In this op-ed themed 'Digital Innovation: On the Frontier of Financial and Digital Inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa', MarkElliottMA unpacks how MastercardMEA is innovating for impact in financial and digital inclusion. Learn more: Innovate4Impact
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.
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. 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.A stable, growing, connected small business can be the key to financial inclusion for the whole community.
Access to credit is also a major pain point in Sub-Saharan Africa, with SMEs facing a massive finance gap of US$330 billion, according to the World Bank. In Kenya, a partnership with consumer goods company Unilever and KCB Bank helped resolve the need for financing. Called Jaza Duka, Swahili for ‘fill up your store’, the program connects the dots between the small retailer, which has been procuring and selling little shampoo sachets for years, and the bank.
To help smallholder farmers overcome these challenges and transition from subsistence to commercial farming, Mastercard launched a digital platform in 2015 called Farm Pass, bringing together various agri-sector stakeholders from the supply and demand sides in one agricultural marketplace.
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