Unique B2B platform powered by Microsoft Azure better connects buyers and suppliers with networks, banks and solution providers
PURCHASE, NY – September 12, 2018 – Mastercard (NYSE: MA) today introduced Mastercard Track™ in collaboration with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Track is a unique global trade platform that will simplify and enhance how companies around the world do business with each other.
While parts of the B2B process have been digitized, large and costly gaps still remain – an estimated $500 billion in annual administrative costs and rising[1]. These costs are added to the inefficiency of the nearly half of all global business transactions – $58 trillion[2] – that are still done in paper.
Mastercard Track will address these fundamental challenges by further streamlining and automating the procure-to-pay-process – enabling businesses to manage business identity, compliance and payments in a more efficient way.
“While there have been great improvements and innovations in the way consumers pay, the global B2B space remains highly inefficient and paper-based”, said Michael Froman, vice chairman and president of strategic growth at Mastercard. “This adds hundreds of billions of dollars of costs and burdensome delays to global trade. Mastercard Track is a tool that will help reduce frictions in the global trading system and promote increased exports – especially by small and medium-sized businesses.”
Unlocking growth for businesses of all sizes
While consumers have become accustomed to a broader choice of technology solutions, businesses too are looking for speed, security and convenience in their everyday operations. From reducing the steps it takes to identify a business partner, to making the payments process simpler and more transparent, Mastercard Track has the potential to unlock economic growth and to level the playing field for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME).
“Together with Mastercard, we’re helping companies around the world accelerate the pace of their own transformation by creating a more efficient buying and selling process at scale,” said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president, Microsoft. “By building Mastercard Track on Azure, Mastercard will be able to take advantage of our stringent security and compliance standards, our global footprint and our intelligent cloud solutions to help organizations of all sizes drive value from the back-office to the front of the enterprise.”
Mastercard Track underscores the company’s commitment to address several pain points in the global business environment. The new platform draws on and complements the whole range of Mastercard innovation and B2B assets, from account-to-account and card payment solutions to fraud management, data analytics and payment gateway services.
Addressing identity, compliance and payment management needs
Initially, Mastercard is partnering with nine B2B networks and procure-to-pay solution providers – Basware, BirchStreet, Coupa, the Infor GT Nexus Commerce Network, Ivalua, Jaggaer, Liaison Technologies, Tradeshift and Tungsten Network – representing a wide range of global businesses, to roll out Track’s identity, compliance and payment management capabilities to buyers and suppliers.
Beginning in early 2019, customers of these organizations will be able to maintain, retrieve and exchange key information relating to themselves and their trading partners through the Track Trade Directory, a secure, permissioned repository of over 150 million company registrations worldwide. This central directory will integrate feeds from more than 4,500 compliance lists into one place, making the screening and onboarding of suppliers more efficient.
As the platform expands, suppliers will have better visibility into cash flow – when they can expect to get paid and for how much – across multiple networks. Track will help connect all types of payments – account-based, card-based or bank transfer – within the platform, while also connecting purchase order and invoice information. This will streamline and simplify back-office reconciliation, one of the largest burdens facing businesses today.
Through its partners, Track will enable B2B networks, banks, insurance companies and technology providers to extend value-added services to business customers, such as enhanced data analytics and trade finance.
Integrated with Singapore’s National Trade Platform
In Singapore, Mastercard Track has already been integrated with the National Trade Platform, a one-stop digital trade ecosystem which brings together key logistics functions, such as movement of goods as well as regulatory and financial elements for players across the trade value chain. Mastercard Track facilitates secure and efficient electronic payments between buyers and suppliers, helping to strengthen the country’s position as the leading trading hub for the region.
For more information about Mastercard Track, please view our digital press kit or visit mastercard.com/track.
About Mastercard
Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com, is a technology company in the global payments industry. Our global payments processing network connects consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. Mastercard products and solutions make everyday commerce activities – such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances – easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardNews, join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau.
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Mastercard Communications Contact
Seth Eisen; +1 (914) 325-5932; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Partner quotes:
Jason Hogg, chief executive officer, cyber solutions, Aon:
“Aon is excited to collaborate with Mastercard to help businesses address risks in the global B2B procurement marketplace – from operational inefficiencies and expenses to compliance concerns. Aon looks forward to designing value added services for Track users, including offering insurance solutions to protect against losses associated with B2B transactions, and harnessing our data and analytic services across the Track platform.”
Maria Parpou, director of product and commercial strategy, Barclaycard:
“For more than 50 years, Barclaycard has been pushing the boundaries to create payment solutions that help make businesses more successful. We welcome the introduction of Mastercard Track as an important step in improving the efficiency of global B2B payments, and we look forward to working with Mastercard to explore how Track can make our customers even more competitive.”
