BofA Awarded Patent on Card Technology

Bank of America has been granted a patent for its Active Card Control solution, a new technology that allows BofA's corporate clients to manage the available funds on corporate purchasing cards dynamically and in real time. The company says the technology helps reduce the risk of theft and enables clients to gain increased control over employee expenditures.

The Active Card Control technology is an extension of BofA's commercial card product suite. Using the technology, the client can reset the available funds on each card as frequently as necessary through a Web-based tool. When initially issued, cards will have $0 in available funds until the client is ready to pay the supplier. At that time, the client submits a purchase request through the Bank of America Works application, which uses the Active Card Control technology to fund individual cards with the exact amount of the invoices to be paid. When those purchases are billed to the card, the available funds go to zero.

The bank says that benefits of Active Card Control for the client include improved administrative efficiency and lower costs from not having to raise and lower credit limits or change single transaction limits; increased control over purchasing due to a mandatory approval process; reduced paperwork; and ease of implementation as purchase requests can be used with any card program that uses the Works platform.