The competitions is checks, says Raghav Lal, senior vice president of small-business products for Visa USA. "That's what we are trying to dislodge from the small-business owner's wallet."
Discover's new products, its first commercial cards ever, come with checks that allow small-business owners to pay vendors, the majority of whom don't accept credit cards, by tapping their Discover
credit. Visa, offers a similar program.
MasterCard, which has offered a small-business card for years, last year launched its first industry-specific card -- one for construction companies that allows longer payment cycles. Visa, which says its small-business card sales jumped 32% to $103.5 billion in the 12 months ended June 30, recently added its third small-business card product. It has a higher spending limit of $25,000.
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