Sydney’s Liverpool City Council has signed an agreement with Mastercard to collaborate on the company’s City Possible program, an initiative bringing the public and private sectors together to solve issues facing cities.
With the area home to more than 215,000 residents and growing by 100 each week, the agreement will see Liverpool City Council and Mastercard work together to research, develop, and potentially implement new solutions to address the challenges facing the area.
Wendy Waller, Liverpool Mayor, said the council is looking forward to working with Mastercard on ways to encourage people to stay in the city for longer.
“As a Council, we place a high value on working smarter to create a better city. The establishment of Western Sydney Airport wholly within our Local Government Area is bringing with it an unprecedented boom. We need to be innovative to ensure Liverpool is a great place to live and work, for the people here already and for the people who will make it their home in coming years,” Waller said.
“Liverpool is working strategically to build a vibrant city with an 18-hour economy, and we recognise that collaborative partnerships such as the one we are about to enter into with Mastercard offer us opportunities to deliver on that promise.”
With the United Nations Population Division predicting that more than 70 percent of the world’s population will reside in urban areas by 2050, executive vice president and head of global cities at Mastercard, Miguel Gamiño Jr. said this growth will present common challenges for cities.
“The City Possible initiative brings together cities, businesses and academia across the globe to identify, prioritise and address urban challenges through scalable solutions in areas such as transportation, economic development, and digital inclusion. No city should start anywhere but where the last city has left off,” he said.
“Mastercard is genuinely excited to welcome Liverpool to the City Possible program. Mastercard understands the power of public-private collaboration in advancing inclusive and sustainable communities. Key to successful outcomes is developing a true partnership that puts people at the centre of solution design.”
Mastercard also partnered with Microsoft earlier this year, bringing together Mastercard’s payment capabilities and Microsoft’s data analytics and cloud services to address urban challenges.
They will work together to consider demand management solutions across areas such as transport, tourism, and energy, stating that a particular area of focus would be looking at ways for more cities to allow people to pay for transit fares with payment cards and devices they already carry.
This is something Mastercard has already been working on in Sydney, having partnered with Transport NSW last year to run a trial allowing ferry commuters to tap-on with their Mastercards or mobile wallets on the Manly to Circular Quay route.
The functionality was extended to the wider Sydney ferry and light rail network in March.
Image: Mayor Wendy Waller.
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