Economy
MasterCard Track to Make Ease of Doing Business Easier
By Dipo Olowookere
A new innovation has been introduced by leading payment platform, MasterCard, to make ease of doing business easier.
The new initiative called MasterCard Track™ was launched on Wednesday, September 12, 2018 in collaboration with Microsoft.
Track is a unique global trade platform that will simplify and enhance how companies around the world do business with each other.
While parts of the B2B process have been digitized, large and costly gaps still remain, an estimated $500 billion in annual administrative costs and rising. These costs are added to the inefficiency of the nearly half of all global business transactions, $58 trillion, that are still done in paper.
MasterCard Track will address these fundamental challenges by further streamlining and automating the procure-to-pay-process – enabling businesses to manage business identity, compliance and payments in a more efficient way.
“While there have been great improvements and innovations in the way consumers pay, the global B2B space remains highly inefficient and paper-based”, said Michael Froman, vice chairman and president of strategic growth at MasterCard. “This adds hundreds of billions of dollars of costs and burdensome delays to global trade. MasterCard Track is a tool that will help reduce frictions in the global trading system and promote increased exports – especially by small and medium-sized businesses.”
Unlocking growth for businesses of all sizes
While consumers have become accustomed to a broader choice of technology solutions, businesses too are looking for speed, security and convenience in their everyday operations. From reducing the steps it takes to identify a business partner, to making the payments process simpler and more transparent, MasterCard Track has the potential to unlock economic growth and to level the playing field for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME).
“Together with MasterCard, we’re helping companies around the world accelerate the pace of their own transformation by creating a more efficient buying and selling process at scale,” said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president, Microsoft. “By building MasterCard Track on Azure, MasterCard will be able to take advantage of our stringent security and compliance standards, our global footprint and our intelligent cloud solutions to help organizations of all sizes drive value from the back-office to the front of the enterprise.”
MasterCard Track underscores the company’s commitment to address several pain points in the global business environment. The new platform draws on and complements the whole range of MasterCard innovation and B2B assets, from account-to-account and card payment solutions to fraud management, data analytics and payment gateway services.
Addressing identity, compliance and payment management needs
Initially, MasterCard is partnering with nine B2B networks and procure-to-pay solution providers – Basware, BirchStreet, Coupa, the Infor GT Nexus Commerce Network, Ivalua, Jaggaer, Liaison Technologies, Tradeshift and Tungsten Network – representing a wide range of global businesses, to roll out Track’s identity, compliance and payment management capabilities to buyers and suppliers.
Beginning in early 2019, customers of these organizations will be able to maintain, retrieve and exchange key information relating to themselves and their trading partners through the Track Trade Directory, a secure, permissioned repository of over 150 million company registrations worldwide. This central directory will integrate feeds from more than 4,500 compliance lists into one place, making the screening and onboarding of suppliers more efficient.
As the platform expands, suppliers will have better visibility into cash flow – when they can expect to get paid and for how much – across multiple networks. Track will help connect all types of payments – account-based, card-based or bank transfer – within the platform, while also connecting purchase order and invoice information. This will streamline and simplify back-office reconciliation, one of the largest burdens facing businesses today.
Through its partners, Track will enable B2B networks, banks, insurance companies and technology providers to extend value-added services to business customers, such as enhanced data analytics and trade finance.
Integrated with Singapore’s National Trade Platform
In Singapore, MasterCard Track has already been integrated with the National Trade Platform, a one-stop digital trade ecosystem which brings together key logistics functions, such as movement of goods as well as regulatory and financial elements for players across the trade value chain. MasterCard Track facilitates secure and efficient electronic payments between buyers and suppliers, helping to strengthen the country’s position as the leading trading hub for the region.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The decline in the share price of Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc weakened the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange by 1.02 per cent on Wednesday, August 12.
The securities depository company suffered a N10.88 loss to close at N106.00 per unit compared with the previous day’s N116.88 per unit.
As a result, the market capitalisation, for the third time this week, closed lower, losing N28.04 billion to finish at N2.720 trillion compared with the N2.748 trillion it ended a day earlier. The NASD Security Index (NSI) dropped 46.71 points to end at 4,532.03 points versus Tuesday’s 4,578.74 points.
Yesterday, there was a price gainer, which was FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc. Its price increased by N13.50 to N170.00 per share from N156.50 per share.
The level of activity for the session waned on Wednesday, with the volume of securities down by 89.8 per cent to 150,340 units from the previous session’s 1.5 million units. The value of securities slumped by 55.9 per cent to N18.7 million from N42.3 million, and the number of deals depreciated by 37.3 per cent to 32 deals from Tuesday’s 51 deals.
