5 Best Corporate Credit Cards in India 2024

Corporate Credit Cards

Today, there is an abundance of credit card offerings in India. Even those meant for corporates have seen a massive upswing, and you have a plethora of options to choose from.

As the term suggests, business credit cards, while very similar to personal credit cards, are used exclusively for corporate purposes. These have identical features to the regular ones, such as reward points, no-cost EMI, travel incentives, cashback, fuel surcharge waiver, air miles, and more.

Businesses can use these cards to streamline a part of their employee-related and other operational expenses. From SBI, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Citibank, HDFC Bank, and American Express (AMEX) to Razorpay and Happay, there are several brands offering corporate credit cards in the country.

This article lays down the best practices for using business credit cards, things to remember while choosing the right option for your needs, and a list of the top business credit cards you need to know about.

What is a corporate credit card?

Corporate credit cards are credit cards that are offered to employees of an organization. These cards make it more convenient for the workforce to charge authorized business expenses, ranging from travel expenses to other allowances, by attaching them directly to the company’s account. 

These cards are usually accessible only to businesses that meet certain predefined criteria with regard to revenues, profitability, or others as necessitated by the provider. These cards are issued based on a company’s financial health. Most providers look at the organization’s cash flow and liquidity before sanctioning the cards, but sometimes they may also want to have a look at personal credit score before offering the card.

Credit card providers are usually reluctant to offer corporate credit cards to businesses that do not meet the minimum credit score requirement as set by the card provider. But if the business’ credit score is above the minimum-specified limit, they will find it easy to get corporate credit cards from different providers. 

Why do you need a corporate credit card?

Businesses today are becoming more employee-focused and are looking to ensure optimum workforce satisfaction. While having corporate credit cards ensures your employees do not have to pay for business expenses from their pockets, they also help in automating transaction recording. This ensures a win-win situation for both parties. 

Here are some reasons why you should consider corporate credit cards for your business:

• These cards allow managers to integrate a range of corporate credit programs with an expense/accounting management solution for effortless expense tracking.
• These are customizable and allow employers to set specific and overall spending limits.
• These allow employees to submit expense receipts via the dashboard for quick reconciliation, preventing expense fraud.
• These cards allow you to offer additional perks in the form of corporate credit card rewards to employees without increasing your costs. 

5 Best corporate credit cards in India for businesses

Here are the top five corporate credit card India options to choose from. 

1. Happay EPIC

Overview

If you are looking for the best corporate credit card options, Happy EPIC is one of the best corporate credit card options to consider. The EPIC card is a spend management tool that helps automate and streamline credit card spending and accounting with ease. For this, Happay has partnered with SBM India, one of the largest APAC banks, to ensure your transactions are processed seamlessly. 

Card details

Happay EPIC corporate credit card is a B2B card aimed to streamline corporate payables. It offers a comprehensive dashboard which features a range of options to give users real-time access to all their expenses and payments. In addition, users also get access to a range of in-depth insights for spend management. 

Key features

• There are no annual fee, joining fee, renewal fee, card fee, and hidden fees or unplanned surprises for Happay EPIC cardholders. 
• There are no currency markups, making the product one of the best travel credit card substitutes for companies with several cross-border transactions. 
• The brand has partnered with SBM Bank to ensure an effortless experience for business owners. 
• Happay EPIC card comes with no personal liability for any expenses you incur on behalf of your business. 
• The card supports seamless online payments and real-time spending visibility via web and mobile applications. 

Rewards and other information

Happay EPIC users get up to 45 days of interest-free credit. In addition, cardholders are also eligible for cashback for each transaction. 

2. RazorpayX

Overview

Razorpay’s RazorpayX business card is tailor-made for startups and entrepreneurs and can cater to large and small businesses alike. It has partnered with SBM India for effortless transaction processing. 

Card details

Razorpay currently has only one corporate credit card for its users, which is included with the RazorpayX subscription. 

Key features

• RazorpayX requires no personal guarantee from users interested in booking the card for their organizational needs. 
• It offers unlimited business credit card options with a joining fee of INR 1499.
• It integrates with Razorpay Payment Gateway and RazorpayX Banking Hub to provide users with greater visibility into their payments and expenses.
• Razorpay offers acceptable interest rates for corporate users. 

Rewards and other information

Razorpay users can get assured cashback for spending, such as USD 10,000 worth of free credit from AWS Activate, access to XPayroll for up to three months for free, domestic airport lounge access visits, and more. Essentially, if a business spends around one crore, it can save up to INR 2.7 lakh (3.8%) and accept free payments worth INR 50 lakh.

Suggested Read: 5 Best RazorpayX Alternatives for Corporate Card

3. Volopay

Overview

Volopay offers a financial stack of tools, which includes corporate cards, an expense manager, business payables, account automation, and more. Its business credit cards offer built-in spending limits, real-time spend tracking, and more.

Card details

Volopay corporate credit card offers the same features irrespective of the organization.

Key features

• Volopay corporate credit card supports multi-level approvals, and businesses can set up to five layers of approval to optimize spending. 
• It offers efficient subscription management, with individual virtual cards for the subscriptions.
• It offers the ability to prevent out-of-policy spending, set auto-lock rate, and help manage your team’s annual spends.

