The “Growth Opportunities in the Asia-Pacific B2B Payments Market, Forecast to 2025” report that profiled B2B payment solution providers including MasterCard highlighted that the B2B payments market growth in the region will be underpinned by a growing B2B eCommerce market and an increase in financial technology (fintech) participants. By collaborating with technology and software industry leaders, enterprises are now adopting technologies such as a hyperledger framework, open API, and encryption to help them achieve and deliver payment automation that is secured and resilient. 

The recent SAP and MasterCard collaboration is one example of how companies leverage digital solutions to propel B2B payment growth. MasterCard, one of the electronic payments industry leaders, has ventured into advancing its expense and invoice management processes for enterprise and government clients in the Asia Pacific. By selecting German software giant SAP as its technology partner, the global payment technology vendor aims to provide banks, companies, and government agencies enhanced visibility on their corporate card transactions through SAP Concur expense and invoice management solutions.

Sharing about the SAP and MasterCard alliance, President, Product Management of MasterCard, Asia Pacific Mostafa Sabet said:

“This powerful pairing offers the best of both worlds by combining SAP Concur’s expense management expertise with MasterCard’s global payments network, extensive partnerships, industry-leading security, and comprehensive solutions and services.” 

“In today’s competitive environment and rapidly evolving digital economy, MasterCard’s integration with SAP Concur solutions will deliver the tools and insights that businesses and governments need to control costs and manage expenses tightly, transparently, and efficiently,” Sabet added.

SAP Concur Expense Management Expertise 

Today, more than ever, businesses and governments are actively looking for intelligent solutions that would future-proof spend management. As the world’s leading provider of integrated travel and expense management services and solutions, many businesses tap SAP Concur to help them automate their expense and invoice processes.

The SAP and MasterCard collaboration offer APAC customers the opportunity to improve payment visibility, optimise credit lines, and leverage data through industry-leading transaction solutions. More importantly, the partnership intends to deliver an excellent customer experience by leading the alignment between commercial card providers and their clients. MasterCard’s issuing customers can now look into better corporate payments processing and leverage SAP Concur solutions to business and government clients.

With regards to business travel, it is projected to have a tremendous rebound as travel policies take shape and once restrictions are lifted. As corporate travels ease up, businesses can benefit from SAP Concur solutions integration in commercial card transactions under corporate travel booking- ensuring faster reconciliation and payments while strengthening cost control and compliance.

Having the most comprehensive portfolio of payment brands in the world, MasterCard together with SAP Concur delivers Web-based corporate financial solutions and expense management solutions– such as travel and entertainment, purchasing/procurement, fleet, and telephony– to MasterCard’s member financial institutions. SAP and MasterCard empower companies to make informed financial decisions by providing customers information on spending trends and identifying potential cost savings.

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The announcement comes after the release of Cosmo Energy’s report on the overview of its business results for the third quarter of its fiscal year ending in March 2020. According to the report, the consolidated operating profit of the company was down by ¥29.7 billion from the same period of the fiscal year 2018 due to unprecedented low petrochemical and oil prices. In integrating SAP Ariba’s intelligent software solutions into their procurement & supply management, Cosmo Oil aims to gain a better insight into their spend data and strengthen its competitive advantage.

With  SAP Ariba solutions, Cosmo Oil has implemented a standardized procurement process to streamline and simplify operations, develop resources more efficiently, and be equipped to promote remote working in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.  By automating processes, the company aims to better forecast how to respond efficiently to problems that may arise with the emerging global recession and the current climate of low oil prices.

Further, Cosmo Oil Co Ltd is looking to optimize its capital spend to improve profitability. The company expects to achieve this with guidance from SAP’s road map. This road map details the ERP software company’s current solutions, upcoming innovations, and future plans for the oil and gas industry.

Current Solutions

• Support for project roles with SAP’s project management suite
• Well-level profitability controls with integrated accounting and production operations
• Real-time visibility into the supply chain with mobile interface
• Digital twin technology for intelligent asset management

Upcoming Innovations

• Cloud-based project management solution that features a role-based user interface
• Integrated upstream hydrocarbon accounting and management
• Interactive visual user interface for supply chain management
• Granular data-based asset monitoring from sensors and maintenance history

Future Plans

• Utilize smart algorithms for project status assessment and evaluation of contractor reliability
• Flexible frameworks in identifying contract and revenue requirements
• Intelligent platform to enable collaboration and transparency in hydrocarbon activities
• Deliver comprehensive features to support end-to-end processes

The post Cosmo Oil Co Ltd. Turns to SAP for Strategic Procurement Management appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

HDFC Bank India, MasterCard, and SAP Concur have collaborated to support the corporate sector by providing spending management services through a corporate credit card for business travellers. The joint-innovation will provide a one-stop solution for payment and expense management during business trips.

The corporate credit card, supported by MasterCard and to be provided by HDFC Bank, will enable a seamless integration of all business-related spend into SAP Concur offerings. The new solution is anticipated to enhance employee experience, increase visibility, save money, and improve efficiency. 

“The corporate credit card will enable seamless integration of all business-related spend into SAP Concur offerings, enhancing employee experience, increasing visibility, saving money, and improving corporate efficiency,” the press release said.

“Corporates can gain greater insights and control while ensuring regulatory and tax compliance through this solution. Together with SAP Concur solutions, we aim to reinvent the way Indian corporates experience business travel,” said Parag Rao, Country Head (Payments Business and Marketing) of HDFC Bank.

HDFC Bank is India’s leading private sector bank that offers personal banking services such as accounts & deposits, cards, loans, investment & insurance products to meet all banking needs. One of the first institutions to receive approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to set up a private sector bank in 1994, today, HDFC Bank has a banking network of 5,345 branches and 14,533 ATMs spread across 2,787 cities and towns in the country.

SAP Concur, the world’s leading provider of integrated travel and expense management services and solutions, serves 48,000 customers in over 150 countries including over 75{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of Fortune 100 and 500 companies, and more than 58.1 million end-users. It helps organisations’ leverage technology to connect spend data, and create intelligent spend management workflows as spend management becomes more complex.

According to SAP Concur’s Managing Director (Indian subcontinent) Mankiran Chowhan, with SAP Concur, the company is able to help its customers build an intelligent spend management platform by automating and integrating travel, expense, and invoice management. He added:

“This enables them to uncover valuable spend data, simplify processes, and make smart decisions. Using our joint solution, organisations can make strategic decisions based on insights unique to their business and gain a consolidated view of their budget, drive control on how employees spend money, automate payments to speed up processing, and ensure compliance and data accuracy.”

Meanwhile, Division President (South Asia) of MasterCard Porush Singh has shared that the new corporate card solutions benefit business travellers in terms of convenience and security. The solutions allow users access to enhanced features for traveller convenience and increased protection against fraud including in-built proprietary tools. Singh said:

 “It will help to capture and consolidate accurate financial reporting to enable deep analysis for greater cost savings.” 

As spend management requirements grow more complex, an Intelligent Spend Management that is automated and integrated will help businesses thrive.

HDFC Bank’s corporate card has started to unlock the capabilities of the Intelligent Spend Management. Much like how the American Express had collaborated with SAP Concur to streamline the complex vendor payments process.

Today, American Express Business or Corporate cardmembers can access the American Express B2B Payments app, which allows them to integrate their payment information directly with Concur Invoice, a cloud-based B2B invoice management solution that syncs with most ERP and accounting systems to automate accounts payable.

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