Pluto Partners With Mastercard on Payment Options in GCC Region

Pluto, a provider of financial corporate spend management solutions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has partnered with Mastercard to provide B2B payment solutions in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

This collaboration will leverage Mastercard’s expertise in payment technology to enhance Pluto’s existing suite of solutions, benefiting Pluto’s clients by providing them with a wider range of efficient and secure payment options, the companies said in a Thursday (Nov. 30) press release.

“This collaboration amplifies our commitment to empowering CFOs and finance teams,” Mohammed Ridwan, co-founder and chief operating officer of Pluto, said in the release. “Mastercard’s expertise will expand our payment offerings, making transactions seamless and secure. We’re excited to explore more strategic agreements with Mastercard — united, we’re set to reshape the financial landscape.”

Pluto aims to support businesses of varying sizes, from mid-sized enterprises to large multi-group holdings, in better managing their finances, according to the release. By exclusively partnering with Mastercard for all payments, Pluto said it can provide these clients with additional payment solutions.

This strategic partnership also aligns with Pluto’s expansion plans in the GCC region, as it is now set to operate in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, in addition to the UAE, the release said.

“At Mastercard, we are dedicated to helping businesses big and small transform the way they pay and get paid,” Gina Petersen-Skyrme, vice president and country business development lead, UAE & Oman, at Mastercard, said in the release. “Our real-time B2B payment solutions power digital economies and empower organizations worldwide with flexibility and control over their finances.”

Pluto launched its expense management platform in the UAE in November 2021 to help solve the spend management pain points experienced by the “massive, underserved ecosystem of SMBs [small- to medium-sized businesses],” Pluto Co-founder Mo Aziz told PYMNTS in an interview posted in March 2022.

“The first problem that we’re solving for is purely a platform that allows these companies to connect your bank accounts and to create unlimited virtual or physical spend cards that can be distributed to [multiple employees with spend control limits], along with the ability to automate collection of receipts,” Aziz said at the time.

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