Mastercard and SAP partner on B2B Payments in Colombia and Chile

Mastercard and multinational software company SAP have announced a strategic partnership to introduce an automated payments and reconciliation process to medium-to-large sized businesses in Colombia and Chile. The Mastercard B2B Payments Module in SAP Business One eliminates the inefficiencies that dominate the still labour-intensive processes of payments between businesses.

With this agreement, Mastercard becomes the first payments technology company in the global payments industry to join an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software company such as SAP.

According to a 2017 Mastercard study, 65% of CFOs see the accounts payable process as costly and manually laborious. In fact, companies with little or no automation spend on average $33.19 to process an invoice.

“While the ways of doing business has changed significantly, there are still areas where little has changed. With key partners like SAP, we’re building an ecosystem of products and services that help companies move away from manual processes by fully automating key areas of the business including, payments and reconciliation processes,” said Manuel Steremberg, vice president, LAC Business Development. “We’re bringing safe, simple and smart payments to the B2B world, the same way we’ve made these features a priority for cardholders around the world.”

The objective of the automated payment experience is to improve supplier relationships and accelerate the conversion of B2B payments from labour-intensive, even paper and manual reconciliation processes to electronic payments.

Initially available in Colombia and Chile, the solution is expected to scale in other markets throughout the region before the end of the year.

“When you combine a business’s interest in getting paid and having cash flow, introducing these payment capabilities will create a more efficient payments and accounting experience for our clients, increasing efficiency in procurement process, improving accounts reconciliation and optimising accounts payable cycle,” said Jose Rivas, director of SAP Business One, SAP LAC North. “Streamlining back-office reconciliation is one of the largest burdens facing businesses today, so we’re excited to debut this solution to our customer base.”