PayMate Gears Up For Middle East Entrance

India-based firm PayMate, which provides B2B payments and small business (SMB) financing solutions, offered an update to The Financial Express about its partnership with Visa, announced earlier this year. PayMate told reporters that it plans to launch its operations in the Middle East in the middle of June, then continue its growth with a launch in Egypt and North Africa.

The publication said on Sunday (May 27) that PayMate is also planning to grow the value of B2B transactions processed on its platform annually from $4 billion to $10 billion by the end of the decade.

“The commercial payments opportunity in [the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA)] region is of $8.7 trillion,” said Ajay Adiseshann, PayMate founder and CEO, in an interview with the publication. “We expect the region to contribute 25 [percent to] 30 percent of our business over the next 24 to 36 months.”

The company’s growth was propelled via its collaboration with Visa, which enables Visa’s issuing financial institution clients to access the PayMate platform to manage corporate customers’ payment needs.

In a statement earlier this year, Rakesh Khanna, Visa Business Solutions vice president and head of CEMEA operations, pointed to the B2B payments opportunity in the region.

“Visa has a significant focus on digitization of B2B payments, and we are teaming up with companies like PayMate to help simplify payables and receivables processes for businesses of all sizes,” Khanna said. “Our initial foray with PayMate in India resulted in a large number of enterprises and SMBs making payments using Visa commercial cards across industry verticals, contributing to significant B2B payment volume growth in the country.”

PayMate, which collaborates with financial institutions to connect small businesses to capital, spoke with PYMNTS last year about some of the biggest challenges in India’s SMB financing space. Adiseshann explained, “Until now, we were more a payments company, which was loosely facilitating credit through banking partners. Now, we want to get deeper into lending.”