When Capital One announced its agreement to acquire Brex, the headlines focused on the size of the deal and what it signals about the future of corporate cards and spend management.
While the names involved and the numbers are stunning – Capital One is paying $5.15 billion, less than half of Brex’s peak valuation – the real implications of this move go deeper and have distinct, strategic impact on banks and financial institutions deciding how to compete in a world where treasury relationships are no longer just about providing credit and issuing static, physical cards.
This announcement reinforces what has been an emerging truth: modern spend management is now core business infrastructure and the value comes not just from having a great card program with beneficial rewards or great software, but from combining the two in an efficient, highly automated, AI-powered platform.
Strategic Implications for Banks and Financial Institutions
For banks, this acquisition is a strong signal that the competitive battleground has shifted. In the modern landscape, banks now are competing not just with other financial institutions, but with fintechs and the competitors they may enable.
Business customers no longer evaluate their banking partners on financial products and card programs alone. Given the breadth of options in the market, organizations will seek a more fully integrated spend stack, involving cards, expense management, AP, payments, controls, and visibility that work together in real time.
Capital One’s decision to purchase a spend management platform outright reflects a growing realization across the industry: providing a complete, integrated customer experience around business spend is strategically important, not optional. Financial institutions must position themselves to provide a complete set of solutions to compete in the market today, whether by partnership, integration, or, in some cases, acquisition.
Of course, not everyone has billions of dollars to spend on acquisitions, so the takeaway isn’t “go buy a fintech.” The takeaway is this: business customers want experiences that make their lives easier, not harder.
The banks that earn long-term loyalty will be the ones that deliver both sides of the equation—access to the credit businesses need to run their day-to-day operations and the software that helps them see, manage, control, and reconcile every dollar spent on that credit.
When credit and spend management work together, banks move beyond being a funding source and become a true operating partner that helps customers stay in control, reduce friction, and make every dollar count.
The Business Case for Pairing Credit Products with Spend Management Software
One of the biggest challenges businesses face today is spend leakage. For example, every year, up to $140 billion of employee spend is unaccounted for or lost to leakage. Finance teams are faced with a huge challenge controlling, reporting, and delivering insights on business spend. When only a small number of employees are issued corporate credit cards due to risk concerns, more expenses are pushed out-of-pocket—spend that could otherwise flow through a bank card program. In Emburse’s experience working with financial institutions, customers that pair corporate card programs with integrated spend management software drive 2.6x more spend on average through their cards. Why? Transactions are easier to reconcile and code, and expanded issuance options, such as virtual and physical cards with built-in controls like budgets, merchant restrictions, and scheduled deactivation, reduce risk and make it practical to issue cards more broadly.
When employees can easily use corporate cards without fronting personal funds, and finance teams maintain visibility and control, everyone benefits. Banks capture more spend, businesses reduce leakage, and card programs shift from an operational burden to a strategic advantage.
What Banks Should Be Doing Now to Stay Competitive in Business Spend
In a rapidly consolidating and shifting landscape, relevance in business banking will increasingly be defined by how well institutions enable customers to control, automate, and understand spend.
Fortunately, SaaS providers, like Emburse, offer proven software that can be seamlessly paired and whitelabelled with bank card programs. These partnerships allow banks to stay focused on what they do best: supplying credit, serving customers, and maintaining long-term loyalty, while the complexity of building, maintaining, and evolving spend management software is handled by the partner.
If you’re a bank determining which partners will position you for long-term success, the following actions will help you evaluate and select the right technology partner.
Five Key Things to Consider When Choosing a Technology Partner
1. Select a partner platform built with card management at its core and a history of working with financial institutions
Expertise and track record matter. Banks looking to extend their value with market leading customer experiences should prioritize technology partners that are committed to a card-agnostic strategy and have a history of delivering joint solutions in partnership with financial institutions.
An ideal partner will provide a product platform built with card management workflows at its core, and addresses the highest valuable functionality to customers. This includes physical or virtual card issuance with configurable rules and controls, policy enforcement, and integration with leading accounting and ERP solutions for automated reconciliation.
Why it matters: Platforms that treat card management as secondary often rely on retroactive controls and manual processes, reducing effectiveness and increasing risk. Card-native platforms allow banks to deliver smarter controls, stronger customer experiences, and greater long-term value from their card programs.
2. Prioritize customer experience—especially onboarding, deployment, and adoption
Customer experience is a critical differentiator in modern card and spend management programs. When evaluating technology partners, banks should look closely at how customers are onboarded—from initial setup and configuration to deployment, training, and ongoing adoption.
A strong partner platform should make it easy for businesses to get started quickly through intuitive, self-serve onboarding, while still supporting more complex configurations as needs grow. Clear workflows, guided setup, and built-in education reduce friction for end users and accelerate time to value—without placing additional burden on bank support teams.
Why it matters: Poor onboarding is one of the fastest ways to erode trust and stall adoption. Platforms that are difficult to deploy or require heavy manual support increase churn risk and strain bank resources, whereas smooth onboarding strengthens customer satisfaction, deepens engagement, and reinforces the bank’s role as a trusted partner in the customer’s financial operations.
3. Look beyond point solutions and assess the full spend lifecycle, from transaction to ERP export
Modern spend management spans more than cards. Banks should evaluate partners based on their ability to support their customers’entire spend lifecycle—from pre-spend controls and policy enforcement to expense capture, AP workflows, auditing, reconciliation, and reporting.
An element that is easy to overlook, but is highly valued by customers, are ERP integrations. Assess potential partners' flexibility and support for different ERP connections that align with your customer bases' most used platforms.
Why it matters: Fragmented, disconnected tools lead to fragmented experiences and disappointed customers. Companies increasingly expect a unified system that reduces manual work, synchronizes data across systems, and improves visibility across spend categories.
4. Seek evidence of long-term stability and strategic focus
In a market defined by rapid growth and frequent exits, banks should scrutinize not just what a partner builds—but how they’ve operated over time. A history of stable execution, durable customer relationships, and consistent investment in the platform matters.
Why it matters: Business banking partnerships are multi-year commitments. Roadmap volatility and ownership changes can undermine trust and slow innovation at the worst possible time.
5. Favor platforms that let you deliver a tailored experience, reflective of your brand and the value of your service
Banks should prioritize solutions that allow them to shape the customer experience—including branding, workflows, controls, and integrations—rather than adopting inflexible, over-opinionated systems.
Why it matters: Differentiation in business banking increasingly comes from tailored custom experiences. Banks providing technology enhanced solutions to their customers need to be able to reflect their brand experience within the platform, deepening customer relationships and, ultimately, retention.
Looking Ahead
In a market where technology decisions increasingly define competitive advantage, the banks that win will be those that deliver full spectrum experiences that provide customers with the financial products they love, supported by easy to use platforms that remove key challenges in cards and spend management. Banks must identify and choose partners built for flexibility, longevity, and scale—not just speed to market.
The Capital One–Brex deal is one moment in a broader evolution in the business spend and corporate card management space, and it won’t be the last time banks, technology companies, and their customers are asked to navigate change.
But one thing is clear: The future of business spend belongs to solutions that offer the financial tools that customers need in market leading, modern customer experiences without sacrificing choice, continuity, or confidence.
The banks that recognize this early and act the fastest will be best positioned for what comes next. If you’re ready to begin exploring partnership with a company that offers technology your customers need, get in touch with our team today.