Mastercard has launched a new Open Finance Business Solutions platform in Australia, designed to let SMEs share their banking data with service providers in real time through the Consumer Data Right (CDR). Mastercard says this will cut the time spent on onboarding, reconciliation and manual verification.
The platform bundles several SME-focused capabilities, including real-time bank data feeds, automated bookkeeping, instant account and identity verification, and faster onboarding for payments and lending products.
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Rather than relying on manual uploads or static financial statements, businesses can consent to share live transaction data with accounting software, lenders or service providers.
According to Mastercard, this will enable quicker decisions and reduce common sources of admin friction.
Early adopters include Thriday, Pay.com.au and ANNA Money, which are using the platform for automated bookkeeping, streamlined onboarding, smarter payments and consolidated multi-bank dashboards.
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A changing regulatory and data environment for SMEs
While open finance isn’t new, adoption has consistently lagged. Mastercard argues the environment has finally changed.
A combination of regulatory reform, improved bank data, and the retirement of old “screen scraping” methods is pushing the sector to a genuine inflection point.
The company is also leaning on the Albanese government’s reset of the CDR, which prioritises SME use cases as part of its wider productivity agenda.
A major part of this shift is the new Business Consumer Disclosure Consent (BCDC) model.
Brenton Charnley, vice president and head of open finance for Australasia at Mastercard, describes it as a “game-changer” because it removes the accreditation hurdles that previously prevented SMEs from participating in the CDR.
Business consumer disclosure consent is an established concept in the CDR rules and guidance, allowing accredited data recipients to disclose a business consumer’s CDR data to specified third parties, subject to a business consumer statement and other safeguards.
“Business consumers can now simply choose to share their data with the service providers they trust, and those providers can use the SME’s data in line with their usual practices,” Charnley told SmartCompany.
“It’s a more practical, business-friendly approach that unlocks the promise of open finance.”
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Mastercard says the ability to consensually share a business’ data with trusted third-party business platforms can shrink processes that previously took three to five days down to the same day. In some cases, it can reportedly go down to 15 minutes.
“SMEs typically spend up to 10 hours a month on manual reconciliation, but enriched transaction data can cut that by more than half. And by reducing payment defaults and exceptions, we’re helping businesses save real money. It’s about making digital adoption deliver tangible results, not just promise,” Charnley said.
The company’s pitch is aimed squarely at SME admin friction — manual reconciliation, slow credit approvals, uncertainty around cash flow and repeated identity verification processes.
According to Charnley, real-time data will also allow lenders to assess businesses based on their actual performance, not static documents.
That could prove meaningful for the many SMEs that operate seasonally, have thin or non-traditional credit files, or rely on short-term working capital.
Mastercard says real-time CDR data allows lenders to see cash-flow resilience, spot trends and offer more tailored products such as flexible credit lines or revenue-linked financing.
Mastercard positions itself as core infrastructure for SME-facing fintechs
As part of the launch, Mastercard is also positioning itself as a core infrastructure for SME-facing fintechs.
As an unrestricted Accredited Data Recipient under the CDR, the company now provides the “consented data rails”. This means connectivity to banks, consent management, data enrichment and compliance, so partners don’t have to build those layers themselves.
“Fintechs can focus on delivering better products and services for SMEs, while we provide the secure, reliable rails,” Charnley said.
However, centralising that infrastructure also raises questions about dependency and resilience — issues that matter for SMEs who face the consequences when financial systems fail.
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“As more businesses rely on real-time data, there’s always a risk of single-point dependencies, so if a bank’s APIs go down, for example, it can disrupt data sharing. But these risks exist in today’s infrastructure too,” Charnley said.
“The CDR is actually more reliable, with regulated minimum service levels and public operational reporting. So far, it’s proven to be substantially more robust than alternative data-sharing methods.”
Even so, reliability still depends on the quality of bank APIs, which remains uneven across the sector.
There’s also still questions around how quickly SMEs will adopt these tools. Charnley acknowledges growth has been slower than expected, but usage is accelerating.
“By the end of 2025 we expect around 1.2 million consumers to be using the CDR, up from 530,000 in the second half of 2024,” Charnley said.
“API calls have exploded, with 2.9 billion in the last 12 months alone. The momentum is real, and the benefits are tangible.”
Cost is, of course, another constant concern when it comes to SMEs choosing their platforms, particularly when it comes to tool creep.
“Mastercard doesn’t charge SMEs directly for access to their data. Our commercial relationships are with the fintechs, financial services, or platform providers. Most of the time, those providers don’t charge SMEs directly for data access either, as the costs are embedded in their products,” Charnley said.
“And because CDR is digital and real-time, it’s much cheaper to manage than manual or legacy methods. That efficiency should flow through to lower costs or better value for SMEs.”
Charnley also believes a more mature open finance ecosystem is only a few years away.
“In three years, open finance will be seamless and embedded, with SMEs able to onboard to banking, payments, and credit products in minutes, not days.
“The process for appointing nominated representatives will be simplified, and there’ll be no more uploading PDFs. Credit decisions will be based on live transaction data, not just static credit scores, and we’ll see multi-sector data sharing, including non-bank lending.
“The clearest sign we’ve arrived will be when small businesses can access the financial tools they need, instantly and effortlessly, to power their growth.”
