By by Didi Rankovich | Reclaim The Net
One wouldn’t have pegged Mastercard for that corporation that is “driving sustainable social impact” and caring about remote communities around the world struggling to meet basic needs.
Nevertheless, here we are – or at least that’s how the global payment services behemoth advertises its push to proliferate the use of a scheme called Community Pass.
The purpose of Community Pass is to enable a digital ID and wallet that’s contained in a “smart card.” Launched four years ago, the program – which Mastercard says, in addition to being based on digital ID, is interoperable, and works offline – targets “underserved communities” and currently has 3.5 million users, with plans of growing that number to 30 million by 2027.
According to a map on Mastercard’s site, this program is now being either piloted or has been rolled out in India, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Mauritania, while the latest announcement is the partnership with the African Development Bank Group in an initiative dubbed, Mobilizing Access to the Digital Economy (MADE). Read Full Article >
