Mastercard has partnered with UAE-founded spend management fintech Qashio to launch corporate credit cards and offer virtual issuance capabilities in the region. Following this partnership, the companies will focus on making the process of expense management cashless, flexible, and secure for corporates and businesses.

Mastercard and Qashio plan to expand access to commercial B2B solutions that can improve the manner in which SMEs digitise and change their operations, following a digital-first mindset and approach. This process is set to be in line with the vision of the UAE government to develop a robust digital economy. Furthermore, the announcement builds on the capabilities of Mastercard in the B2B commercial space, while Qashio is set to continue its procedure to grow its reach and network of corporates.

Businesses and corporates will be enabled to leverage convenient, automated, and cashless expense management that will also simplify the digitalisation process and enable effective modernisation of corporate spend management. Qashio’s physical and virtual cards and software will allow corporates and companies to manage their spending in a more automated and transparent manner, in order to save time and reduce cash leakage during the procedure. Finance and HR departments will benefit as well, especially from improved expense reporting, visibility, control of cash flows, and workforce.

Mastercard’s strategy of development US-based Mastercard had multiple partnerships and product launches in the last couple of months, covering several geographies around the world. In August 2023, the company released a CBDC partner programme that was designed to encourage open discussions around the emergence of CBDCs. The forum’s purpose was to offer a space for cryptocurrency stakeholders to enhance discussions about the emergence of CBDCs, the digital versions of traditional fiat currencies, such as USD.

The new launch was entitled `CBDC Partner Programme` and its primary aim was to stimulate and encourage conversations on optimising CBDCs for various use cases and to make CBDC overall more efficient and secure. Mastercard also noted in its press release that 93% of central banks were involved in some form of CBDC-related work at that time. In this context, the discussions on cryptocurrency stakeholders aimed to potentially aid central banks in avoiding errors and gaps in their process of implementing CBDC.

Earlier in the same month, Mastercard announced its partnership with US-based ecommerce risk intelligence firm Riskfied in order to enable businesses to mitigate fraud while growing their revenues. The focus of the collaboration was set on bringing together Mastercard’s cybersecurity capabilities and Riskidied’s transaction and identity network. Furthermore, the deal also offered access to the company’s set of services, which allowed for instant notifications regarding chargeback occurrence and facilitated the procedure of automated dispute settlement.

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