Richard Humphreys |
Global payments technology firm Mastercard has launched Mastercard Track, a global trade platform built on the Microsoft Azure cloud. The solution aims to connect buyers and suppliers with networks, banks and solution providers to simplify and enhance how companies around the world do business with each other.
Initially, Mastercard is partnering with nine business to business (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 organisations 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.
“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.”
“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,” added 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 organisations of all sizes drive value from the back-office to the front of the enterprise.”