[ACCI-CAVIE] Cybercrime poses a real threat to all businesses whether small or medium sized. Mastercard Trust Center has therefore partnered with Nigerian digital payment startup NowNow, to lend a hand to SMEs (small and medium enterprises). And this is because the latter usually do not have the resources to fight back or act accordingly once they are subject to cyber attacks.

This partnership will address the cybersecurity needs of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) by providing them with free resources to help them educate and improve their cybersecurity ecosystem. The partnership will make the Mastercard Trust Center more accessible to its SME partners. Approximately $500,000,000 (five hundred million U.S. dollars) is the amount of money Nigeria loses annually to cybercrime according to the Nigerian Communications Commission.

In addition, NowNow, a digital finance company in Nigeria, supports SMEs with regular web application penetration testing to ensure that applications are not vulnerable to cyber threats. It is currently available in Nigeria and Angola and is expanding into several other markets (Equatorial Guinea, Liberia and the United Arab Emirates).

Sahir Berry, CEO of Fintech NowNow on this engagement says, “Like Mastercard, NowNow is committed to driving financial and digital inclusion by creating an ecosystem that digitizes payments and creates access to financial services for businesses, governments and customers in rural and urban communities using simplified branchless banking. initiatives. We are excited to partner with Mastercard Trust Center to help our customers improve the security of their cyber ecosystem and better protect themselves from cybercriminals.”

As a reminder, Mastercard Trust Center is a microsite. It specifically helps SMBs defend their assets, operations and critical reputation by providing online access to trusted cybersecurity research, organized training, resources and tools from Mastercard and trusted external sources.

By Christelle HOUETO and LB