Yahoo Finance Mastercard (MA) to Aid Pakistan Agriculture Sector Digitization
Mastercard Incorporated MA recently inked a deal with Pakistan-based Aktkar Fuiou Technologies ("AFT") as a result of which AFT can take part in the Mastercard Community Pass Program. The program is a shared and interoperable digital technology platform, which aims to counter infrastructural headwinds, such as lack of secure connectivity or low smartphone usage, often encountered while digitizing rural communities.
As a result of the abovementioned deal, Digitt+, the country’s agri-fintech company, backed by AFT, will be entrusted to introduce Mastercard Commerce Pass across Pakistan. Commerce Pass is a digital payment solution that falls under MA’s Community Pass suite.
An offline and stored-value account product, Commerce Pass paves way for the safe storage and transfer of digital funds. Thereby, consumers and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises ("MSMEs") of Pakistan are made aware of digitization benefits and the hassles of cash storage and transferring are minimized.
The recent tie-up reinforces Mastercard’s sincere efforts to integrate digital solutions within the underserved agricultural markets of the country. And the expansive footprint of Digitt+ across the agricultural sector of Pakistan makes it an apt partner to complement MA’s endeavor.
The move seems to be a time opportune one as a significant portion of Pakistan’s population is employed in agriculture and widespread measures are being adopted across the globe to integrate digitization in every sphere of life. But the agricultural sector of Pakistan grapples with ineffective infrastructure thereby creating roadblocks in the way of financial service providers to cater to agricultural workers.
Deemed to be a perfect fit in the prevailing scenario, Commerce Pass will offer a record of transactions that will make availing credit and other financial services easier for the country’s agricultural employees. The Mastercard solution is expected to offer financial flexibility to a considerable population of Pakistan that resides in rural areas and resorts to informal lending channels.
Mastercard follows a public-private partnerships strategy in Pakistan and works in unison with the government or private sector companies to infuse digitization across various sectors of the economy. Last year, MA collaborated with LMK Resources Pakistan (Private) Limited ("LMKR") to execute the first open-loop payment solution, powered by MA’s advanced technology, across the country’s transit system. The move was undertaken to infuse digitization within the country’s travel sector. By virtue of such remarkable initiatives, Mastercard occupies a significant share of the digital payments market in Pakistan.
Shares of Mastercard have gained 10.8% in the past six months compared with the industry’s 5.2% rally. MA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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Stocks to Consider
Some better-ranked stocks in the Business Services space are APi Group Corporation APG, Expensify, Inc. EXFY and Thomson Reuters Corporation TRI. While APi Group sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Expensify and Thomson Reuters carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The bottom line of APi Group outpaced estimates in three of the last four quarters and matched the mark once, the average beat being 4.55%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for APG’s 2023 earnings suggests an improvement of 12% from the year-ago reported figure. The same for revenues suggests growth of 4.8% from the year-ago reported number. The consensus mark for APG’s 2023 earnings has moved 7.2% north in the past 30 days.
Expensify’s earnings outpaced estimates in two of the trailing four quarters and missed the mark twice, the average being 18.46%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for EXFY’s 2023 earnings suggests an improvement of 28.1% from the year-ago reported figure. The same for revenues suggests growth of 8.8% from the year-ago reported number. The consensus mark for EXFY’s 2023 earnings has moved 5.1% north in the past 30 days.
The bottom line of Thomson Reuters outpaced estimates in each of the last four quarters, the average beat being 11.68%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for TRI’s 2023 earnings suggests an improvement of 29.3% from the year-ago reported figure. The same for revenues suggests growth of 4.8% from the year-ago reported number. The consensus mark for TRI’s 2023 earnings has moved 3.4% north in the past 30 days.
Shares of APi Group and Thomson Reuters have gained 38.7% and 11.1%, respectively, in the past six months. However, the Expensify stock has lost 50.1% in the same time frame.
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