P-cards take off in India

India – Visa, ICICI bank and Elcom Systems announced the launch of Visa eMarketplace, the first online procurement and payment service in Asia.

Firms in India will be the first in Asia Pacific to process the entire procurement and payment transaction online using a Visa Purchasing Card, which is meant for low-value, high-volume purchase of non-personal goods and services.

Visa eMarketplace is designed to be an efficient, seamless and transparent procurement system for the commercial and governmental sectors, said Santanu Mukherjee, country manager, south Asia, Visa International.

“It helps to eliminate the need for paper-based purchase orders and approvals,” he said.

The online portal is built on the existing Visa Purchasing Card platform and will allow buyers to view product catalogues. Paper-based purchase orders and approvals will no longer be necessary and manual effort will be reduced with the automated process of payment and management.

"Corporates and government departments can use Visa eMarketplace to make purchases online from their suppliers and use ICICI Bank Purchase Card to make payment," said Santanu Mukherjee, country manager, South Asia, Visa International. "The competitive prices that vendors will offer here would be very beneficial to most large and small corporates for such purchases."

The e-procurement portal also offers a secure procure-to-pay solution through secure sockets layer (SSL) data encryption. It also helps detail tracking for audit purposes.