Bento revolutionizes small business financial services with its modular, flexible platform
CHICAGO, Oct. 24, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Bento for Business, the award-winning provider of expense management solutions, today announced the expansion of its product line and partners as it continues to develop its end-to-end banking platform for small businesses. In addition to prepaid cards, Bento now offers business debit and virtual cards for companies and their employees. Support for Bento’s banking solutions now include The Bancorp Bank as well as processors Marqeta and i2c, making it the most robust solution of its kind. Additionally, the company has opened its APIs to simplify how companies work with their clients and customers.
“We are building a modern banking platform for small businesses that brings everything under one umbrella,” said Farhan Ahmad, CEO of Bento. “Our approach is unique in this industry because we see value in the platform, rather than a single stand-alone product. By offering multiple products on the same platform, and allowing our customers to use our APIs to develop better, more useful, and customizable experiences, we can fully address all of their pain points. Soon any business owner will be able to curate and access all the financial products, services, and integrations they need through Bento.”
In addition to Bento’s full-featured employee expense prepaid cards, Bento’s new business debit and virtual cards are connected to its easy-to-use software platform. The platform empowers companies to easily control where, when, and how much employees spend, thereby significantly reducing the possibility of the unauthorized purchases that costs U.S. businesses $50 billion a year. Additionally, Bento’s superior reporting tools and Quickbooks® integration directly connect a company’s financial products to its back office, eliminating pain points such as manual accounting data entry and cumbersome expense reporting processes.
Bento already offers industry-leading benefits like instant online account approvals and two-way alerts. With this expansion, Bento is now the only company to offer prepaid, business debit, and virtual cards in a unified platform, directly and through open APIs. This allows Bento’s customers to build multi-faceted targeted solutions specifically for their needs without having to use multiple partners.
Bento’s modular product and servicing platform also makes it easy for other companies to partner with Bento in order to bring fully customized solutions to their customers. Bento’s “Bring Your Own…” philosophy allows a partner to leverage their existing relationships and technology (e.g. processor, bank, fraud, servicing) or leverage Bento’s for faster onboarding and increased capabilities. Brink’s and FLEETCOR partnerships are a clear testament to that. However, with Bento’s demonstrated ability to work with multiple banks and processors simultaneously, Bento is also well positioned to work with banks and credit unions to develop white-labeled solutions for their customers.
“We fully support Bento in its mission to reduce employee theft and fiscal mismanagement. Bento offers compelling, easy to use products that save business customers time and money,” said Jeremy Kuiper, Executive Vice President of The Bancorp’s Payment Solutions group. “We are delighted to partner with Bento to give small businesses the financial flexibility to operate according to their needs.”
The Bento platform was thoughtfully developed by financial industry veterans with deep expertise in all aspects of company spending and reimbursement. In addition to Mastercard, The Bancorp Bank, as well as Marqeta and i2c, Bento has forged co-branded partnerships with Brink’s and FLEETCOR to offer its solution to their SMB customers.
To find out more about how Bento helps small businesses, please visit www.bentoforbusiness.com.
About Bento for Business
Bento for Business provides financial solutions that fit small businesses, combining the security of a bank with the ease and convenience of a modern technology company. Bento provides small business owners with much needed controls and better features than more expensive and cumbersome enterprise solutions. The company’s founders have their roots in large financial services firms such as Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Blackhawk Network, and Discover Card. Based in San Francisco and Chicago, Bento is venture backed. Learn more at www.bentoforbusiness.com or call 866-220-8455.
