Mastercard has been busy this week. In addition to finalizing its acquisition of data aggregation provider Finicity, the company is also enhancing its Mastercard Track Business Payment Service.
Mastercard launched its Track Business Payments Service in May of this year to help modernize the business payments experience. The overall goal of the initiative has been to provide businesses with a richer data exchange experience and greater control over payments.
Today’s launch adds account-to-account (A2A) functionality to the Track Business Payments Service. The new addition offers businesses a similar experience for A2A payments as they had with card payments. That is, businesses can exchange data with greater efficiency and facilitate payments across multiple payment rails including Real Time Payments (RTP) and the Automated Clearing House (ACH). Overall, the new tool enhances security, as it doesn’t require suppliers to share their bank account details with buyers, nor does it require buyers to store those details.
“Today, the vast majority of B2B payments are made through bank account transfers. Extending Mastercard Track Business Payment Service to support these transfers is a step on our way to building out the best and most secure B2B payment network in the world,” said Mastercard EVP of Global Commercial and B2B Solutions James Anderson. “Our commitment to supporting multiple payment rails has always been about helping customers operate more efficiently and effectively leveraging all the capabilities available in the market with as little change as possible.”
The A2A functionality is now available for Track Business Payments Service customers in the U.S. Mastercard plans to roll out the service for users in all geographies by the end of next year.
“This milestone is another step in the journey away from paper-based frustration, incomplete data, and manual reconciliation work and toward a fully digitized business payments process,” added Anderson.