Madison County hears pitch to expand commercial card program to speed payments and capture rebates

Huntington Bank representatives told Madison County commissioners that expanding the county's commercial card program could speed vendor payments and generate cash rebates, but staff said the auditor's approval would be required before any operational changes.

The bank's treasury management representative, Eddie Balmins, introduced himself and described the county's current use of cards as "one-offs" for travel or conference expenses and outlined a larger, integrated payables model Huntington offers. "I'm Eddie Balmins. So I'm your guys' banker for the county," he said during the presentation. The bank's analysis of roughly 11 months of payables identified about "922 payees," "747 transactions" and a subset of vendors the presenters said already accept card payments.

Why it matters: commissioners were interested in whether the program could both accelerate payments and produce net revenue for county coffers. Huntington projected rebates tied to spend tiers (a monthly rebate plus an annual "kicker") and gave a worked example showing incremental monthly and year-end payments tied to higher programwide spend.

Huntington described technical and security features of its offering, including virtual one-time card numbers, dollar and merchant-category (MCC) limits, dual authorization and audit logs. The presenter said virtual cards are "highly secured" and can be restricted to a single-use 16-digit number for a specific dollar amount and merchant.

County officials pressed on operational details: who would contact vendors, how merchant fees would be handled and how the auditor's office would retain final payment authority. Huntington said it would call vendors to learn whether they would accept card payments and whether a merchant provider fee would be charged; if a vendor proposed passing a fee, "we would allow the auditor's office to then make that determination," Huntington said.

Huntington offered to perform a full vendor-file analysis to estimate what proportion of county spend could be paid by card and the likely rebate. A presenter estimated roughly 60% of vendor spend could feasibly convert to card payments and suggested that, with that level of adoption, the county could reach "6 figures" in rebate revenue. The bank also noted a recurring monthly service fee for the integrated-payables setup; during discussion one speaker described that cost as "125" (amount and billing details to be clarified).

Next steps: commissioners asked staff to reengage the county auditor and provide the bank with a full vendor-file so Huntington can run a complete analysis and present a demo of the tool. Commissioners agreed that the auditor's office should retain decision authority on whether specific vendors are paid by card, ACH or check.