Mastercard has partnered with 4thWave, an innovative finance and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) digital platform provider, to streamline business-to-business (B2B) payment flows. The collaboration will leverage 4thWave’s advanced supply chain finance platform for managing B2B payments to benefit Mastercard’s commercial customers, enabling cashflow for corporate buyers and suppliers.

The partnership will strengthen the offerings available as part of Mastercard’s InControl for Commercial Payments (ICCP), an industry-leading solution that helps to streamline B2B payments using unique, dynamically generated virtual account numbers to make payments to suppliers, flexible, robust and secure. Mastercard’s straight through processing (STP) will further increase virtual card account acceptance to deliver funds for approved transactions to suppliers’ bank accounts.

Around 72% of organizations experience strained vendor relationships due to inefficient invoice and payment processing, leading to sub-optimal supplier relationships. Mastercard is creating a paradigm shift in the B2B payments landscape, putting an end to the operational and financial challenges shaped by inefficient processes and multiple varying point-of-origin payment systems.

“In line with our commitment to helping businesses worldwide transform the way they pay and get paid, we are investing in enhanced capabilities in the commercial B2B payments space. Our partnership with 4thWave, a result of our continued focus on solving for B2B accounts payable and receivables, will allow us to jointly provide enhanced value to all participants in the supply chain,” said Clyde Rosanowski, Senior Vice President of Commercial Solutions, EEMEA, Mastercard.

 “We are pleased to partner with Mastercard to expand our offerings to the wider EEMEA market. The B2B businesses, especially in the SME & MSME segment, have been severely impacted by the slowness in collections of receivables. This has led to severe liquidity crunch that has negative consequences for the survival of these businesses. Our combined solution with Mastercard addresses this need by providing an easy and innovative financing platform that will rekindle and spur the much-needed growth in the economies”, says Dan Mishra, the chairman of 4THWAVE INC.

 The commercial payments market in the Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) region presents an opportunity of $7 trillion. B2B account payables and receivables comprise more than 85% of these flows, showing tremendous potential for growth.