The health and economic consequences of COVID-19 have highlighted the critical need to support vulnerable populations, many of whom are disproportionately impacted. In this time of global crisis, Mastercard has expanded its worldwide commitment to financial inclusion, pledging to bring a total of 1 billion people and 50 million micro and small businesses into the digital economy by 2025. As part of this effort, there will be a direct focus on providing 25 million women entrepreneurs with solutions that can help them grow their businesses.
The extended commitment builds on the company’s ongoing efforts to address the COVID-19-related health and economic challenges facing individuals all over the world.
In the first weeks of the global health crisis, Mastercard committed up to $25 million in seed funding to establish the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the UK Government and others to help speed up the response to the COVID-19 epidemic by discovering, developing and scaling-up treatments for deployment around the world.
“If we’re going to recover in any sort of long-term, sustainable way, we have to make sure that everyone is included. Getting people access to the digital economy is a critical part of that,” said Ajay Banga, Chief Executive Officer at Mastercard. “This is so much more than philanthropy. This is an opportunity to develop commercially-sustainable and scalable social impact with government and private sector partners—and to do it in a way that helps society-at-large thrive.”
In United States of America
In the U.S., Mastercard has worked with non-profit microfinance organization Grameen America to support its technology transformation and to transition low-income women entrepreneurs to digital banking. Thanks to this partnership, women can establish a financial identity and grow their businesses by digitizing their operations and accessing microloans. To date, Grameen America has disbursed over $1.5 billion to help more than 132,000 women entrepreneurs build or expand their businesses. During the current coronavirus crisis, digital payments have enabled them to continue disbursing same-day loans to women entrepreneurs in need, providing critical lifelines of support to their businesses.
In Mexico
In Mexico, together with Neumann Kaffee Gruppe and its coffee export company Exportadora de Café California (ECC), the company created a digital supply chain payment system that provides a streamlined, safe, secure and speedy way to pay farmers directly, allowing them to earn more for their crop. NKG and Mastercard are building on these efforts to bring digital payments to other markets and protect more vulnerable cash-only farmers.
In Kenya
In Kenya, the company partnered with Unilever to create Jaza Duka (fill up your store), a digital program for micro-merchants in Kenya with more than 18,000 duka owners already registered. The program provides a micro-credit eligibility recommendation to Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), which can then assess a retailer’s credit worthiness and extend formal credit for stock purchases.
Reaching the one billion goal will require a broad range of efforts, including ongoing work on government disbursement solutions, wage digitization of private sector workers, partnerships with mobile network operators, solutions for gig workers, scaling efforts with fintechs, digital platforms and digital wallets/apps, solutions addressing needs of the financially vulnerable and the expansion of CityKey and Community Pass programs.
This announcement builds on Mastercard’s ongoing efforts to support an inclusive recovery by leveraging the company’s technology, capabilities and reach.
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