SAP Fioneer: 'An innovation in itself'

Innovation isn’t just about having ideas; it’s about realizing them. In the 2022 Business Innovators Index from Mastercard and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, we explore trust as the currency of innovation — with a little help from industry experts and peers.

Watch Dirk Kruse, founder of SAP Fioneer and Claire Thompson, executive vice president for global trade, Enterprise Partnerships at Mastercard discuss how new technologies and innovative business models are helping to unlock a more intelligent and automated future for international trade.

SAP Fioneer, the financial services arm of enterprise resource planning software provider SAP, was launched as a joint venture with entrepreneurial investor Dediq on September 1, 2021. The organization was founded to develop new solutions for customers in the rapidly changing banking and insurance industries. “So Fioneer is an innovation in itself”, remarks Thompson.

Mastercard and SAP Fioneer are collaborating to streamline digital processes and simplify the world of commercial payments, to create greater efficiency and to widen access for global trade. These include data-driven solutions to inform more sustainable lending, as Thompson explains: “e-commerce data can enable merchants, suppliers and small businesses to get fit for purpose lending at a rate that's a much more affordable.” The companies aspire to build a platform ecosystem with a foundation of transparency and trust.

Cloud-based infrastructures are a game changing enabler. As Kruse explains: “That data needs to flow across company boundaries to support a convenient end to end process; it has to be based on a common infrastructure. If you build these new ideas, innovations and business models based on cloud technology, you can accelerate the process of innovation and you make it much more cost efficient.”

“And you realise the network effect,” adds Thompson.