Mastercard expands City Possible network and capabilities

By Pavithra R

Mastercard has announced the expansion of its City Possible network and capabilities, whose solutions now reach over 500 communities in over 50 countries worldwide.

City Possible is a new model for urban innovation in which a global network of cities, businesses, academics and communities work together to make the world’s cities more inclusive and sustainable. Since its debut in 2018 with just 16 founding members, City Possible has now expanded to 220 city members and candidate cities. It welcomed New York City, London, Los Angeles, and Hamilton, CAN to the growing community, with an additional 320 cities leveraging transit solutions. The network also welcomed Canadian organization Digital Main Street that partners with over 500 cities across Canada to help main street small businesses in those communities achieve digital transformation.

The network will feature a reimagined digital marketplace that provides access to diverse tools and partner solutions in a new store-like experience. A new feature is specific sentiment analysis data provided by ZenCity, a City Possible partner & graduate of Mastercard’s Start Path program.

“COVID-19 has accelerated the demand for an enhanced digital experience that would provide network members access to multiple data sources, insights services, and tools. As we continue to grow our network, we will continue to scale our capabilities, leveraging the insights from city leaders to build solutions that enable them to better serve their communities in an inclusive way,” said Miguel Gamiño, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Cities at Mastercard. 

Originally launched in 2019, Mastercard City Key is now live in over 25 communities. This solution allows each municipality to combine identification, access to city services and payment functionalities into a single tool so as to offer residents with a digital solution to pay bills, pay for public transit and access city services. Recent deployments include:

• In Honolulu (USA), Mastercard is assisting the City disburse COVID-19 financial relief to 13,000 residents and will collaborate to increase functionality in partnership with MoCaFi.
• In Los Angeles (USA), Mastercard also teamed up with MoCaFi to expand the functionalities of the Angeleno Card, a program which leverages City Key and which has initially distributed more than $36 mn to help over 100,000 L.A. residents hardest hit by the pandemic.
• In Kolin (Czech Republic), a partnership between the city government and a local school helped students access services such as library services, public transportation, and other resources with one card that increased safety, efficiency and convenience to the school’s ecosystem.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with City Possible and city leaders in the network to expand the functionalities of City Key. It’s an innovative way of turning financial services into infrastructure for cities. City Key makes financial services a part of the “plumbing” that drives efficiency, drives safety, drives security, and drives inclusion,” said Wole Coaxum, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mobility Capital Finance.

Mastercard also plans to further evolve the initiative beyond the City Possible network by providing “converged card” solutions to state departments of motor vehicles in the U.S. in partnership with IDEMIA.

Established since 1966, Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. The firm is committed to building a more inclusive digital economy that works for everyone. It is also making Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) central to its business model.