Mastercard Partners With Evolve To Serve Gig Economy Workers

Mastercard Inc. (NYSE:MA) has tied up with Evolve Bank & Trust (Evolve) to remove payment bottlenecks for the gig economy workers.

The partnership will allow companies such as Branch, which provides a link between employers and their hourly and freelance workers, to provide the latter interest-free, pay advances. This will be done via Mastercard’s payment solution named Mastercard Send, which will allow Branch to push funds in near real time to U.S debit cards. With Mastercard Send, senders can reach virtually all U.S. debit card accounts while receivers obtain funds typically within seconds.

The provision of the advance pay service by Mastercard should take off readily given the data that one-third of total US gig workers received approximately $236 billion through pay advances in 2018. This remains a preferred mode of getting access to funds in contrast with loans which have unclear terms and fees.

Per Investopedia, America is on track to establish itself as a gig economy, and estimates show as much as a third of the working population is already a part of this economy. By 2027, freelance workers may represent more than 50% of the U.S. working population, per a Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) report issued in June 2018.

However, a friction faced by the workers is the receipt of wages for the labor rendered. The traditional concept of work now pay later and delays in payment continues to create financial hurdles for the gig workers who have no recourse to monthly paychecks.

This evolving gig economy space provides ample scope for business growth and has evidently attracted companies to serve this section of workers.

For instance, Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) , in March 2019, collaborated with PayActiv for allowing real-time access to gig workers to earned salaries.

In April, MoneyGram International Inc. (NASDAQ:MGI) tied up with KyckGlobal to enable the evolving population of gig economy workers in the United States receive rapid cash funds for their job.

Mastercard is a leader in payment network industry and leaves no opportunity untapped to reap growth. The company is constantly innovating to reach the underserved markets. Recently, it is focusing hard to penetrate into the business-to-business payments market.

Several tie ups and acquisitions made by Mastercard over the years have helped it to build a vast global payment network, allowing billions of transactions everyday, which earn the company its revenues. The robust business model created by the company will allow it to achieve growth in the future.

In a year’s time, the stock has gained 46%, compared with its industry’s rise of 40%.

Mastercard carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better ranked stock in the same sector is EVO Payments, Inc. (NYSE:V) . This Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock has gained 36% in a year’s time and surpassed earnings estimates in three of the last four reported quarters with an average positive earnings surprise of 34.9%.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

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