Supply chain management fintech company Octet Europe has joined forces with Mastercard to launch a new trade platform for SMEs across the European Economic Area (EEA).

The Mastercard Trade Solution links together Mastercard’s payment services with Octet Europe’s cloud-based B2B trade platform, which verifies suppliers and buyers with anti-money laundering (AML), know your customer (KYC), counter terrorism financing (CTF) and economic trade sanctions (ETS) processes to provide peace of mind for SMEs who want to find new business partners abroad and access foreign markets.

“Small business owners can incur a lot of expenses by running detailed background checks on their supply chain, especially if it involves cross-border suppliers. This in turn can limit their willingness and ability to grow their business internationally,” says Milan Gauder, executive vice-president of product and innovation at MasterCard Europe.

Adding in MasterCard’s payment services means that buyers have the choice to pay by card even if the supplier doesn’t process card payments; meanwhile sellers can accept payments to their bank accounts regardless of how the buyer chooses to pay. The companies say that this will enable users of the platform to manage their finances more effectively and conveniently.

This isn’t the first time that Octet and Mastercard have worked together. The two sides formed an alliance in 2016, initially to enable businesses in Australia and New Zealand to use their existing card facilities linked to a Mastercard commercial credit or debit card to facilitate payments to suppliers. This latest development will see those same capabilities extended and expanded across Europe.

“We see tremendous potential in making our unique product offering available to SMEs across Europe via [Mastercard’s] powerful partner network,” says Margrith Lutschg-Emmenegger, CEO and co-founder of Octet Europe.