Press Release

Braunschweig, 29 April 2021. Volkswagen Financial Services are broadening their mobility offering for commercial and fleet customers to include the "VW FS | Business Travel" service for digital business travel management. The system is provided by the start-up Voya, which Volkswagen Financial Services AG acquired last year. Business travelers can use it to combine and book flights, hotels, rail journeys and rental cars directly and conveniently via smartphone or web application. Thanks to the joint further development carried out with Voya, digital travel expense accounting is now possible within the system as well. As a result, the time and effort required for organization and administration by both the business traveler and the mobility manager is substantially reduced. "With the pandemic still continuing, it seems an unusual time to introduce digital travel management. But it is our firm conviction that the situation will return to some degree of normality in the next few months and that the number of business trips will then increase again too," said Armin Villinger, General Representative and Head of Sales Germany at Volkswagen Leasing GmbH He added: "For several years now, we have been observing that travel and fleet management are growing closer together and that the total mobility costs are becoming the focus of attention for companies."

In contrast to traditional online booking portals, booking requests with "VW FS | Business Travel" are made either via self-service using a smartphone or the associated web application or with the help of an interactive chat function. In the latter case, an integrated business travel agency implements the travel service online on the basis of the travel policy stored in the system and the customer-specific approval processes. Thanks to the hybrid interaction between the online booking platform and the fully integrated travel agency service, business travelers can plan their business trip and book it within minutes. The system is also expandable, which means that other forms of mobility such as car sharing, taxis, e-scooters or parking services can be included in the future.

All of the company's travel policies can be individually entered into the system by the customers themselves if required. The importing of employee data also takes only a few minutes. All trips are paid for by a company credit card stored centrally in the system. As a result, employees do not have to pay in advance for the centrally booked means of transport and services, but only have to pay for the additional costs incurred during their business trip. The company has full cost control thanks to the central invoicing and the integrated reporting.

A further advantage is that the travel receipts no longer have to be maintained manually thanks to the integrated travel expense accounting. The receipts are digitally recorded by the traveler via smartphone and directly assigned and read out to the individual trips. Afterwards, the submitted receipts are automatically checked for compliance with income tax law and travel policy. The final statement can be exported as a file directly into the customer's own financial accounting system and thus immediately processed in a tax-compliant manner – for example by the payroll department itself or by an external tax consultant.

"Our long-term goal is to transfer all travel- and fleet-related services into a digital VW FS transport ecosystem for the strategic control and administration of corporate mobility management. VW FS | Business Travel is the first step in this direction," Villinger explained.

For more information visit: www.vwfs.de/businesstravel


Information for editors:

Volkswagen Financial Services are a business division of the Volkswagen AG group of companies and comprise Volkswagen Financial Services AG along with its associated companies, Volkswagen Bank GmbH, Porsche Financial Services, and the financial services companies in the USA and Canada that belong directly or indirectly to Volkswagen AG – with the exception of the financial services of the Scania brand and Porsche Holding Salzburg. The key business fields embrace dealer and customer financing, leasing, the bank and insurance business, fleet management and mobility offers. Volkswagen Financial Services have a total of 16,558 employees worldwide – including 7,472 alone in Germany. Volkswagen Financial Services report total assets of around EUR 225.6 billion, an operating result of EUR 2.8 billion and a portfolio of around 21.9 million current contracts (as at: 31.12.2020).