Mr. Hemant Baijal is a Senior Business Leader, Global Public Policy at MasterCard. In this role he provides support to MasterCard business units and country operations on key public policy issues related to national retail payment systems and financial inclusion. He also manages relationships with key policy influencing non-governmental organizations and international financial institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, regional development banks, USAID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Alliance for Financial Inclusion and others.

Prior to joining the MasterCard public policy team he was a Senior Payment Systems Specialist in the Payment Systems Development Group of the World Bank where he provided technical expertise and advice to various governments and international bodies on payment systems policy and payments infrastructure design. He was responsible for leading the efforts to develop the recently released General Guidelines for Government Payment Programs. Additionally, he was also involved in the development of the World Bank’s mobile payments policy framework and the recently released “Retail Payments Policy Package” which includes technical advice to governments on addressing policy and payments infrastructure constraints in retail payments. While at the World Bank he co-authored a piece on “Innovation in Retail Payments” which is included in a forthcoming book on payment systems for central bankers – Payment Systems: Design, Governance and Oversight, edited by Bruce J. Summers.

Before joining the World Bank, he worked as a Global Product Manager for government prepaid programs at MasterCard for five years. During this time he was responsible for launching various government payment programs including the Direct Express program with the US Treasury for disbursement of social security benefits to the unbanked. Prior to MasterCard, he worked at Citi and JP Morgan to develop payment products and services catering to the government and corporate sectors.

In the 1990s he worked as an economist at the World Bank and Crown Agents (UK) mostly on private sector and financial sector related issues. His primary focus was on South and South-East Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

He earned his graduate degree in Economics from George Mason University in Virginia. He also attended the George Washington University and University of Rajasthan in Jaipur, India.