¶ Mastercard
Mastercard is an American multinational financial services company based in Purchase, New York.
¶ History
In 2015, Mastercard ran a pilot in Kenya for their "Mastercard Farm Pass" program.[1]
¶ Wellness Pass
Mastercard conducted a "joint country appraisal visit" to Mauritania in July 2017 to evaluate the status of the country's vaccination program. During the visit, the company consulted with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization (WHO) and "other country stakeholders" related to Mauritania's participation in the WHO's Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI).[2]
Workshops were held in November 2017 and March 2018 to discuss and design a "Wellness Pass" program to increase uptake of vaccines in the country. Gavi received confirmation of interest from Mauritania's Minister of Health at the World Health Assembly in May 2018.
On December 11, 2018, Mastercard and Gavi announced a partnership to increase immunization rates in five countries by introducing "a card with a digital immunization record, to each participating child’s caregiver."[3] The program, called the Mastercard Wellness Pass, was described as "a digital birth certificate" and "a credit card," and is linked to the parents' phone number.[4][5]
The first pilot project was originally set to take place in Mauritania in 2019-2020, with the possibility of scaling to 20 countries by the year 2028 - specifically Burkina Faso, Ghana, Uganda and Mozambique. $8.6 million USD was earmarked for the project, funded by Mastercard, Gavi and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in partnership with GiftedMom.[2:1] Due to the declared COVID-19 pandemic, these plans were delayed.
¶ Digital Wellness
On June 7, 2019, Mastercard launched their Mastercard Digital Wellness program to "enhance transparency, security and choice for online shopping."[6] This included integrations with EMVco for online checkout capabilities and NuData, a subsidiary of Mastercard focused on artificial intelligence.
On September 25, 2019, Mastercard announced a strategic partnership with Rabobank to expand the Mastercard Farm Pass program to "one million farmers in emerging markets" across Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt and India.[7]
¶ Community Pass
On October 16, 2019, Mastercard unveiled a digital identity platform called Mastercard Community Pass.[8] The platform would be "connected into a broader ecosystem where individuals can be recognized as the same person" when engaging with finance, agriculture, education, housing and healthcare.
¶ COVID-19
On March 10, 2020, Mastercard joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust in committing up to $125 million towards the creation of the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator.[9][10]
On June 3, 2020, Gavi announced that Mastercard would "adapt its Wellness Pass solution for the COVID-19 response."[11] Its new Wellness Pass for COVID (WP4C) was described as "an upgraded version that allows for identification, enrolment, and tracking of COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 vaccinees."[12]
On June 26, Mastercard revealed that Trust Stamp was “working with Mastercard to integrate its digital identity capabilities” into the Wellness Pass, which was preparing to launch alongside Gavi in West Africa.[13][5:1] The Wellness Pass would also integrate the AI capabilities of NuData.[14]
On September 9, 2021, Mastercard announced a partnership with Paycode to "capture the biometrics of 30 million individuals in remote parts of Africa" from 2021-2024 as part of the Mastercard Community Pass program.[15]
In November 2021, Mastercard, Gavi and the Ministry of Health of Mauritania signed a framework agreement and on December 17, 2021, the first pilot of the Wellness Pass project was officially launched in Mauritania. The second pilot was launched on June 17, 2022 in Ethiopia, in partnership with the Ministry of Health of Ethiopia and John Snow, Inc. (JSI).[12:1][16]
On December 16, 2022, the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) announced a collaboration with Mastercard to invest "up to $50 million in digital infrastructure to support businesses engaged with Mastercard Community Pass."[17]
In April 2023, the Mastercard Community Pass was certified by ID2020 as a "good digital ID."[18]
¶ Organization
Mastercard is a partner organization of the World Economic Forum[19] and a member of the Trust Over IP Foundation.[20]
The company's top three shareholders as of January 18, 2022 are Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street. Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase are also in the top 10.[21]
¶ External links
Blumberg, D. L. (2023, January 4). How to turn farmers from price takers to price makers. Mastercard. https://web.archive.org/web/20230604225535/https://www.mastercard.com/news/perspectives/2023/mastercard-farm-pass-digital-farming/ ↩︎
Evaluation of Gavi’s Private Sector Engagement Approach (2016-2020) Case Study Supplement (pp. 10–15). (2021). Mott MacDonald. https://web.archive.org/web/20230604203304/https://www.updwg.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Evaluation-Gavi-PSEA-Case-Study-Supplement_Zipline-Rwanda-1.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎
