This announcement was posted at IBS Intelligence and advises of a corporate credit card launch by National Commercial Bank, the largest bank in Saudi Arabia, using the Mastercard network.
Commercial credit cards are nothing new to the Middle East and Africa region, but adoption is not anywhere near the level of maturity of North America, or even Europe for that matter. We cover world regions’ developments on commercial credit cards in a member report.
‘ “As a trusted technology leader and proud supporter of the business community, we are delighted to collaborate with NCB to expand inclusion for best-in-class financial control, B2B expenditures and corporate travel benefits. We remain committed to helping businesses by offering innovative tools and payment solutions that enable them to make the most of the digital economy and an ever-strengthening payment ecosystem,” said J.K. Khalil, Country Manager, KSA, Bahrain & Levant, Mastercard….“We are delighted to once again collaborate with Mastercard for another solution which we believe will provide strong value to businesses by offering the tools to enhance efficiency as well as meet their working capital requirements. Through the commercial credit card, our large corporate customers as well as SME clients will be able to make cashless transactions seamlessly and conveniently, while maintaining a stronger control over their cash flows. Furthermore, the initiative will add benefits to our corporate customers such as control of spending and compliance with corporate policies,” said Majed Al Ghamdi, Chief Executive Officer, Retail CEO, NCB.’
We have not gotten a briefing but this appears to be just a corporate card (T&E use cases) at this time and not a broader program for purchasing cards and/or virtual cards for accounts payable purposes. These products are typically targeted for mid-to-large market corporates (and government entities), which is why it looks to be positioned as a cash management tool. We’ll be taking another look at the region soon.
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
