Mastercard and Stride Team Up to Bring Portable Benefits to Gig and Independent Workers

MoCaFi and Jobble among the first Mastercard partners to provide their cardholders access to affordable, comprehensive benefits

The rise of the gig and independent economy has led to a need for accessible benefits options, as well as the flexibility to move benefits across jobs. Addressing this demand, Mastercard today announced a new strategic partnership with Stride, the leading portable benefits platform for independent workers, to provide customers with the ability to offer cardholders in the United States access to simple, affordable coverage plans. This marks the first time that differentiated health, dental, and vision benefits will be made available via a payments network.

Among the first of Mastercard’s customers to use Stride’s Portable Benefits Platform are African American-owned fintech Mobility Capital Finance (MoCaFi) and Jobble, a community of over 2 million on-demand workers spanning the delivery, warehouse, grocery and restaurant fields, among others. MoCaFi and Jobble cardholders, as well as other Mastercard participating partners, will have access to Stride’s Portable Benefits Platform, which provides:

• A fully stocked benefits marketplace: Access to affordable, quality health insurance, low-cost dental and vision insurance, discounted telemedicine and prescriptions, income and expense management tools, and tax withholding estimation and guidance, in addition to local deals and discounts.
• A customizable, configurable platform: The ability to tailor benefits programs for specific users by adding their own unique perks and benefits, presenting their own tools and services, and offering different benefits packages based on loyalty, engagement, productivity, and other criteria.
• Year-round concierge access: Continuous access to Stride’s award-winning member experience team, who can help with everything from benefit selection and enrollment to questions about invoices and payments.

Additionally, beginning in 2021, enabled Mastercard cardholders will be able to use their cards on Stride’s Portable Benefits Platform, making it easier and more rewarding for their users to pay for their benefits.

This partnership is an extension of Mastercard’s commitment to financial inclusion, and the first step in the company’s broader strategy to provide gig and independent workers with a wide range of benefits choices – from insurance, to financial management, education and offers. The portable benefits initiative aims to enable Mastercard partners to deliver relevant benefits to members of the gig and independent economy, ensuring that both have a safety net to prepare them for the future, wherever it is that they may choose to work.

“The role of the gig and independent worker is increasingly relevant to our economy, as more and more people rely on digital tools and platforms to fulfill requests and facilitate tasks,” said Jess Turner, executive vice president of Products and Innovation, North America at Mastercard. “Understanding evolving preferences from this segment for access to cost-effective coverage, and an overarching desire for a comprehensive set of personalized financial products and solutions, we’re excited to make Stride’s Portable Benefits Platform available to our partners via their cardholder offerings.”

“Independent workers deserve the same access to affordable, comprehensive benefits as full-time workers,” said Noah Lang, co-founder and CEO of Stride. “For the past several years we’ve been building the world’s first ‘Portable Benefits Platform’ designed to help all independent workers secure, manage and use the benefits they and their families need to thrive. Through this partnership, we’re putting that powerful platform in the hands of Mastercard’s partners so they can provide their users with access to those benefits.”

Supporting the Upcoming Open Enrollment Period

The annual Open Enrollment Period in the United States, which begins November 1, 2020 and ends December 15, 2020, is the yearly period during which individuals can enroll in a health insurance plan for the following year. Both MoCaFi and Jobble will be using the Stride Benefits Platform to help their customer bases find affordable, quality health insurance. Most individuals using Stride to find health insurance can enroll in plans costing less than $75 per month, and 1 in 4 can find health insurance for less than $10 per month.  

For more on Stride’s Portable Benefits offering, visit: https://www.stridebenefits.com/. 

Quote Sheet

“Black Americans represent 17% of the gig economy workforce^[1] and as such are often underbanked and have less access to employer-sponsored benefits,” said Wole Coaxum, CEO of MoCaFi. “This partnership with Mastercard and Stride allows us to bridge the economic mobility gap for Black Americans and advance their ability to affordably save, invest and insure themselves against risk.”

“We want to help gig workers end-to-end: from finding the perfect gigs to getting the perfect set of benefits. Partnering with Mastercard and Stride helps us deliver a complete package to our Jobblers,” said Zack Smith, CEO and Founder of Jobble.

Sources

^[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2018/article/electronically-mediated-work-new-questions-in-the-contingent-worker-supplement.htm