Inside the Push to Put AI-Powered B2B Payments Inside ERP Systems

Tech Mahindra and Mastercard are joining forces to bring B2B payment capabilities directly into enterprise resource planning and procurement platforms. The plan combines Tech Mahindra’s enterprise technology services with Mastercard’s payment capabilities, allowing businesses to manage transactions inside the software they already use.

The integration will focus on virtual cards, payment automation, real-time reconciliation, fraud-management tools and controls for corporate spending. The companies want to reduce manual work across accounts payable, treasury, procurement and supplier management, while helping businesses simplify supplier onboarding and gain clearer control over financial activity.

Payments Inside Existing Business Workflows

For enterprises, the main appeal is avoiding a separate payment process outside their existing systems. Tech Mahindra and Mastercard plan to connect payments with procurement, finance and supplier management workflows through application programming interfaces, or APIs. That approach is intended to let businesses use modern payment capabilities without giving up the technology investments already in place.

Roshan Shetty, BFSI and Public Sector Head, Americas, at Tech Mahindra, said: “Enterprises should not have to choose between modern payment capabilities and the technology investments they already rely on,”

The companies expect the integration to automate B2B payments and reconciliation, reducing the manual work tied to financial operations. They also expect it to improve financial visibility and control, though they have not quantified the expected benefits.

The partnership will use agentic AI workflows to enhance spending controls as enterprises modernise procurement and finance systems. The announcement did not specify which tasks AI agents would perform, and it did not say whether those agents could initiate or execute payments autonomously.

What Mastercard’s AI Push Adds

The partnership arrives as Mastercard expands its work in AI and commercial payments. Mastercard is targeting the $80 trillion B2B payments market with Mastercard Advanced B2B Analytics, which assesses which suppliers will accept commercial cards.

Mastercard is also expanding Agent Pay with new agentic trust and intelligence services. These services estimate whether an AI agent initiated a transaction, an important concern as businesses bring automated systems into purchasing and finance operations.

Executives Marc Pettican and Kaushik Gopal have explained how Mastercard plans to verify agent identity and buyer intent with Cloudflare, Skyfire, Google’s Verifiable Intent and the FIDO Alliance. Those efforts are designed to support verification even when payments settle outside Mastercard’s card network.

Rebecca Meeker, SVP of B2B Platforms and Embedded Finance at Mastercard, said embedding payments into enterprise platforms could make commercial payments part of existing procurement and finance workflows. That is the central idea behind the Tech Mahindra collaboration: put payment activity where purchasing and financial decisions already happen.

Details Still To Be Confirmed

Tech Mahindra and Mastercard have not named the ERP or procurement platforms involved. They have not disclosed customer deployments, quantified the expected benefits or provided an implementation timeline.

Those details will shape how businesses judge the partnership. APIs and payment automation can connect systems, but enterprises will still need clear information about supported platforms, supplier onboarding, fraud controls and the way reconciliation works across existing finance environments.

The companies describe the goal in practical terms: fewer manual steps, simpler supplier management and stronger spending controls without forcing businesses to replace their current software. The use of agentic AI adds another layer, but the limited information about agent responsibilities leaves open questions about oversight and payment authority.

Tech Mahindra has separately partnered with SpaceXSI to bring AI into software engineering, with a focus on application modernisation and developer productivity. That work sits alongside its payment collaboration with Mastercard, which focuses on enterprise finance, procurement and supplier management.

For Mastercard, the partnership links its broader push into B2B payments with the growing use of AI inside business software. For Tech Mahindra, it brings payment capabilities into the enterprise technology environments where companies already manage procurement and finance.

Stay connected via Google News

Follow us for the latest AI News