Mastercard announced earlier this week its expansion from consumer credit and debit cards (C2B) into business-to-business payments (B2B). Specific technical details are not available yet, here is what we gathered of the new service, Mastercard Track™ Business Payment Service (MTBP, our acronym) from the press release and an article.
- Suppliers sign up on MTBP.
- They are then listed in a directory of MTBP suppliers.
- Buyers on engaging a MTBP supplier can use MTBP for payments.
- MTBP uses electronic payments (bank transfers, credit card etc).
- MTBP aids payment reconciliation (vs standard bank transfers).
- Payment can be real-time (prompt payment vs 30-120 day terms).
Ecosystem Partners
- Adflex - B2B payments that uses credit cards
- Avid - Automate accounts payable, payments & reconciliation
- Boost - Accept card payments from local and foreign buyers
- CSI - Virtual credit card with reconciliation and APIs.
- Fiserv - Accept multiple payment channels including cheques
- GlobalPayments - Payments software
- HighRadius - Accounts receivable and treasury management
- Tesorio - Accounts receivable, collection and cash forecasting
- Veem - Send and receive payments, financing with AR
- Velo - Payment platform for the gig economy
- VersaPay - Deliver invoices and statements via multi-channels
- YayPay - Reduce DSO (number of days it takes to get paid)
Notes
- How would reconciliation work? It is hinted that this might at least consist of a business identification system (no more paying to wrong or scam suppliers) and invoice numbers hard-coded into payments.
- Potentially it could later incorporate more of the B2B procurement and payment stack: quotation, purchase order, delivery order, invoice, payment, receipt, in collaboration with ecosystem partners.
- Visa has proposed Visa B2B Connect but this is focused on cross-border payments only.
- MTBP is currently being rolled out in the US, with other regions and cross-border payments in 2021.
- It is interesting to note MTBP starts from the supplier, the payee, rather than the buyer, the payer. Why this is so is left as an exercise for readers.