Mastercard chief commercial payments officer explains Virtual CFO

Mastercard is rolling out its Virtual C-Suite for its small- and medium-size business clients, starting with a virtual chief financial officer. “The Virtual CFO is a key place to start because finance sits at the center of strategic business decisions,” Mastercard's Chief Commercial Payments Officer Raj Seshadri told FinAi News . The roughly 400 million small- and medium-size enterprises globally account for approximately 90% of all businesses, 70% of employees and 50% of global GDP, according to the World Economic Forum . “Yet, many [of these businesses] must navigate increasing financial and operational complexity with limited resources,” Seshadri said, noting that’s where a virtual C-suite comes in. The Virtual C-Suite is “a new agentic experience designed specifically with small businesses in mind, to help them operate with executive-level insight and decisioning,” she said. Small businesses might have a shortage of resources, but there is no shortage of data for such things as payments, expenses and performance metrics, Sheshadri said. However, “there is a gap in turning that data into actionable insights.” AI can fill that gap. “AI allows us to move beyond digitization, into interpretation, providing always-on, executive-level financial guidance that was previously out of reach for most businesses,” she said. Role of virtual CFO A virtual chief financial officer (CFO) works all day, every day, analyzing and monitoring tasks that used to be time-consuming, including: Identifying cash flow risks; Flagging anomalies; Benchmarking against peers; Managing working capital and supplier relationships; Optimizing payments; Pulling reports; and Reconciling data across systems. “The Virtual CFO utilizes data across the systems and platforms the business already uses — from payments to expenses to cash flow — and translates it into actionable insights,” Sheshadri said. “Ultimately it’s about turning data into a dialogue — making financial intelligence both accessible and actionable in real time.” Register here for the FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas.

Mastercard chief commercial payments officer explains Virtual CFO

SMEs globally account for roughly 90% of all businesses, according to World Economic Forum

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