Global Ericsson–Mastercard Collaboration Kicks Off in Middle East and Africa to Drive Financial Inclusion

Ericsson and Mastercard have disclosed ongoing landmark collaborations designed to reshape the global money movement and accelerate digital finance as well. At an event in Stockholm, it was stated that the partnership integrates the Ericsson Fintech Platform (Mobile Financial Services) with Mastercard Move, the company’s portfolio of advanced payment and money transfer solutions.

One of the major benefits this collaboration is targeted at will be Ericsson's cloud-native infrastructure and pre-integrated application programming interfaces (APIs), which significantly reduce deployment time and technical complexity for partners looking to join Mastercard's payment network. In addition to this, the partnership also intends to promote innovation throughout the financial ecosystem and reduce the time to market for innovative digital payment systems by cutting down operational challenges.

Ericsson's fintech capabilities, which currently serve over 120 million active users and process over 4 billion transactions monthly, will be strengthened by the global scale of Mastercard Move, which connects more than 17 billion endpoints across more than 200 countries and territories and supports transactions in 150 currencies.

According to Pratik Khowala, Global Head of Transfer Solutions at Mastercard, Mastercard Move offers payment service providers the opportunity to influence the way money flows by supporting quicker, safer, and more transparent transactions for both consumers and companies. 

Also speaking about the collaboration, Ericsson's head of mobile financial services, Pavan Bachwal, stated that the move was a "bold step toward the future of money movement," allowing clients to introduce safe and effective methods of payment more quickly than in the past.

The primary focus of the integrated platform's initial development will be the Middle East and Africa, where demand for mobile money, remittances, and integrated payment services is still rising quickly. The partnership has the potential to greatly expand access to digital payments, improve financial inclusion, and create new revenue streams for fintech companies and financial service providers worldwide.