Girasol Payments and Mastercard have announced a six-year partnership to build the digital payment infrastructure for the Caribbean region.

This partnership focuses on leveraging Mastercard’s network, expertise, and support through Girasol so that national banks, credit unions, and fintechs in this region can access Mastercard’s services and products faster, easier, and tailored to their needs.

Mastercard said it was betting on the region and securing strategic partners like Girasol to create more opportunities locally in the new digital economy.

As part of this partnership, Girasol and Mastercard will bring new POS and acceptance technologies, such as Mastercard’s tap-on-phone, to mom-pop shops, helping them capture new customers in local markets. Girasol will also offer its partners the ability to issue Mastercard cards, becoming a one-stop payments partner for the Caribbean.

Girasol is a fintech company based out of Curaçao with a presence in all the Dutch islands. The company has been operating for more than four years and serving banks and credit unions in the region with payment technology solutions.

“We started Girasol as a local payment company and at once recognised the opportunity and potential there is in payments and fintech as emerging industries. How our society is paying and getting paid has changed over time and will continue evolving. Unfortunately, the Caribbean market has not been able to benefit from the latest payment innovations due to unscalable technologies and solutions. Therefore, we take full responsibility at Girasol to constantly invest in making the payment technology accessible to all players in the ecosystem,” said Marwan Rozier, CEO and founder of Girasol.

Through this partnership, Mastercard reinforces its commitment to the Caribbean by enabling fintech, financial institutions, merchants, governments, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with the necessary tools, solutions, and resources to accelerate financial inclusion in the region.

“We are excited by the possibilities that digital payments acceptance offers both businesses and the local communities,” said Jimena Elia, country manager for Mastercard’s West & Dutch Caribbean Markets.

“Giving smaller businesses new technologies has the potential to accelerate more robust, resilient, and inclusive economic growth in the Dutch Islands.”

Girasol is currently integrating and completing the necessary certifications to its systems, and they are planning to start offering these new services (issuing, acquiring, and processing) as a full 360 value prop to its customers by July 2023.