Eric Wilson, senior vice president of North America, Basware:
“We are very excited to partner with Mastercard to bring Track to our customers. Mastercard Track Trade Directory complements our Networked Source-to-Pay solution. Together we can increase the value we provide to our customers in every step of their source-to-pay process.”
Joseph Fox, chief strategy officer, BirchStreet:
“We are excited to be part of Mastercard’s launch of new innovations focused on B2B Payments. As BirchStreet expands our suite of Hospitality solutions including our global payment offerings we see Mastercard as a key strategic partner.”
Manish Kohli, global head of payments and receivables, Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions:
“This new service from Mastercard addresses a number of defined pain points in the current B2B payables environment in ways that we believe could deliver direct value to Citi’s corporate customers. We are actively evaluating how we can leverage Mastercard Track to enhance Citi’s current range of payables solutions for our TTS clients.”
Ravi Thakur, senior vice president of business acceleration, Coupa:
“The web of B2B payment channels has become overly complex and opaque, creating friction around how companies manage payments and understand supplier risk. By combining Coupa Risk Aware with Mastercard Track, businesses can gain visibility into their supplier risk profiles through inconsistencies in payment data presented throughout the business spend lifecycle. We’re excited to make this offering available to our joint customers and to continue our work to streamline the payments process by offering a Mastercard payment option within our upcoming CoupaPay solution.”
Kurt Cavano, senior vice president & general manager, the Infor GT Nexus Commerce Network:
“We are excited to bring Mastercard’s business identity capabilities to our customer community. Removing friction and risk from global trade is a core value that we strive to deliver to our customers. The Track Trade Directory will be a valuable solution for transforming the supplier compliance and procurement process as we continue expanding our intelligent commerce capabilities.”
Angel L. Mendez, executive vice president and chief operating officer, HERE Technologies:
“HERE Tracking delivers users the confidence they need to understand precisely where their goods and services are in real-time. For buyers and suppliers, large and small, seamless access to our asset tracking solution can directly reduce the costs and risks of doing business. HERE is proud to continue its strategic partnership with Mastercard as we work together to make frictionless global commerce a reality.”
Fabrizio Opertti, division chief, trade and investment division, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB):
“IDB recognizes the important role standardization plays in unlocking further economic growth across Latin America – and is committed to work with public and private partners to make it easier for businesses to trade with each other, especially across borders, through initiatives such as the Trade Single Windows. IDB and Mastercard have a record of working together on creating better opportunities for SMEs – and IDB looks forward to continue collaborating with Mastercard and learning from experiences with the work with government institutions in other parts of the world, such as Singapore Customs.”
Alex Saric, chief marketing officer, Ivalua:
“We are very excited to partner with Mastercard to bring Track to the Ivalua Platform. We look forward to helping our customers access better information on their suppliers and improve overall supplier management by providing additional business identity and compliance checks as well as supplier risk information via the Track Trade Directory.”
Rob Bonavito, chief executive officer, JAGGAER:
“JAGGAER is proud to be moving the innovation curve forward as a partner in the Mastercard Track program with Mastercard and Microsoft, to bring a new level of technology and control to the global spend management space. Collectively we service most of the companies in the world, and can bring this massive customer base an enhanced user experience with compliance, business identity control, fraud protection and payment tracking to establish greater trust in global trade.”
Rob Consoli, chief revenue officer, Liaison Technologies:
“We are elated to partner with Mastercard to bring this innovative Track solution to our 7,400 customers. We are also pleased to provide the requisite integration capabilities leveraging our award-winning ALLOY® Platform, to seamlessly connect our customers’ financial applications directly to Track. We look forward to offering additional business identity and payment capabilities to our user-base, further enhancing our value proposition, starting with the Track Trade Directory.”
Christian Lanng, chief executive officer and co-founder, Tradeshift:
“Tradeshift is all about enabling our partners and their customers to assert control over the entire procure-to-pay process. Integrating Mastercard Track into our supply-chain network is a natural enhancement for our community and a smart strategic move for both us and for Mastercard. Track is not just a transaction management tool. It’s also a framework for enabling key business partners—I’m thinking of banks and insurers here—to extend value-added service through the new platform. We’re proud to be selected as a launch partner for Mastercard’s rollout of the Track framework.”
Richard Hurwitz, chief executive officer, Tungsten Network:
“Our new partnership with Mastercard is an important component of being the world’s most trusted business transaction network. Mastercard Track offers additional business identification capabilities that will give Tungsten Network customers deeper insight into their supply chain and enhance the value of their membership, allowing them to trade with confidence across our globally compliant platform.”
[1] Goldman Sachs, “The Future of Finance, Redefining the Way We Pay in the Next Decade,” 2015
[2] Sources 2016 – Oxford Economics, Euromonitor International, Kaiser Associates, McKinsey Payment Data, Mastercard Internal Analysis