Mastercard Strive India to foster financial inclusion for SMEs

By Gloria Mathias

Mastercard has announced the launch of Mastercard Strive India, aiming to enable 5,00,000 small businesses to succeed in the digital economy by 2025.

Strive India will focus its efforts on micro-enterprises, women-owned and led businesses and Agri-entrepreneurs. This program will seek to reach India’s small businesses to encourage the adoption of new digital tools and enable access to markets and digital financial services.

Mastercard Strive India joins a portfolio of philanthropic programs supported by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. The program is aimed at helping small businesses worldwide thrive in the digital economy. The Strive programs include those in the U.S., the U.K., Mexico, Czechia, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

“Small businesses are poised to become India’s largest employer, can help make inclusion a cornerstone of the country’s journey to becoming a $5 trillion economy,” said Subhashini Chandran, Vice President, Social Impact, Asia Pacific at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. “Small businesses need broad support from capacity building to wide-ranging access to tools, new markets, and credit to truly benefit from digital transformation and growth.”

“Mastercard is committed to strengthening entrepreneurship and enhancing the innovation ecosystem in India,” said Gautam Aggarwal, Division President, South Asia at Mastercard. “Programs like this reflect Mastercard’s dedication to unlocking the full potential of entrepreneurs. We are keen to be a supportive partner in the work to building thriving economies that enable small businesses to flourish.”

Mastercard Strive India also complements other commitments made by Mastercard in India to help small businesses go digital, get capital and gain knowledge, including the $100m credit facility launched in partnership with HDFC Bank, DFC, and USAID, and Mastercard’s commitment of INR 250 crores ($33M) to support small businesses in India.

“After joining the Rural Women Chamber of Commerce and availing of the business support services provided by Mann Deshi Foundation and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, I was able to hire more employees, use ecommerce platforms to sell more products and start exporting my organic turmeric to Switzerland,” said Ranjana, small business owner and member of the Rural Women Chamber of Commerce, Mann Deshi Foundation.