Paying it forward

Financial inclusion is a not a topic that Raghu Malhotra, president of Mastercard Middle East and Africa, takes lightly. In this exclusive interview, he speaks of the importance of ensuring an equitable financial future, of leveraging key technologies and offers advice to leaders on handling a crisis

- ZAINAB MANSOOR

Harbouring a vision of a financially inclusive, digitalised society and working relentlessly towards realising this mammoth task are two distinct realities. Raghu Malhotra, president for Middle East and Africa (MEA) at technology giant Mastercard, has the unique opportunity of not just having that vision, but also bringing it to life.

“We want to get one billion people financially included into the formal economy by 2025,” says Malhotra, who is currently overseeing the company’s growth strategies across 69 countries. That the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic implications left the world reeling is nothing new. In the weeks and months following the outbreak, a new ecosystem seemingly cannibalised the old, causing a departure from the traditional ways of how people worked, shopped, and lived. While it posed an existential question for some, it created a challenge of distinctively different but overwhelming proportions for companies such as Mastercard, which were keen to help millions of people transition seamlessly towards a new world order.

“If I just step back and think of the pandemic, it has had an adverse impact on various global economies and people, but in many ways, it has also been a catalyst of change. Everybody understood that the cost of cash was very high. I think what the pandemic did for payments was that it changed consumer habits – in the Middle East and Africa, 73 per cent of people are shopping more online than they did prior to the pandemic. That’s a staggering number,” adds Malhotra.

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