Malta-based payments and financial institution Finductive are introducing their new Mastercard debit card to the market, with the goal of assisting companies to oversee and track their day-to-day expenses.
“We are essentially bringing a near real-time control to the management of transactions and spending, so that companies – instead of simply allocating petty cash to their staff – can better monitor their daily or weekly expenses. We can simply issue our clients the relevant number of cards, programmed to a certain expense limit, and management can then trace everything online, or via our mobile platforms,” explains Alban Shabani, the institution’s Head of Cards.
Crucially, through this launch, Finductive aims to complement its range of services and products. “Together with our mobile platforms, this Mastercard product will augment and complete our offering to the corporate market,” Mr Shabani says.
Alban Shabani, Head of Cards.
Elaborating on the debit card’s benefits, Mr Shabani notes that the new Mastercard debit card will allow businesses to shift from an over-reliance on cash payments to the security and traceability of card purchases. Moreover, Finductive’s Mastercard will also be multicurrency. “There will be more than one currency accorded to a single card; this is a unique feature when one compares it to the offering provided by, perhaps, other fintech or legacy institutions, since most of them tend to issue one card per currency.”
Foreign market exchange (FX) is a key part of Finductive's business and, indeed, many of its corporate clients rely on the ability to operate across currencies. “You may have a firm which is subscribed to three or four professional services, for instance, with each of them being in a different currency. Our offering will allow for the funds to be collected automatically in the right currency, eliminating exchange fees (for the major currencies ie. USD and GBP) for our clients, and saving them money. If one of the currencies is not available, then the system simply collects the funds from the main account itself. We would never need to decline any transactions,” Mr Shabani underscores.
Furthermore, CFOs, CEOs and other authorised members of the management team will be able to view each card transaction before the end of every day. “Card payments are approved in the milli-second. So, all our clients need to do is to log in to their corporate profile, select the card they would like to review, and survey the transactions according to the dates they select. It’s convenient and our new Mastercard offering allows for a real-time and online digital payments experience where you won’t need to wait till the end of the day to have visibility,” the Head of Cards explains.
Some of these benefits include Mastercard’s different modes of usability. “You can really personalise the card’s capabilities to suit your business and the sector within which it operates. For instance, you can place higher limits on companies operating within the yachting and aviation industries, where you might need a single transaction to be higher than usually expected,” the Head of Cards highlights.
The card also offers customisable autoblocking and security controls, to increase oversight and reduce risk. “In the background, we have a risk engine, a tool that checks or screens every transaction. Such controls are based on stringent risk assessments. As a result, some payments may require further validation, and, in that case, the system will send a notification to the client – with whom we also communicate through our mobile application – to ensure the transaction is coming from them. This allows us to have the necessary safeguards in place, while also giving our clients the power to block or unblock a transaction immediately, 24/7.”
Customers will also be able to contact a company representative, should they need a more human approach. “We have tried to build a self-service and digital offering with our mobile platforms, but we also have our dedicated teams for each of our customers where they can reach us at any time, day or night. They can open a ticket, and our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) team will reply immediately to the requests raised. We’re also based here, in Malta, and our customers are also here on the island so, if necessary, our offices and doors are open for any meetings or clarifications which may be needed.”
According to Mr Shabani, the current ecosystem is ripe for the launch of such a Mastercard debit card. “Over the last few years, fintech and digital payments has shifted from, let’s say, old school transfers which would take a couple of days to settle and, today, companies are looking for instant payments and instant transactions. The whole business model in our sector is changing to accommodate this.” Moreover, “our corporate clients have different payment responsibilities to fulfil and many of these demand card products. So, this was our starting point towards designing this offering,” he explains.
Mastercard, as opposed to other global card payment providers, such as VISA, was chosen as Finductive's partner since the firm “strongly believes that Mastercard has an appetite which better suits our company and client profile,” Mr Shabani states, explaining that Finductive’s customers include businesses working within the sectors of digital marketing and iGaming.
In addition, Finductive possesses a high level of internal expertise on Mastercard, with two key members of the team having worked closely with the cross-border payments brand. “We also felt that, in Europe, Mastercard’s presence is stronger and their marketing offers better advantages to those B2B customers which fit our client profile,” the Head of Cards notes.
Mr Shabani hopes that one year from now “all of Findunctive’s current and active customers would have been supplied with these debit cards, and I would like to see each of them use it for their day-to-day needs. We’re doing our best for this to happen, and to support our clients in their journey with us. We have a little over 1,000 corporate clients in our portfolio, so we hope that they take advantage of the flexibility of our new Mastercard offering.”
