Mastercard Pushes Acquirers to Seize Hidden B2B Margins

Watch more: Need to Know: Mastercard’s Marc Pettican

Commercial card acceptance has been limited for years by myths and outdated assumptions. Acquirers have believed that commercial cards are too complex, too expensive and not margin rich enough to justify resources.

Marc Pettican, global head of corporate solutions at Mastercard, said those beliefs don’t reflect the changing realities of acceptance, the attractive economics in the mix, and the competitive advantage enjoyed by forward-thinking acquirers.

Software platforms used by businesses play an increasingly important role in acceptance, creating a scalable path to grow B2B acceptance. So, according to Pettican, acquirers have a strategic opening if they move acceptance into the systems where suppliers manage accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) every day.

Myths About Margins

One persistent misconception is that B2B card acceptance produces weaker economics than traditional merchant relationships. Pettican said this idea is simply untrue. “It is a myth. The margins that you can drive from B2B flows are north of what you would see in the B2B2C ecosystem,” he said.

Pettican also pointed to the size of the opportunity. “We believe that there is about $80 trillion of opportunity to go after to unlock AP and AR.” He said flows are already showing up in categories that were never part of card networks before. “These are flows an acquirer would not traditionally have access to.”

For acquirers, Pettican said this means real volume that has historically been outside card rails and is now available through platform-based connections.

Acceptance Decisions Are Moving Into Platforms

The shift in acceptance today is less about merchant category codes and more about software. Pettican said decisions about payment methods and acceptance workflows now happen in procure-to-pay solutions, ERP systems, and vertical software environments.

“Acquirers need to think beyond the traditional bilateral acceptance and position themselves within the platform,” Pettican said. These software environments have become “the primary decision layer for payment credentials and acceptance.”

That shift requires acquirers to follow suppliers into the tools they already use. Pettican said the fastest growing paths for acceptance include embedded workflows inside vertical SaaS systems, marketplaces and industry-specific procurement software.

Relying on B2B2C Flows Is Not Enough

Pettican said many acquirers still depend on legacy consumer-influenced flows. “Most acquirers still are relying on the B2B2C flows,” he said. These are categories built around retail, hospitality, travel and airlines. They will not deliver the next phase of acquirer growth.

FinTechs see the opportunity and have already started working directly inside AP and AR tools to bring card acceptance to supplier workflows. Pettican warned that waiting carries risk. “If you wait, then you face being disintermediated by the FinTechs or the early moving acquirers,” he said. “The biggest threat is not starting.”

In the B2B environment, the early mover advantage is real. Once a supplier adopts an embedded acceptance solution in its platform, switching can be difficult. Acquirers need to claim the position before competitors do.

Embedded Card Acceptance Reduces Friction

For acceptance to scale, suppliers need simple onboarding and less disruption to existing AP and AR workflows. Pettican said supplier onboarding timing is a hurdle. “One of the biggest challenges for an acquirer is the time to onboard a new customer,” he said, adding that  accelerating acquirers’ entry into B2B acceptance by reducing complexity is key.

Embedding acceptance directly into procurement and financial software allows acquirers to shorten onboarding cycles and reduce manual work. Pettican said Mastercard is addressing this by building direct connections to software environments suppliers already use. “We are connecting to many of the leading procure-to-pay ERP platforms globally. That gives acquirers a ready-to-go bridge into the broader supplier ecosystem,” he said.

Acquirers can then use these existing integrations instead of making one-off technical arrangements with individual suppliers.

APIs, Data and Straight-Through Processing

Pettican said Mastercard has three focus areas to help acquirers act on these flows.

The first is data and intelligence. “We can help issuers and acquirers ingest AP and AR data and play that data back to them in a way they have never seen before, which helps them reengineer the accounts payable and accounts receivable process,” he said. These insights help identify the right suppliers and the right timing for acceptance.

The second is integration via a single connection layer. Pettican pointed to new capabilities. “Commercial Connect API enables a customer to connect to us once and then we will serve up our commercial card capabilities. At the outset, we are embedding virtual card capabilities, but it is our intention to add all commercial payment capabilities,” he said.

The third is straight-through processing in reconciliation. Pettican said Mastercard Receivables Manager can enable straight-through processing and reconciliation using API calls, which Commercial Direct Payments uses APIs to automate the full virtual card payment lifecycle.

These capabilities solve real friction inside AP and AR teams, which often deal with manual documents, paper invoices and time-consuming reconciliation.

A Defensive and Offensive Opportunity

Pettican said commercial acceptance has both a protective and expansionary role. Acquirers can “protect and deepen relationships with existing corporate clients” and open new B2B revenue channels in industries that have not accepted cards before.

He encouraged acquirers to begin working with Mastercard to accelerate their approach. “There is a defensive and offensive opportunity here,” Pettican said. “Use us as a trusted guide.”