Mastercard Adds Tech to Automate Virtual Card Acceptance

Mastercard has developed a tool to ease vendors’ acceptance of virtual card payments, the company announced.

The Mastercard Receivables Manager, which Mastercard is launching in partnership with B2B digital payments provider Billtrust, consolidates virtual card payments from all issuers so remittance data can be matched automatically to open invoices for easier reconciliation, according to Mastercard. This eliminates the need for suppliers to manually capture and enter virtual card details for reconciliation purposes.

Virtual card payments are growing rapidly, with global transactions expected to reach 121 billion annually by 2027, compared with about 28 billion last year, with about three-quarters of those in the United States, according to Juniper Research. The ability for accounts receivable teams to keep up with that growth is a challenge, Mastercard said.

“We’re bridging the gap between buyers’ virtual card preferences and suppliers’ acceptance challenges by automating manual processes and transforming the way accounts receivable teams operate,” Mastercard global head of commercial solutions Chad Wallace said in a statement.

Mastercard Receivables Manager currently is available only in the U.S., and Mastercard plans to expand to other markets around the world later this year.