MasterCard: Driving Financial Inclusion

MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga was investing significant time and attention to increase financial inclusion among individuals with historically no access to banking or financial services in countries around the world with large underserved populations. The effort included partnerships with governments and banks to issue MasterCard branded debit cards to millions of individuals. Financial inclusion could potentially help these individuals by increasing financial literacy, building credit records, improving savings rates, providing access to loans and other financial products, and, in general, by increasing the economic opportunities for these newly banked consumers. And by adding more customers, MasterCard potentially could also grow its bottom line.
Financial inclusion raised questions for MasterCard. Was the management time and attention well spent given the low returns expected from adding millions of mostly very poor customers? What risks might MasterCard encounter—particularly in some countries where citizens resented their government partnering with and providing personal data to a large U.S. company?