The new service from BNY Mellon Partners and MoCaFi is designed for federal, state and local governments and corporations looking to reach those who are unbanked or underbanked
BNY Mellon partnered with MoCaFi, a Black-founded fintech platform focused on empowering traditionally underserved communities, to extend payment options to unbanked and underbanked communities in the US.
With the new collaboration, banking giant BNY Mellon’s Treasury Services business will provide a digital disbursement payment service via the offering of MoCaFi.
MoCaFi’s ‘Financial Services as Infrastructure’ platform enables governments and institutions to provide cash assistance, mobile banking, and financial programming to individuals and households. To date, the fintech has disbursed over $100 million in financial resources to underserved communities across 15 US cities and counties.
The new disbursement service will be offered through BNY Mellon’s Vaia platform. Governments and corporate clients can use it to seamlessly distribute payroll payments and disbursements, e.g. disaster relief financial aid, to individuals without access to traditional financial services.
Moreover, the unbanked and underbanked individuals will receive an opportunity to access basic banking services, including FDIC-insured accounts, debit cards and credit reporting capabilities, through the MoCaFi platform.
“The inability to provide digital payments to a significant portion of the U.S. economy has been a major hurdle for both public and private sectors,” BNY Mellon CEO of Treasury Services Jennifer Barker said in the press release.
The organization also quotes a recent Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation survey, which showed that about 4.5% of US households ( almost 6 million) were “unbanked” in 2021. Further 14.1% (approximately 18.7 million) were “underbanked” in the same period, meaning that they lacked adequate access to traditional financial services, despite having a bank account.
MoCaFi CEO and Founder Wole Coaxum added that “by joining the Vaia platform, we are creating a more seamless experience for corporations and municipalities from New York City to New Orleans and beyond to receive and distribute cash to a new pool of consumers.”
We have previously reported that BNY Mellon and Fiserv Partner on Real-Time FX Rate Quotes.
