Mastercard extends its Team Cashless India initiative with Mahendra Singh Dhoni

By Edil Corneille

Mastercard has taken yet another step towards encouraging small merchants in India to be a part of the country’s digital revolution. The company released a video on India’s 73rd Independence Day as part of its campaign where former Indian international cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni enunciated on the contribution by small merchants towards the nation’s economy. Recently, Mastercard announced a commitment of US$33 million to help reboot Indian SMEs and enable business recovery amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

The new campaign led by Dhoni is an extension of Mastercard’s Team Cashless India initiative that aims to empower small merchants with digital payments. Under this initiative, the payments company has launched a Pan-India educational drive for India’s merchants who often have an awareness gap about the merits of digital payments for their business.

Through an on-ground outreach exercise, Mastercard has contacted over 30,000 merchants in 5 cities. Furthermore, 13,000 nominations (and counting) have come in from people who would like their neighborhood merchant to be enabled with digital payments. In the latest video, Dhoni strengthens this message with yet another call for merchants to adopt digital payments and help realise the dream of digital India. He expressed his gratitude towards India’s freedom fighters along with those who have carried on the legacy forward by making India economically strong, self-reliant, and resilient.

Mastercard is also hosting a contest where merchants who accept digital payments currently can share their testimonials about how it has helped their business. Top 10 entries selected by the jury will be eligible for a Mastercard Priceless Surprise.

With the prevalence of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Mastercard has expanded its worldwide commitment to financial inclusion by 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, the direct focus is on providing 25 million women entrepreneurs with solutions that can help them grow their businesses.