Rewards and other information

Most corporate credit cards, especially business money-back credit cards, offer a tiered cashback system, which can be complicated. Instead, Volapay corporate card users get a flat 5% cashback on all their spending. 

Quick Read: 5 Best Volopay Alternatives and Competitors

4. Karbon

Overview

A new-age corporate credit card, Karbon Card offers three different corporate credit card options for business users. Its credit cards offer some of the higher credit limits and have a range of meaningful features to help businesses.

Card details

Here are the three Karbon business credit card options to choose from – 

• Standard card: Up to 10 crore credit limit
• Cashback card: Up to 1% cashback on all transactions
• Booster card: Offers 10x the limit of a standard card and up to 0.2% cash back on all transactions 

Key features

• It offers a one-minute approval process for corporate credit card applications. 
• There are several partner perks to choose from. 
• The brand has partnered with both Visa and Mastercard for secure and effortless transaction processing.

Rewards and other information

Karbon offers up to 1% uncapped expenses for all online and offline transactions, such as concierge, fuel transactions, charges on petrol pumps, and more. In addition, it offers significant discounts and bonuses to its users, such as AWS billing discount and HubSpot booking discount, as a welcome gift. 

Suggested Read: 5 Best Karbon Alternatives and Competitors

5. KODO

Overview

The Kodo brand has a simplified corporate banking platform to optimize time for its clients. It offers two corporate credit card types – limit-based and top-up-based with a range of features, such as subscription management, real-time receipt management, the ability to add custom tags, and more, to help users manage their business cash flow easier.  

Card details

Kodo has till now only unveiled a single version of its corporate credit card lineup. 

Key features

• It allows issuing multiple cards to employees without any ceiling limit on the number of cards issued. 
• The brand also offers granular controls by enabling the organization to manage the spending limit per subscription.
• It supports cross-border payments.
• Users can send single-click reminders to employees for missing documentation for expenses incurred on business trips or other occasions.

Rewards and other information

KODO offers interest-free credit for up to 40 days, and lets users earn a flat 0.5% cashback on all spends, such as utility bills and lounge visits, except ATM withdrawals. 

Also, Read: 5 Best Kodo Competitors for Corporate Cards

Benefits of corporate credit cards

1. Manage expenses better

Expense management is a headache for most businesses, and corporate credit cards are trying to resolve this issue by automating parts of it. They benefit both the employer and employees, with the former being able to manage the overall and per-transaction spending limits. In addition, the employer can also place restrictions on where these cards can be used, location-wise, merchant-wise, or otherwise.

Happay allows users to implement efficient spending controls and limits, which allows them to manage expenses better. From whitelisted vendors to geographical-based limits, there are several ways organizations can ensure that they get the upper hand on expense management.

2. Automated expense tracking for improved accuracy

In most cases, businesses have to deal with outflows from employees without documentation, which makes expense tracking difficult. Corporate credit cards solve that problem. Business credit cards are linked to the organization’s accounting software and let them auto-populate any transaction directly to the software. It makes expense tracking hassle-free and accurate.

Happy EPIC offers seamless integration and can work alongside the most popular expense and accounting apps to ensure optimized expense tracking. Gain complete visibility over your expenses with Happay.

3. Additional perks for improved employee satisfaction

Corporate credit cards come with a range of benefits, such as reward points, airport lounge access, fuel surcharge waiver, air miles, travel benefits, cashback, and others. If the employer so decides, these employees are allowed to keep any or all the rewards that come with the card.

For example, most cards are packed with complimentary airport lounge access, which the employee can avail of for their private travels. These features enable the organization to keep the morale of their workforce high and motivate them to perform better.

Happay EPIC cards offer cashback for each transaction. It enables employees to make optimum use of the card and earn rewards irrespective of the transactions they undertake.

Read More: TOP 10 Corporate Credit Card Benefits for Every Business

Best practices for using corporate credit cards

Are you unsure of providing corporate credit cards to your employees because you haven’t used them before and are unsure of how to manage them efficiently?

Read on to learn the best practices for using business credit cards.

• There should be a binding agreement in place before dispersing the corporate credit card that the beneficiary employee must adhere to. It must set the rules for card usage and liability for policy violations.

• Organizations should place limits on annual spending and include transaction-based limits to contain credit card expenses. In addition, they should have strict rules that prevent personal spending and unauthorized card usage.

• The employer must convey the policies surrounding credit card usage to the employees. They can conduct training sessions to ensure employees know their duties and responsibilities with the card.

• The employer and their finance team must address any query employees may have about the corporate credit card promptly to ensure better management and compliance.

• The organization can set up a review and auditing process to verify business credit card expenses and ensure the validity of all the reported costs.

Must read: What is corporate credit card reconciliation?

How to choose the right corporate credit card for your company?

Happay EPIC card for all your business needs

Businesses and credit cards go hand in hand in the modern world. With more and more brands accepting them as part of their routine processes, there has been a stupendous rise in the number of corporate credit card offerings.

If you are still unsure of the best business credit cards in India, we suggest you give the Happay EPIC card a try. The card comes packed with industry-leading features at the most affordable interest rates, and the support you receive from our customer team will make the deal sweeter.

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