How Navan Brought “Impossible” Technology to Life

“It can’t be done.”

That’s the reaction we got — repeatedly — when we set out to do something the world had never seen before: Connect a company’s existing corporate credit card, issued by a traditional bank, to Navan’s proprietary expense management solution.

It was a radical idea. Anything that’s the “world’s-first” usually is. And everyone thought it was impossible. Fortunately, that word doesn’t exist in Navan’s vocabulary. So today, we can proudly announce that we’ve brought this experience, Navan Connect, to life.

Here’s how it happened.

The Bigger Picture

In 2020, Navan launched an expense management system that disrupted the traditional world of business expense — just like we had already disrupted the traditional world of business travel over the previous five years.

Our expense platform brought new thinking and new technology to a staid industry. Navan offered customers features like policy controls built right into corporate cards, which eliminated out-of-policy spend; and automatic reconciliation, which eliminated manual expense reports. Dashboards allowed finance leaders and admins to see spend at a glance and in real time. And We’ve since added features like Ava, our AI-powered data analyst, which leverages the power of generative AI to unearth suggestions like the most effective ways companies can save money.

We built every feature with one purpose: Make life easier for our customers by eliminating their pain points. So we set out to tackle another one.

With our solution, accessing the power of Navan’s innovative platform required customers to use our corporate card. Technologically, there was no other option.

Here’s the problem: While potential customers were excited by the benefits of our platform, they wanted to keep their current card. For some, it offered a great rebate; others had rewards they didn’t want to give up. Still others had longstanding relationships with their banks.

We listened. And we set a goal of creating a never-before-seen product: Letting customers keep their current corporate card and offering them the magic of our expense management system.

Then we got to work.

The Road to Connect

We began by talking with our friends at Visa — the world’s largest payment network. They were intrigued, so we asked if they could point us to an API in their network that we could use to make this work. Then we did the same at Mastercard.

It was a question no one had ever asked, and both came back with the same answer: There’s no API for this — it doesn’t exist. Also, what you’re trying to do is simply not possible.

But we wouldn’t quit. We were certain there was a way to make it work. Fortunately, Mastercard and Visa are great partners, so over several months, we kept looking together and kept testing.

And then — eureka! — we struck gold with Visa by finding an API we could tap into in order to make this process work. Mastercard didn’t have a similar API, so we built one for them. And then we built the necessary two-way communication between their existing corporate cards and our platform.

After many, many hours, we had it. And Navan Connect — the world’s first card link technology — was born.

Now, any company with a corporate Visa or Mastercard can link their card to our platform. When a card is swiped, Visa and Mastercard process the charge and send the information to Navan, where admins can see the spend in that instant. Those admins can also set granular guardrails so any out-of-policy spend won’t even go through.

It’s the exact same experience as using Navan’s own card — 100% frictionless, and an absolute game-changer.

While we’d love to delve into the technical details of how we made the impossible a reality, it’s our secret sauce. In fact, it’s a solution so unique that we’re in the process of patenting it.

Still, people have asked: If customers aren’t using your card, aren’t you cannibalizing some of your own business? Yes, we are. But from day one, our mission has been to serve all of our users, all of the time. Even if it requires making sacrifices, we will always jump at the chance to make their lives easier as we take innovation to the next level and continue to disrupt.