 MasterCard By Mark Elliott, Division President of Mastercard, Sub-Saharan Africa: As the digital economy continues to grow, increasingly relevant financial solutions emerge. Consumers can access services that make their lives simpler, and businesses run more agile and efficient operations with enhanced potential. Governments can reach more citizens. Long-term prosperity comes into vision for more and more people. It is why financial inclusion is so critical. Because financial inclusion is the first step to financial security. At Mastercard, we are innovating for impact in financial and digital inclusion. In 2020, Mastercard doubled down on its financial inclusion commitment to connect a total of 1 billion individuals and 50 million micro and small merchants to the digital economy by 2025 – with a direct focus on 25 million women entrepreneurs. While this is a global goal, there is a vast amount of work to be done in Africa, because there's widespread inequality and exclusion that persists. We have a responsibility to continually think about how we can find different and more innovative ways to address this. Innovation unlocks digital inclusion: Local innovation is critical in driving inclusion. As a global technology company, we cannot simply pull things off the shelf from our product set in the US or Europe and expect it to work in Africa. This is especially true in an environment where many people may still have limited access to basic technology and financial services. To create products and services that truly solve the local pain points for communities in Africa, we must think carefully about the technology and partnerships that will further these goals. The adoption of digital payments is becoming increasingly relevant, and in Africa, mobile phone adoption is inextricably linked to this. For millions who have never had a brick-and-mortar bank account, leapfrogging legacy banking to digital first banking services is an easy transition. This dynamic makes it even more important for institutions in the financial payment space to adopt ‘Digital First’ platforms. The Mastercard Digital First program provides or partners with a complete digital experience in the world of payment methods. Digital First provides the customer with a 100% digital product: no paperwork, branch visits or snail mail. Customers can open a bank account immediately by uploading identification, apply for a card, activate it, and use it for all their payment needs from their mobile devices. A physical visit to a branch then becomes an optional extra. Though the financial sector is already digitally transforming, there are still some barriers to progress, which include a preference for cash – often in areas where there is limited infrastructure. It is important to note that access to the internet and data is a critical enabler for adoption of digital financial services. Digital inclusion is a prerequisite for financial inclusion. At Mastercard we are addressing this challenge through our partnership with Samsung, Airtel, and Asante Financial Services to put digital devices in the hands of more people who can pay for them with small, manageable instalments while also building a credit history. Digital commerce enabled for small businessesA stable, growing, connected small business can be the key to financial inclusion for the whole community. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have been trending toward digital banking and payments for some time and changed behaviours during the pandemic accelerated this shift. While small businesses traditionally lagged larger ones in omni-channel presence, the trend of shopping from home, and the need for touch-free payments in-store ignited a need for them to accept digital payments. Digital Innovation: On the Frontier of Financial and Digital Inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa |
