Mastercard and PayMate Team to Strengthen EEMEA B2B Payments

Mastercard has launched a partnership with business-to-business (B2B) payments company PayMate.

The collaboration, announced Monday (Nov. 4), is designed to bolster digital B2B payments for companies in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA).

“The B2B payments market is projected to exceed $3 trillion in revenue by 2027, demonstrating significant growth potential,” the companies said in a news release.

“The partnership between the organizations will address challenges that businesses across the EEMEA markets face such as limited visibility, manual invoice processes, and restricted payment options that create tight liquidity and operational inefficiencies.”

According to the release, businesses can use the PayMate platform and their Mastercard commercial cards for transactions such as utility payments, collections and payments to suppliers, including ones that don’t accept cards. The goal is to reduce days sales outstanding (DSO) while improving cash flow and optimizing credit limit utilization, the companies added.

“By leveraging Mastercard’s strong network and PayMate’s comprehensive payments platform, we will enable buyers to pay earlier and sellers to receive payments faster across small, medium and large businesses, thereby accelerating the B2B payment ecosystem,” said Ajay Adiseshann, founder and CEO of PayMate.

In other B2B payments news, PYMNTS recently examined the obstacles presented by accounts receivable (AR) functions in a conversation with Corrie DeCamp, chief product officer at Billtrust.

“As companies grow in size, they’re often manually trying to match payments and remittance through Excel spreadsheets and things that aren’t that efficient,” DeCamp told PYMNTS during a conversation for the B2B Payments 2024 event.

She explained that many companies still wrestle with inefficiencies of manual processes, leading to delayed payments, high error rates and increased operational costs.

DeCamp stressed that in contrast to legacy AR workflows, embracing automation technologies can help firms strengthen their financial resilience and operational efficiency, arguing that automation is vital for faster and more predictable cash flow, lower DSO and a stronger financial position overall.

“After all, against today’s fast-moving and unknowable backdrop, automating AR goes beyond just saving time for businesses — it also enhances organizational flexibility and boosts resilience, reducing manual, repetitive tasks and allowing finance teams to focus on strategic initiatives,” PYMNTS wrote.

PayMate’s new partnership comes weeks after the company announced plans to purchase Indonesian FinTech-as-a-service (FaaS) company DigiAsia. The $400 million deal will mark PayMate’s launch in Indonesia, with plans for the combined company to go public in India.