Across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, B2B card acceptance among large merchants remains the exception rather than the rule. A leading global payments network engaged KoreFusion to find out why, and to build a rigorous, region-specific case for the value card acceptance actually delivers.
The Challenge
Large merchants in the CEMEA region carry substantial costs tied to how they collect payment from B2B buyers today: bad debt and write-offs, the cost of working capital, third-party financing, and the expense of managing problem invoices and exceptions. Despite these pain points, card acceptance remains low by global standards, with card payments representing only a small share of total B2B sales volume, well below levels seen in Europe and Asia-Pacific. The payments network needed more than a general case for card acceptance: it needed a rigorous, primary-research-backed quantification of exactly which benefits card acceptance delivers in the CEMEA context, for whom, and by how much, so its commercial and merchant-acquiring teams could make that case credibly to large merchants.
The Approach
KoreFusion conducted a CEMEA-focused research program as part of a larger global study spanning over 2,800 survey-based questionnaires and more than 200 qualitative interviews across 37 markets in Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. The CEMEA component drew on more than 1,000 quantitative survey interviews and 100 qualitative deep-dive interviews with large merchants and suppliers across a dozen markets in the region. The research quantified the specific costs of existing acceptance methods and measured the value created by card acceptance across multiple benefit categories, including incremental sales, reduced bad debt, improved cash flow, reduced financing costs, and operational efficiencies, then translated the findings into a presentation, an interactive analytics tool, and a benefit calculator built for use directly with corporate clients.
The Outcome
The research found that large CEMEA merchants accepting cards report gross benefits of up to roughly 6% of total revenue at full card volume, with net benefits of close to 4% after acceptance costs, and a potential net profit improvement approaching 1%, driven primarily by incremental sales and reduced bad debt. The findings reframed the merchant conversation in the region from cost to value, giving the payments network's commercial and merchant-acquiring teams a rigorous, CEMEA-specific tool, complete with a benefit calculator, for engaging large merchants on the case for card acceptance.