The approach addresses a practical problem in corporate payments: knowing that a company has substantial supplier spending does not necessarily tell its finance team which suppliers are prepared to receive that spending by card. By applying analytics to existing accounts payable information, Mastercard is seeking to narrow that search before banks or corporate customers begin supplier outreach.
Marc Pettican, global head of Corporate Solutions at Mastercard, said, “Businesses today are sitting on vast amounts of payment data, but too often it remains fragmented and underutilized. With Advanced B2B Analytics, we're combining powerful insights with our deep commercial payments expertise to help issuers identify where card acceptance can deliver the greatest value, engage suppliers more effectively, and drive measurable growth.”
Absa Group and Emirates NBD are among the first financial institutions offering Advanced B2B Analytics to corporate customers, with Emirates NBD also among the first to launch the solution in the United Arab Emirates.
Under the model described by Mastercard, financial institutions can provide corporate clients with analytics that highlight possible supplier acceptance opportunities. Companies can then use that information when prioritizing suppliers for outreach and assessing how payments are distributed across their accounts payable operations.
The platform is also being positioned alongside virtual cards. These are digitally generated card credentials linked to an underlying funding account and can include controls governing factors such as where, when and how much can be spent. Mastercard says Advanced B2B Analytics can help identify invoice payments that could potentially be moved to cards, including virtual cards.
Supplier willingness remains an important part of that process. Mastercard's 2025 State of Commercial Card Acceptance study, conducted with The Harris Poll, surveyed 1,042 senior financial decision-makers at large B2B companies across 10 countries. The research found that 48% of suppliers expected buyers to ask to pay by card more frequently over the following five years.
Mastercard estimates the addressable B2B payments opportunity at approximately $80 trillion, citing 2024 analysis conducted with McKinsey. The scale helps explain why payment networks are developing tools that seek to identify portions of corporate spending that could move through commercial-card infrastructure.
Yet card acceptance is only one component of corporate payment strategy. Mastercard's 2025 research found that 71% of surveyed suppliers experienced working-capital challenges, while 69% reported challenges involving slow transaction speeds. The same research found that 93% considered digitizing payment processes a top priority.
Mastercard reported differences between businesses that accepted cards and those that did not. Card-accepting suppliers were 14 percentage points more likely to describe themselves as very efficient at maximizing working capital and 12 percentage points less likely to report frequently encountering working-capital challenges.
Advanced B2B Analytics is designed to give finance teams another layer of information when evaluating those payment flows. Mastercard says the platform can provide visibility into supplier spending, potential card acceptance and payment patterns, while its Advisors & Transformation team can provide consulting support around supplier prioritization.
The launch also forms part of Mastercard's broader effort to apply AI and analytics beyond consumer transactions. The company described Advanced B2B Analytics as a foundational B2B capability and said it intends to extend intelligence and analytics further across the supplier and acquiring sides of the commercial-payments ecosystem.
