The partnership is designed to accelerate digital agenda of Ukraine by leveraging Mastercard expertise in payments innovation, digital infrastructure, and cybersecurity solutions.
Image: Mastercard
Mastercard and the Government of Ukraine signed a Memorandum of Understanding to launch a “Digital Country Partnership” in Ukraine. The signing took place on November 12, ahead of the Rebuild Ukraine Conference in Warsaw.
The agreement was signed by Oleksii Sobolev, Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture of Ukraine, and Inga Andreieva, Country Manager for Mastercard in Ukraine and Moldova, with Tucker Foote, Chief Government Affairs and Policy Officer at Mastercard, also present.
Minister Sobolev said that the initiative represented an important step toward building a modern, secure and inclusive digital economy in Ukraine, and noted that international technologies would be implemented in financial services, electronic payments and cybersecurity to enable the government, businesses and citizens to operate in a shared digital environment.
Tucker Foote stated that Mastercard (as a trusted partner for governments) would bring its global network, cutting-edge technologies and policy expertise to support countries in digital transformation, and expressed the company’s pride in collaborating with Ukraine to empower communities, unlock new business opportunities and support the country’s economic growth, resilience and recovery.
The MoU establishes a five-year framework for cooperation under the Digital Country Partnership programme and anticipates that specific workstreams involving public and private sector participants will be defined in due course.
The collaboration between the Government of Ukraine and Mastercard will focus on four key pillars:
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financial security and inclusion, which involves the development and scaling of unified digital solutions for government disbursements, use of data analytics and AI-powered tools for social policy design, and support for SMEs’ digital maturity;
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travel and mobility, to modernise public-transport payment and ticketing systems, enhance tourism sector competitiveness and use data-driven tools to unlock Ukraine’s tourism potential;
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digitalisation and innovation, including scalable solutions in cybersecurity, digital identity and financial inclusion, design and deployment of AI-driven tools, support for GovTech and fintechs and growth of the startup ecosystem;
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cyber-resilience and payment security, to develop integrated approaches for mitigating evolving cyber threats, safeguard critical infrastructure and strengthen resilience across the digital ecosystem through multi-stakeholder cooperation.
