Mastercard & Equity Bank team to foster financial inclusion in Uganda

By Delisha Fernandes

Mastercard and Equity Bank Uganda signed a memorandum of understanding to improve financial inclusion for digitally excluded individuals, communities, and businesses in Uganda. 

Mastercard Community Pass is a set of platform services that enables digital inclusion and provides a commercially sustainable approach to scaling delivery of agriculture, micro-commerce, aid, and healthcare services. Through Community Pass, Mastercard is working to connect individuals in underserved, remote and frequently offline communities to digital solutions for life transactions.  

“We are honored to partner with Equity Bank to expand access of financial services to excluded communities in Uganda,” said Daniel Huba, Vice President of SSA Market Development, Community Pass, at Mastercard. “This partnership holds significant promise to drive digital visibility, financial inclusion, and enable credit building opportunities and access to digital services for marginalized and underserved populations. At Mastercard, we believe in the power of technology to drive financial inclusion and empower individuals.” 

Equity Bank intends to leverage Mastercard’s Community Pass solution to: 

• Issue financial inclusion cards that will serve as an online and offline store of value, enabling individuals to securely and digitally save and spend
• Issue Community Pass credentials as a functional form of identity that simplifies and enables access to multiple services in a secure, privacy-first and cost-effective way  
• Enable access to credit for individuals and businesses
• Build a Community Pass digital acceptance footprint in partnership with technology companies in Uganda

“We are pleased to scale up our strategic partnership with Mastercard through this agreement,” said Elizabeth Mwerinde, Executive Director of Public Sector and Social Investments at Equity Bank. “The opportunity to collaborate on futuristic payment solutions for excluded communities is part of our strategy. Our partnership with Mastercard is timely and aligned to our customer-centric commitment.” 

Equity Bank will also undertake a partnership with Innovation Village to facilitate implementation of the financial inclusion agenda through the Digital Economy Program.