Mastercard wants to launch fintech " in a few days "

Mastercard accelerates its support for the fintech european with a program to simplify their placing on the market.

With its new program ” Fintech Express “, Mastercard wants to compete in the Visa on the landscape fintech. After the Asia-Pacific and north America, Mastercard has put in place a program of assistance for startups the european seeking to pass the project to the product ” in the space of a few days “.

The emergence of the’open banking and new technologies in finance, creates a multitude of new services which Mastercard account well be able to retain with its network. It is necessary to say that face to face, a conflict of interest, it may explode with Visa. Card issuer-bank competitor offers an equivalent program : Fast Track, and the company has scooped the jackpot in buying the financial services company Plaid, for $ 5.3 billion.

In essence, the new program of Mastercard is a simplified procedure for accelerating the launch of projects in fintech with licensing and Mastercard approved. To be able to stay in the race, the startups of the sector must be able to quickly launch their products, and access to a global network of payment.

“Mastercard Fintech Express allows participants to forge new alliances in technology, to propel the fintechs of the stage of the concept to the placing on the market and this, in the space of a few days,” explains the Mastercard group in a press release sent on 2 June. In France, the card issuer works with Treezor, a subsidiary of Société Générale, which helps the sector of online banks in their it architectures. But Visa is working with more online banks in the territory such as Monabanq, Hello bank! and Boursorama, while Mastercard account ING.

However, Mastercard is proud to offer its cards in an already large number of neo-banks, such as N26, Revolut and Nubank. His program “Fintech Express” also attract services that are not banks. This was the case, for example, with TransferWise, that Mastercard has accompanied in the United States for the fintech transfers international money may be able to propose a credit card, multicurrency, so that ” users can have access to banking details in six different currencies “, explained in an interview.

“Laboratories of innovation in fintech “

In a ranking published by Fintech Magazine, Mastercard arrives in the second position of the ” innovation lab fintech “. Dubbed the “Mastercard Labs,” it is in this branch that the program “Fintech Epress” has been integrated. These include several innovation hubs around the world, where Mastercard is halfway between an incubator and a research and development centre.

In Africa, his last centre, there took root a few months ago, to accompany ” the increasing adoption of the technology and culture of innovation in Africa and in other emerging markets.” The group has received investment from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. It must be said that with the fintech, the problem of people not bancarisées are somewhat settled. We see today in the United States, while the policy stimulus has a immediate need for migration of payment systems to digital transactions.