governs every virtual card number stored or transmitted, and its 51 future-dated requirements became mandatory on 31 March 2025. Virtual card issuers and the software platforms that embed them must meet those controls before they mint a number.

The PCI Security Standards Council counts 64 new requirements in version 4.0, of which 51 were future-dated, and it retired version 3.2.1 on 31 March 2024. For virtual card programmes the heavy items are stronger authentication for anyone who can view a full card number and script controls on payment pages. Interchange rules matter as much as security: commercial card rates outside Europe are set by the networks, which is why our US yield band of USD 4.40 to USD 6.10 per USD 1,000 sits well above the European band.

How far does virtual card fraud control cut losses for issuers?

Mastercard says virtual card fraud runs below 20% of the rate on other cards. That gap is the second reason after rebates that treasurers adopt virtual cards. A number tied to one supplier, one amount and one date window is of little use to a thief.

Mastercard’s new Issuer Enforced Controls set spend limits, transaction caps and validity periods when the virtual card is created, and its Clearing Controls check the transaction again at clearing. Douglas Insights calculates that avoided fraud and reconciliation work are worth about USD 0.74 per USD 1,000 of virtual card spend to a buyer, about 19% of the USD 3.86 yield the issuer earns.

What if virtual card spend compounds slower or faster to 2035?

Our three cases give the Virtual Cards Market USD 42.79 billion, USD 61.51 billion or USD 85.98 billion in 2035, depending on how quickly suppliers accept cards and how fast yields fall. The base case uses 14.6% volume growth and a 2.4% annual yield decline.

The slower case runs volume at 11.2% and price at minus 3.0%, for 7.86% revenue growth: real-time bank transfers win the large invoices. The faster case runs volume at 17.9% and price at minus 1.9%, for 15.66% growth: embedded virtual cards of the kind Mastercard built with Coupa and HSBC become the default inside procurement software. Moving the base volume leg up by one point lifts the 2035 value to USD 67.09 billion, a gain of USD 5.58 billion.

Our 11.85% revenue path sits below published virtual card forecasts of 17.1% to 35.3% a year, because those forecasts mostly track transaction value rather than the fees earned on it.

Douglas Exclusive: the Virtual Card Acceptance Atlas

The Virtual Card Acceptance Atlas is a Douglas Insights model, built from 11 sourced inputs and 25 modelled region-by-application cells, that maps where 2025 virtual card revenue is earned. Its finding: the three largest cells hold USD 7.31 billion, or 36.4% of the market.

The 11 inputs are Juniper Research’s USD 5.2 trillion value for 2025 and 71% business share for 2026, the WEX 0.52% net interchange rate, quarterly purchase volume and segment revenue, Marqeta’s processing volume and net revenue, Mastercard’s 43 countries and 174 currencies, and Visa’s 28 billion and 121 billion transaction counts. Each cell takes the regional total and splits it by application with a tilt for local use, such as travel agencies in the Gulf or wallets in Asia.

North American accounts payable is the single largest virtual card cell at USD 4.06 billion, followed by North America travel and hospitality settlement at USD 1.67 billion and Europe accounts payable automation at USD 1.57 billion. The atlas is our allocation, not an official count; the cells add to each regional total exactly, and the application columns land within 6% of the segment table.

How the model turns USD 5.2 trillion of virtual card spend into fee revenue?

Douglas Insights sizes the virtual card market as 5.2 billion blocks of USD 1,000 times USD 3.86, which equals USD 20.07 billion for 2025. Volume grows 14.6% and price falls 2.4%, so revenue grows 11.85% to USD 61.51 billion.

The model counts 5 regions, 5 applications, 2 card types, 2 issuer types and 3 yield bands, and uses 11 sourced data points. Cross-check one: the WEX yield of USD 5.20 per USD 1,000 sits 34.7% above our blended USD 3.86, matching its US large-ticket mix. Cross-check two: Marqeta’s USD 1.63 per USD 1,000 is the processor slice and sits below every band, as expected. Cross-check three: our USD 20.07 billion sits 12.9% below the lowest published revenue-style estimate once it is rolled forward to 2025, a gap we attribute to our narrower, fee-only scope. Readers comparing hardware payment rails can use our Outdoor Payment Terminal Market report.

Sources

1. Mastercard Mastercard expands virtual card platform (2026)
2. WEX Inc. / SEC WEX fourth quarter and full year 2024 results (Form 8-K) (2025)
3. Marqeta Marqeta fourth quarter and full year 2025 results (2026)
4. Visa Visa expands push-to-wallet for virtual cards (2024)
5. PCI Security Standards Council Future-dated requirements of PCI DSS v4.x (2025)
6. Corpay / SEC Corpay Form 10-K for 2025 (2026)
7. American Express American Express vPayment (2026)