Q&A: Mastercard’s Johanna Waara on Growing B2B Marketplaces

In an exclusive interview with Finance Chief, Johanna Waara, SVP and Head of Corporate Solutions for Europe at Mastercard, offers her perspective on the expansion of European B2B marketplaces. 

We cover how she examines the primary catalysts for their rise, the prospects and hurdles encountered during rapid scaling, and the payment breakthroughs that are streamlining processes and shaping future development.

Would you say that B2B marketplaces have reshaped global trade?

Absolutely. B2B marketplaces have become essential for global commerce, connecting buyers and sellers across industries and borders, and facilitating trillions in transaction value each year. 

Their rapid growth has been fuelled by the growth of e-commerce and cross-border trade. Buyers benefit from greater price transparency, broader supplier choice and more streamlined procurement, while sellers gain access to new markets and customers at scale. 

Across Europe, hundreds of B2B marketplaces now deliver the speed and convenience that was once primarily associated with B2C platforms.

What challenges are emerging as B2B marketplaces scale at pace?

While marketplaces have transformed how businesses trade, the way money moves through them has struggled to keep pace.

As these platforms scale, fragmented payment systems, manual reconciliation and delayed settlement create operational friction, and this turns payments into a constraint on growth rather than an enabler of it.

Cash flow remains one of the sector’s biggest challenges. At Mastercard, we commissioned a global study to understand the views of European business leaders. This found that half of sellers regularly face cash shortages because of delayed payments, and 42% have relied on business loans to bridge funding gaps.

Operators in the merchant of record model, for example, often need to fund purchases upfront while extending credit terms to large buyers, creating funding gaps. In multi-party models, sellers frequently face delays linked to buyer approvals or escrow releases.

Missing payment data, disputes and fragmented systems also consume time and resources. The same study showed that more than half of marketplace participants are spending between 10-20 hours each month reconciling discrepancies, time that could be better spent focusing on higher value, revenue-generating activities.

Where are you seeing the biggest untapped opportunity for marketplaces to differentiate, and how central is payments to that?

In an increasingly competitive marketplace landscape, payments are no longer just a back-office function. They are becoming a strategic differentiator. 

Almost all (98%) marketplace participants now demand near real-time tracking and transparency, and over half of buyers and sellers still acknowledge they are not optimising how they pay or get paid. 

The marketplaces that simplify and modernise their payments processes will therefore be best positioned to gain a strategic advantage, improving cash flow whilst delivering a more seamless experience.

The opportunity is clear: solving payment friction can unlock the next phase of marketplace growth, and the technology to do that already exists. 

If payments are a key opportunity, what solutions can marketplaces adopt to address friction and drive broader growth?

Flexible credit lines and automated reconciliation are enabling smarter, more integrated payment flows, reducing friction, delays and fragmentation while strengthening trust across the supply chain.

Virtual cards are emerging as a powerful tool. Secure single- or multi-use card numbers can be embedded directly into ERP systems and marketplace platforms, enabling buyers to access flexible credit while helping sellers receive payment faster.

At the same time, virtual cards generate richer transaction-level data, improving visibility, simplifying reconciliation and strengthening security across the ecosystem.

These solutions are simplifying the flow of money across marketplaces, making transactions faster, more transparent and easier to manage at scale.

Looking ahead, how are AI and innovative technologies shaping the future of B2B marketplace payments?

We are moving towards a smarter, more orchestrated and integrated payments environment and new technology and innovation will only continue to accelerate this shift. 

AI is already improving fraud detection, optimising financing decisions and streamlining reconciliation. 

Agentic AI has the potential to take this even further, moving from supporting transactions to executing them,, and anticipating needs, initiating workflows and enabling more intelligent payment experiences across the supply chain. 

And beyond technology, what else will be critical to unlocking the next phase of marketplace growth?

While technology plays a critical role, it’s only one part of the equation.

Education and adoption are just as important to ensure businesses fully recognise and embrace the value of new payment capabilities.

Payments sit at the intersection of operational and financial processes, which means progress depends on collaboration between marketplaces, financial institutions and payment providers. Globally connected payment networks and infrastructure providers play a key role here, helping to modernise money movement, connect buyers and sellers and enabling secure, seamless transactions.

The next phase of marketplace growth will not be defined by scale alone, but by payment experiences that improve liquidity, reduce friction and build trust and visibility across an increasingly complex ecosystem. 

Those that get this right will help shape the future of B2B commerce.