Making B2B payments an infrastructure advantage with the Mastercard Card to Account Partner Program

For something so fundamental to running a business, paying a supplier is often still more complicated than it should be.

In many organizations, invoices move between inboxes, approvals sit in email chains, and finance teams spend valuable time reconciling payments against records. What should be a routine cycle remains fragmented, limiting visibility, tying up working capital, and adding up to 8–15% in collection costs for organizations that rely on manual processes.  

The impact extends well beyond the finance function. Buyers are balancing internal controls with the need to manage liquidity. Suppliers are often waiting 30 to 45 days or longer to be paid, putting pressure on cash flow and limiting their ability to invest, hire, or grow. For many businesses, such delays are operational rather than occasional.

Closing the acceptance gap in commercial payments

Commercial cards offer clear advantages for businesses. They can help automate processes, improve control, and provide greater flexibility over working capital. Yet B2B supplier acceptance has historically limited how widely those benefits can be applied.

While some businesses may readily accept cards, many smaller and cross-border organizations continue to operate through traditional account-based payment methods. As a result, businesses often find themselves managing a patchwork of digital and manual payment processes across their supplier base.

Addressing this practical challenge requires solutions that work within existing commercial processes, rather than asking every participant in the ecosystem to change how they operate.

Extending digitization across the supplier base

This is where newer payment models are helping bridge the gap.

Card to Account (C2A) frameworks, for example, separate how a payment is initiated from how it is received. A buyer can use a commercial card to make a payment in any market or currency, while the supplier receives funds directly into their bank account, without needing to accept cards or change how they invoice customers.

Mastercard Card to Account Partner Program

The benefits ripple across the ecosystem:

• Buyers gain greater flexibility over working capital and cash flow management.
• Payment and approval processes can be embedded into existing systems, reducing manual effort.
• Reconciliation improves as transactions are captured digitally from end-to-end.
• Suppliers continue receiving funds through familiar channels, without changing their existing processes.

Network-based ecosystems such as the Mastercard Card to Account Partner Program are helping make this possible at scale. By connecting buyers, banks, and specialized service providers, such programs extend the reach of commercial payments into supplier networks that have traditionally been difficult to digitize, without introducing friction or risks.

From constraint to flexibility

The shift becomes most visible in how businesses manage liquidity.

A large telecommunications company in Asia Pacific, for example, faced working capital constraints during periods of peak demand. Extending payables was necessary to support growth but could not come at the expense of supplier relationships or operational complexity.

Working with fintech partner ipaymy, the company deployed a Card to Account solution within weeks – no system integration required. Suppliers continued receiving funds directly into their existing accounts without changing how they invoice or reconcile payments.

As Olivia Leong, CEO of ipaymy, noted: "We went from first conversation to live transaction in under 60 days — unlocking over 50 days of interest-free working capital for the business, with zero disruption to suppliers. Speed of implementation and immediate access to liquidity: that is what the card-to-account program delivers."

The result was a structurally more flexible approach to liquidity, giving the telco the ability to navigate demand spikes and free up capital at scale, without straining the supply chain. 

Building trust into more complex payment flows

As these frameworks expand, the complexity of payment flows increases. Transactions may span multiple participants — buyers, suppliers, platforms, and financial institutions — often across borders. This requires consistent visibility, strong compliance controls, and clear accountability over how funds move.

Rising expectations around anti-money laundering controls, Know Your Business requirements, and transaction integrity make governance a core design consideration rather than a back-end requirement. Structured partner ecosystems, with standardized onboarding and ongoing monitoring, play an important role in ensuring payments are executed as intended.

Designing what comes next

Businesses expect payment systems that work across markets, fit into existing workflows, and support diverse supplier networks without adding complexity. 

Meeting these expectations will depend on closer collaboration: combining global payment rails, fintech capabilities, and institutional frameworks in ways that scale. Approaches such as Mastercard Card to Account Partner Program offer one path forward: not by replacing existing systems, but by connecting them more effectively and extending their reach. 

What is changing is not just how payments are executed, but what they enable for organizations. Commercial payments can work across the full breadth of business relationships, far beyond the boundaries of existing acceptance.

The Mastercard Card to Account Partner Program is currently available in select Asia Pacific markets. If you would like to know more, please contact us at mc2ap@mastercard.com.