Gavi and Mastercard Join Forces to Reach More Children with Lifesaving Vaccines. (2018, December 11). Mastercard. http://archive.today/2023.03.16-153530/https://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/gavi-and-mastercard-join-forces-to-reach-more-children-with-lifesaving-vaccines/ ↩︎
Salmon, F. (2018, December 16). Mastercard’s technology helps immunize the world’s poorest children. Axios. https://web.archive.org/web/20221205205050/https://www.axios.com/2018/12/16/mastercard-gavi-vaccine-partnership-world-poverty ↩︎
Fauzia, M. (2020, September 9). Fact check: Mastercard’s partnership on vaccination records is unrelated to finances. USA TODAY. http://archive.today/2021.09.13-171634/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/09/fact-check-mastercard-partnership-vaccines-unrelated-finances/5658366002/ ↩︎ ↩︎
Sen, C. (2019, June 7). Mastercard Digital Wellness Program to Enhance Transparency, Security and Choice for Online Shopping. Mastercard. https://web.archive.org/web/20230604005624/https://mastercardcontentexchange.com/news/press/2019/june/mastercard-digital-wellness-program-to-enhance-transparency-security-and-choice-for-online-shopping/ ↩︎
Vreeburg, R. (2019, September 25). Mastercard and Rabobank Join to Bring Financial Inclusion Tools to 1 Million Farmers. Mastercard. https://web.archive.org/web/20221128044635/https://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/mastercard-and-rabobank-join-to-bring-financial-inclusion-tools-to-1-million-farmers-2/ ↩︎
Shared Solutions Unlock Economic Prosperity for Communities. (2019, October 16). Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. http://archive.today/2023.06.04-213843/https://www.mastercardcenter.org/insights/shared-solutions-unlock-economic-prosperity-for-communities ↩︎
COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator. (2020, March 10). Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. http://archive.today/2021.04.25-054406/https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Ideas/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2020/03/COVID-19-Therapeutics-Accelerator ↩︎
Suzman, M. (2020, March 10). Announcing the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. http://archive.today/2022.01.18-165008/https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/articles/coronavirus-mark-suzman-therapeutics ↩︎
Weintraub, J., & Tissandier, F. (2020, June 3). Private sector partners strengthen Gavi programmes with more than US$ 70 million in contributions. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. http://archive.today/2020.07.18-125751/https://www.gavi.org/news/media-room/private-sector-partners-strengthen-gavi-programmes-more-us-70-million-contributions ↩︎
Mastercard. (2022, December 31). Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. https://web.archive.org/web/20230517090032/https://www.gavi.org/investing-gavi/funding/donor-profiles/mastercard ↩︎ ↩︎
Kloberdanz, K. (2020, June 26). Signed, Sealed, Encrypted: This Digital ID Is All Yours. Mastercard. http://archive.today/2020.08.17-154435/https://mastercardcontentexchange.com/perspectives/2020/signed-sealed-encrypted-this-digital-id-is-all-yours/ ↩︎
Public-private partnership launches biometrics identity and vaccination record system in West Africa. (2020, July 10). Privacy International. https://web.archive.org/web/20230604191655/https://privacyinternational.org/examples/4083/public-private-partnership-launches-biometrics-identity-and-vaccination-record-system ↩︎
Hersey, F. (2021, September 10). Mastercard partnership to capture biometrics of 30 million Africans. Biometric Update. https://web.archive.org/web/20230604231958/https://www.biometricupdate.com/202109/mastercard-partnership-to-capture-biometrics-of-30-million-africans ↩︎
JSI. (2022, June 17). Mastercard, Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, and JSI partner with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health to implement Wellness Pass for the digitization of health records. Prime Business Africa. http://archive.today/2023.06.04-212351/https://www.primebusiness.africa/gtbank-access-bank-record-32992-fraud-cases-in-one-year-as-fraudsters-target-customers-accounts/ ↩︎
DFC and Mastercard Team for Financial Inclusion in Africa. (2022, December 16). PYMNTS. https://web.archive.org/web/20230604214701/https://www.pymnts.com/financial-inclusion-3/2022/mastercard-invest-50-million-dollars-further-financial-inclusion-africa/ ↩︎
Burt, C. (2023, April 13). ID2020 certifies Mastercard Community Pass as meeting requirements for “good digital ID.” Biometric Update. http://archive.today/2023.06.04-213407/https://www.biometricupdate.com/202304/id2020-certifies-mastercard-community-pass-as-meeting-requirements-for-good-digital-id ↩︎
Mastercard. World Economic Forum. Retrieved January 18, 2022, from https://archive.ph/uWiOP ↩︎
Members. Trust Over IP Foundation. Retrieved June 7, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230607133113/https://trustoverip.org/about/members/ ↩︎
Mastercard Incorporated (MA) Stock Major Holders. Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved January 18, 2022, from https://archive.ph/OdFZ1 ↩︎