# Buyer Payment Agent
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-buyer-payment-agent/documentation/index.md

## Overview {#overview}

Today's business to business (B2B) payment landscape involves a growing number of solutions with various product offerings that rarely interoperate, leading to complex Buyer and Supplier onboarding processes, closed networks with limited reach and scalability, varying data formats, and lack of payment control enforcement that cause reconciliation issues and increase payment times.

Mastercard Track™ Business Payment Service is the first global open-loop commercial service built to simplify and automate payments between the world's Suppliers and Buyers. Business Payment Service saves time in reconciliation by standardizing, automating, and optimizing business payments.

Buyer Payment Agents and Supplier Payment Agents connect through Business Payment Service to allow their clients to initiate and receive funds for business to business transactions easily and efficiently.

Supplier Payment Agents can use the Discovery APIs to discover new Buyers active in the Business Payment Service business directory and the Business Payment Service Registration API to register their Suppliers. To help streamline the procurement process, an Supplier Payment Agent can use the Business Payment Service APIs to receive payment instructions and update payment instruction status.

## How it works {#how-it-works}

Mastercard Track Business Payment Service helps entities conduct business by facilitating four key services:

* **Business Directory:** Helps Supplier Payment Agents to find Buyers that are part of Business Payment Service network and are submitting payments.
* **Payment Controls:** Suppliers can get paid the way that they want by setting specific payment types and their associated conditions.
* **Enhanced Reconciliation Data:** By enabling richer, real-time data exchanges, we place business-critical information into the hands of the Supplier with every transaction.
* **Multi-Payment Service:** Mastercard brings choice on how to pay and get paid. Business Payment Service currently supports switching data for account-to-account (credit transfers) and enables Straight Through Processing (STP) for card payment instructions.

![Business to Business Ecosystem](https://static.developer.mastercard.com/content/mastercard-buyer-payment-agent/uploads/bps-flow.png "Business to Business Ecosystem")

## Before you start {#before-you-start}

* **User responsibilities:** Prospective users must complete an API evaluation or commercial agreement before they are able to integrate with Business Payment Service. Once the agreement is signed, a delivery and implementation manager will be assigned assist with onboarding. The user must setup a unique a [event notification URL](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-buyer-payment-agent/documentation/use_cases/business-payment-service/event-notifications/index.md) to receive notifications from Business Payment Service.
* **Key mapping:** The assigned delivery and integration manager will assist in mapping the customer IDs (keys).
* **Batch processing:** Business Payment Service does not support batch processing.
* **Backwards-compatibility:** Business Payment Service is backwards compatible.
* **Pre-release information:** Release notes are published around 3 weeks before the production deployment date.
* **Region availability:** Business Payment Service is available globally, however, certain [use cases](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-buyer-payment-agent/documentation/use_cases/index.md) are restricted to specific regions and will continue to expand globally.

## Good to know {#good-to-know}

### Roles in Business Payment Service {#roles-in-business-payment-service}

The various roles in the Business Payment Service landscape are:  

|           Term            |                                                                                                                  Description                                                                                                                  |
|---------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Buyer Payment Agent       | The entity acting on behalf of a Buyer to submit payment instructions. Buyer Payment Agents include acquirers, banks, and other specialty players like accounts payable automation companies and payment facilitators.                        |
| Supplier Payment Agent    | The entity acting on behalf of a Supplier to retrieve and process payment instructions. Supplier Payment Agents include acquirers, banks, and other specialty players like accounts receivable automation companies and payment facilitators. |
| Buyer                     | The entity attempting to make payments to a Supplier to procure goods or services.                                                                                                                                                            |
| Supplier                  | The entity attempting to receive payments from a Buyer for selling goods or services.                                                                                                                                                         |
| Customer Service Provider | A person (entity) that performs Program Service that is an agent of the Customer that receives or otherwise benefits from Program Service, whether directly or indirectly, performed by such Service Provider.                                |

## Next Steps {#next-steps}

For information on new and upcoming features, refer to the [Release Information](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-buyer-payment-agent/documentation/release-information/new_features/index.md) section.

For information on how to onboard with the Buyer Payment Agent, refer to the [Getting Started](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-buyer-payment-agent/documentation/getting-started/index.md) section.

For more information on the Buyer Payment Agent service, refer to the [API reference](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-buyer-payment-agent/documentation/api-reference/index.md) section.

For more information on Buyer Payment Agent use cases, refer to the [Use Case](https://developer.mastercard.com/mastercard-buyer-payment-agent/documentation/use_cases/index.md) section.