Today in The Connected Economy: Mastercard Debuts ‘Belle Block’ Community

Today in the connected economy, Mastercard unveils the Belle Block, a crypto and Web3 community aimed at women and nonbinary people.

Also, Mastercard and WhatsApp team up to offer travel perks to customers, and Splitit teams up with contactless pay and customer engagement solutions firm Everyware to marry Splitit’s Installments-as-a-Service platform with Everyware’s Pay By Text tool.

Mastercard Launches ‘The Belle Block’ Web3, Crypto Community for Women, Nonbinary Individuals

In what it says is an effort to make Web3 and cryptocurrency more accessible to women and nonbinary people, Mastercard has launched The Belle Block, a community focused on educating them on the technologies and their capabilities.

The Belle Block platform “prioritizes education, listening and learning from a diverse community — bringing more people into the digital ecosystem safely and securely,” the company said in a news release.

“We are energized to collaborate, listen and co-innovate in support of business and consumer needs,” said Mastercard Chief Digital Officer Jorn Lambert. “Today marks the start of an exciting and forward-thinking journey to together bring more women and underserved communities to the table in the Web3 and crypto world.”

Mastercard Teams With WhatsApp on Expanded Travel Services

As travel and travel spending increase, Mastercard said it is expanding its travel and lifestyle platform with new services that include a partnership with WhatsApp, COVID-19 alerts, and access to airport lounges during flight delays.

Mastercard Travel & Lifestyle Services is a platform that lets people plan and book trips, giving the company’s World and World Elite cardholders access to exclusive guarantees, amenities and upgrades, as well with concierge service.

The company said this expanded version of the platform offers WhatsApp servicing, which lets members message lifestyle managers about travel requests using their smartphones.

Everyware Adds Splitit Installments to Its Pay By Text

Splitit has teamed up with contactless pay and customer engagement solutions firm Everyware to add Splitit’s Installments-as-a-Service platform to Everyware’s Pay By Text platform.

The companies said their collaboration will integrate Everyware with Splitit’s services to provide a mobile buy now, pay later (BNPL) service and reduce mobile payments friction.

“Everyware has done a tremendous job answering the needs of mobile-first consumers by leading the way towards widespread adoption of pay by text,” said Colt McCutcheon, Splitit chief revenue officer. “The addition of Splitit’s Installments-as-a-Service makes mobile payments even more powerful.”

ForwardAI, C2FO Partner on Cash Flow Forecasting

Business data FinTech ForwardAI has joined forces with working capital platform C2FO to offer C2FO’s small business customers access to ForwardAI’s cash flow forecasting and planning portal.

The companies said their partnership allows C2FO to integrate cash flow forecasts within its online platform, allowing the firm’s clients to streamline their day-to-day cash flow management and operations.

“Our partnership with ForwardAI bolsters the features that the C2FO platform offers to our customers with a new cash flow forecasting module,” said Ragui Selwanes, chief product and technology officer for C2FO. “The ability to make educated predictions about the future state of cash flow will be priceless for our customers daily, but in particular as they continue to navigate the many challenges all businesses are currently facing due to supply chain woes and inflation.”

Banking as a Service Key to Fast-Tracking Embedded Finance for FIs

“As far as banking infrastructure goes, the United States has the worst in the modern world.”

That’s according to Chris Dean, co-founder and CEO of Treasury Prime. In an interview with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster, Dean said that banking as a service has the potential to bring the U.S. financial services to a level that meets and exceeds other nations.

In the meantime, there are a number of hurdles. For example, banks — smaller ones in particular — are struggling with a lack of resources. There are also a number of regulators to contend with, as well as exceeding fragmentation in the industry due to the thousands of banks out there and no shortage of FinTechs entering the space.