At the close of business, Great Nigeria Insurance (GNI) Plc was the most traded stock by value on a year-to-date basis, with 3.4 billion units valued at N8.4 billion, followed by Infrastructure Credit Guarantee (Infracredit) Plc with 2.3 billion units transacted for N6.5 billion, and CSCS Plc with 77.2 million units traded for N5.5 billion.
GNI Plc was also the most traded stock by volume on a year-to-date basis, with 3.4 billion units worth N8.4 billion, followed by Infracredit Plc with 2.3 billion units exchanged for N6.5 billion, and Resourcery Plc with 1.1 billion units sold for N415.7 million.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Foreign exchange (FX) pressure eased on the Naira on Wednesday. August 12, at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEX). Its value appreciated against the United States Dollar by 0.17 per cent or N2.31 to close at N1,360.58/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,364.89/$1.
The Nigerian Naira also improved its value against the Pound Sterling at midweek at the official FX market by N1.62 to quote at N1,840.99, in contrast to Tuesday’s rate of N1,842.61/£1. It gained N3.49 against the Euro during the session to settle at N1,572.01/€1 versus the preceding session’s N1,575.50/€1.
However, the Naira depreciated against the greenback yesterday at the GTBank forex counter by N3 to sell for N1,370/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,367/$1, and at the parallel market, it maintained stability at N1,395/$1.
Data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) indicated that interbank FX turnover rose sharply by 481 per cent to $168.758 million from $29.060 million due to an increase in banks’ activities as intermediaries for their customers.
The apex bank data indicated that the number of deals at the interbank FX market surged to 190 from 47 the previous day.
As for the digital currency market, benchmarked tokens were more positive in line with the US inflation report that eased nerves but failed to spark a broad crypto rally.
Headline inflation rose 0.1 per cent on the month and 3.4 per cent on the year, with the core measure that strips out food and energy up 0.2 per cent and easing to 2.5 per cent.
July inflation matched forecasts, reinforcing expectations that the Federal Reserve can wait on further rate moves and prompting modest gains in gold, equities and some digital assets.
TRON (TRX) grew by 0.7 per cent to $0.3374, Binance Coin (BNB) jumped by 0.4 per cent to $612.84, Ethereum (ETH) rose by 0.3 per cent to $1,892.73, Solana (SOL) increased by 0.3 per cent to $76.37, and Bitcoin (BTC) added 0.2 per cent to sell at $63,768.51.
On the flip side, DOGE slipped by 1.6 per cent to $0.0705, Cardano (ADA) lost 1.1 per cent to end at $0.1844, and Ripple (XRP) declined by 0.7 per cent to $1.01, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 apiece.
By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited tumbled by 1.12 per cent on Wednesday as a result of selling pressure in three of the five key sectors of the bourse.
Yesterday, the insurance space rose by 0.71 per cent and the energy counter appreciated by 0.02 per cent. But these gains were erased by the three other sectors, with the consumer goods index down by 4.93 per cent, the industrial goods sector down by 0.42 per cent, and the banking segment down by 0.30 per cent.
Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) receded by 2,756.48 points to 243,967.09 points from 246,723.57 points, and the market capitalisation dropped by N1.762 trillion to close at N157.494 trillion compared with Tuesday’s N159.256 trillion.
The worst-performing stock for the day was BUA Foods, which lost 10.00 per cent to trade at N760.60. Unilever Nigeria shed 9.97 per cent to close at N131.40, John Holt depreciated by 9.90 per cent to N9.10, AVA Capital declined by 9.50 per cent to N8.10, and Austin Laz crashed by 8.81 per cent to N2.90.
The best-performing stock for the session was International Energy Insurance, which chalked up 10.00 per cent to quote at N4.40. Ecobank gained 9.93 per cent to settle at N71.40, Trans-Nationwide Express expanded by 9.77 per cent to N2.36, CWG grew by 9.74 per cent to N21.40, and Cornerstone Insurance improved by 6.80 per cent to N5.50.
Yesterday, 1.5 billion shares were sold for N20.9 billion in 39,085 deals compared with the 3.9 billion shares worth N32.4 billion exchanged in 45,608 deals a day earlier, representing a decline in the trading volume, value, and number of deals by 61.54 per cent, 35.49 per cent, and 14.30 per cent, respectively.
On top of the activity chart was Fortis Global Insurance, with a turnover of 853.2 million units sold for N2.6 billion. Universal Insurance exchanged 251.8 million units worth N214.1 million, Chams transacted 40.0 million units valued at N181.0 million, First Holdco traded 28.3 million units worth N3.9 billion, and Access Holdings sold 25.4 million units valued at N702.4 million.
