Mastercard has announced its Mid-Market Accelerator, the firm's latest suite of small and medium-sized (SME) solutions designed for financial providers to meet the unique needs of their middle market customers. The new offering will be available in the US initially, with plans to scale globally. It combines Mastercard’s digital payments technology and several of its value-added services with enhanced features from leading partners that provide transparency, automation, and security. 

There is an untapped opportunity to support the growth and digitisation of middle market companies, specifically the lower-middle market, which is broadly defined as companies with annual revenues between $10m and $100m, or with roughly 50-250 employees. New insights from Mastercard research revealed that fewer than 10 percent of financial providers offered services that support holistic financial visibility – exposing a significant capability gap for the segment. In parallel, middle market companies are placing increasing importance on tailored solutions, so much so that other Mastercard research showed four out of 10 would switch providers if offered products with a better fit.  

“Mastercard Mid-Market Accelerator reinforces our commitment to powering commerce for businesses of all sizes and supporting companies along every stage of their growth journey,” said Jane Prokop, executive vice president and global head of small and medium enterprises at Mastercard. “With the launch of these dedicated solutions, Mastercard aims to address the longstanding barriers that have blocked midsize companies from accessing bespoke tools fit for their sophisticated needs.”    

Unboxing the middle market solution

Mastercard Mid-Market Accelerator is designed to provide a flexible, robust blend of solutions that financial providers can custom-select to meet middle market customers wherever they are in their journeys.  

This includes a Cash Flow Management feature, provided by Trovata. This securely automates the aggregation and categorisation of data across multiple banks, enabling finance and treasury teams to analyse cash flow trends, forecast liquidity and make smarter, data-driven decisions in near real-time. Trovata is further expanding its payments capabilities by integrating with Mastercard's virtual card platform, which will make supplier payments more efficient and secure for midsize companies. 

A new Mastercard business card is also included, specifically tailored for the middle market. The card offers a curated set of select benefits from existing small business and commercial card programmes, plus new rewards designed for the segment. The card is available in both physical and virtual card options, providing midsize companies with more flexibility, choice and spending control with every transaction.  

The Expense Management element of the offering, provided by Navan, uses embedded virtual cards to bring robust spend controls to drive policy compliance and offer transaction-level insights to automate reconciliation and provide real-time spend visibility.  

Finally, the new solution is designed to bring enhanced security to the middle market space. The benefits of the Mastercard network include ID Theft Protection, HealthLock, and Zero Liability Protection, as well as the enhanced control and security of virtual cards.

Scaling with partners 

The payments firm says it is innovating with top players from across the ecosystem to support midsize businesses in the US, its first target market. Mastercard will collaborate with providers like Citizens to bring the card to their middle market customers, and with key fintech providers to deliver select tools fit for the segment’s most critical needs.

“As trusted advisers to our clients, we know firsthand that the middle market has a set of unique characteristics and pain points that require tailor-made solutions to fit their needs,” said Rodrigo Sanchez, head of commercial card solutions at Citizens. “This presents a major opportunity for collaboration to meet them where they are and help advance the growth of this important sector.” 

“We’re modernising finance and treasury by democratising bank data and automating cash workflows,” added Brett Turner, Founder and CEO, Trovata. “As a tech platform for business’ ‘trove of financial data,’ Trovata does the heavy lifting so that organisations, including those that sit within the middle market, can focus on the strategic aspects of their business. We aggregate, transform, and store their bank data as a managed service to power next-level business intelligence, payments, and working capital optimization in near real-time.”