Mastercard, SAP Concur Team On APAC Expense, Invoice Management

Payments heavyweight Mastercard and longtime expense management player SAP Concur are jointly offering an expense and payments management package to companies operating in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, the two firms announced in a press release.

Mastercard said in the release that the partnership offers “transaction solutions along with closer alignment between commercial card providers and their clients.”

“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,” Mostafa Sabet, Mastercard vice president for Product Management in the APAC region, said in the release.

Sabet added in the release that the new solution “will deliver the tools and insights that businesses and governments need to control costs and manage expenses tightly, transparently and efficiently.”

Mastercard’s announcement comes nine months after the company said it would work to connect 1 billion people to the global digital economy by 2025.

The APAC region remains fertile ground for the expansion of digital banking on the personal level as well as among businesses — a process The World Bank listed as a priority in an August report. That document stated, in part: “Digital financial inclusion was a development priority before the COVID-19 emergency; now, it is indispensable for both short-term relief and as a central element of broad-based, sustainable recovery efforts. There are challenges to accelerating digital finance, but also, increasingly, an understanding of how to overcome these obstacles and reduce risks.”

In January, AspireHR and SAP Concur announced a partnership to offer expense and invoice management to AspireHR customers in the United States.

“SAP Concur solutions benefit businesses, not just in dollars and cents, but also by improving productivity, reducing risk, helping to ensure corporate compliance, and so much more,” AspireHR CEO Kevin Chase said in a prepared statement at the time.