Bank Card Program

By promoting the use of UC credit card programs over more expensive reimbursement methods, the Bank Card Program has generated millions in additional rebates.

Did you know that the University loses money when it needs to reimburse staff for travel, entertainment, and other expenses that were charged to personal credit cards? This is especially true if the reimbursements need to be processed by check. Due to the many types of methods used to pay for different expenditures across the University, the campus was not maximizing the rebates that could be earned and was also spending resources to manage the diverse payment processes. 

The Strategic Payment team was formed to take up these challenges to see if they could change the buying behavior of the University. The team members were:

• Mike Kuhner, Associate Director of Accounts Payable & Banking Card Services
• Vartan Vartkessian, Banking Card Services Card Administrator
• Nancy Van Tassel, Accounts Payable Supervisor
• Tim Maguire, Chief Procurement Officer, Head of Supply Chain Management

The team worked together to establish and promote procurement protocols that would maximize rebates from various bank card programs by recommending that employees use University issued credit card for low value purchases, travel, and entertainment. By encouraging departments to use the credit card programs, the University was not only able to increase rebates, but also to make more prompt payments to suppliers and process fewer purchase orders and invoices. Additionally, fewer reimbursements to employees would need to be processed.

Over the next five years, the Bank Card Program projects to generate $15 million in incentive payments back to the University from our corporate banking partner.