Guillaume Bouvard, Co-founder of Extend.
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Capital One’s acquisition of Brex caught many people by surprise, but in hindsight, it makes a lot of sense.
This wasn’t a card acquisition. It was a software decision.
Capital One is behaving less like a traditional bank and more like a large tech company (think Google or Meta) willing to deploy serious capital to acquire critical capabilities that create long-term strategic advantage, not just incremental product features. We saw this mindset with Capital One’s acquisition of the Discover Network, and we’re seeing it again with Brex.
More importantly, this move signals something fundamental about how Capital One sees the future of business payments: not as a competition on credit, points, or perks, but on the quality of the software that sits on top of the payments infrastructure and helps customers operate more effectively in a rapidly changing world.
Why the physical card is no longer the differentiator in business payments
For businesses today, the physical credit card is increasingly a commodity—and in some cases, even a nuisance.
Every transaction triggers a series of downstream actions: approvals, receipts, categorization, reconciliation, and reporting. Not to mention, these steps tend to be fragmented across systems, meaning finance teams have to spend more time chasing information than managing the business itself.
That’s why the real value in business payments isn’t about physical card or reward systems, it’s about the tools that manage the payment and everything around it. Businesses today expect solutions that deliver control, visibility, smarter workflows, more efficiency, and on-demand service.
Businesses don’t run on physical cards. They run on software. And increasingly, the quality of their workflows depends on the ability to orchestrate spend before, during, and after a transaction ever occurs.
The question is no longer who can issue the best card, but who can layer on software that removes friction, enforces policy, and gives teams clarity without slowing them down.
This is where virtual cards and expense management tools come into focus.
Virtual cards and expense management: Software at the center of spend
It’s easy to think of virtual cards as simply digital versions of plastic cards—but they’re far more than that. When designed well, virtual cards are software-enabled instruments that embed controls, policies, and intelligence directly into the payment itself.
Expense management completes that picture.
Virtual cards address the execution side of spend: how money is spent, by whom, and under what conditions. Expense management solves the accountability problem: how that spend is captured, reviewed, approved, and reconciled across teams.
When these capabilities exist in separate systems, businesses are left stitching together workflows after the fact. Complexity increases, errors multiply, and visibility breaks down. When they’re designed together as part of a single software experience, execution and accountability reinforce each other—reducing friction and making spend easier to manage at scale.
Designing payment and expense software for how businesses actually operate
Designing virtual cards and expense management as a single software experience only works if that software reflects how businesses actually operate.
Many bank payment and expense solutions are still built primarily for a single persona: the card program administrator. While that approach made sense in a more centralized world, it no longer reflects how modern companies—especially small and mid-sized businesses—actually function.
Employees, managers, bookkeepers, finance teams, and contractors all initiate or interact with payments. Spend is decentralized across departments, tools, and vendors. Each of these roles uses software daily, and their expectations are shaped by the modern, intuitive consumer applications they rely on outside of work.
When payment and expense software is designed with these realities in mind, it becomes a force multiplier—enabling faster decisions, clearer accountability, and better outcomes across teams. When it isn’t, even the strongest underlying infrastructure struggles to deliver its full value.
Business banking is evolving—not being replaced
This is why Capital One acquiring Brex feels less like a departure from traditional banking and more like its next phase.
Banks, processors, and networks remain central to the payments ecosystem. That foundation isn’t going away. What’s changing is where differentiation shows up in the eyes of business customers—less in the underlying rails, and more in the software that sits on top, enabling businesses to operate with confidence and speed.
Why the interface between businesses and money matters more than ever
The industry consolidation we’re seeing across fintech and financial services isn’t about buying transaction volume.
It’s about owning the interface between businesses and money. And that interface—spanning payments, virtual cards, and expense management—is becoming just as strategic as the money itself.
For banks, processors, networks, and the platforms that serve businesses, the message is clear: the future of business payments will be defined not only by access to capital or infrastructure, but by software that empowers every user involved in the flow of money.
