Mastercard has expanded its collaboration with Smile ID, a digital identity verification provider, as part of its efforts to advance secure identification services across Africa.
The agreement includes a minority investment by Mastercard in Smile ID, underlining the company’s focus on supporting the continent’s digital economy. The expansion of this partnership is aimed at addressing widespread challenges linked to fraud prevention and financial inclusion. Mastercard’s identity technologies will be integrated with Smile ID’s verification and fraud detection tools, creating services designed for banks, fintechs, telecom operators, and mobile money providers. These services will allow institutions to authenticate customers more efficiently while maintaining compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations.
Supporting digital growth and fraud prevention
According to the official press release, Africa’s digital economy is forecast to reach USD 1.5 trillion by 2030. As smartphone adoption accelerates, the demand for reliable digital identity solutions is expected to grow significantly. Industry observers note that identity verification remains one of the most important enablers of both financial access and secure cross-border transactions.
Officials from Mastercard said that fragmented identity systems remain a barrier to participation in the digital economy and that the partnership with Smile ID aims to overcome this gap. Representatives from Smile ID also pointed to the financial burden of synthetic identity fraud, which costs lenders across Africa hundreds of millions of dollars annually. They added that combining their data sources with Mastercard’s insights could allow institutions to securely onboard millions of new users in a matter of seconds.
Smile ID’s integration with government databases and other trusted sources provides the partnership with pan-African reach and near real-time verification capabilities. These solutions are expected to be embedded into Mastercard’s digital platforms, giving enterprises across the region access to scalable identity services.
