Mastercard to open its regional hub for the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe in Almaty

During his visit to New York, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev met with Nicola Villa, executive vice president of Mastercard. Tokayev welcomed the company’s decision to open a regional hub for the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe in Almaty, the press service of the president reported.

What happened? President Tokayev met with Executive Vice President Nicola Villa of Mastercard. They discussed perspectives for cooperation in the financial and IT spheres as well as shared their vision on how the digital competence of small and medium-sized businesses in Kazakhstan can be improved.

The president has supported Mastercard’s decision to open the regional hub for the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe in Almaty in order to boost its consulting business. The financial corporation is also going to develop human capital in the banking sphere for the entire region of Central Asia.

The representative of Mastercard noted that the company intends to promote Kazakhstani GovTech solutions in the developing and emerging markets.

«According to Mastercard’s representative, countries all over the world where the corporation is doing its business are interested in Kazakhstan’s experience in digitalization, development of e-government and cash-free economy,” the press service said in a statement.

Moreover, the president was told about Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth initiative to facilitate the development and digitalization of more than 300,000 small and medium-sized businesses in Kazakhstan through a special program called Strive.

What documents have Kazakhstan and Mastercard signed? The two sides have signed a Framework Agreement called Digital Country Partnership (DCP). Under this agreement, Mastercard is going to open the regional hub in Almaty and in conjunction with the country’s National Bank is providing expert and technological support for projects such as Digital Tenge, System of Instant Payments and Open Banking.

“We are going to promote Kazakhstani IT solutions and digitalization across our country. Mastercard was impressed with what we’ve done in the sphere of digitalization and wants to promote our IT solutions in the global market. It is going to be good for exporting our IT products,» Minister of Digital Development Bagdat Musin said.

Mastercard is one of the leading tech companies in the world, ranked among the top ten most valuable global brands. It runs a payment system that combines more than 2.3 billion account holders in 210 countries. The company’s capitalization exceeds $390 billion.