Mastercard Doubles Advent Season Bank Card Donations

The strategic partnership between the Hungarian Interchurch Aid and Mastercard will continue in 2026. Innovative, secure digital platforms for fundraising, which have significantly increased the efficiency of Advent fundraising, are playing an increasingly important role in the joint effort to support the aid organization's operations.

Card donations proved to be extremely successful overall: 2,000 donors contributed approximately HUF 20 million (an average of HUF 10,000 per person) to the Hungarian Interchurch Aid during Advent. Experience has shown that the option of donating by card also increased the willingness to give: the average amount of digital donations was higher even in the difficult economic environment.

Mastercard's digital financial solutions made the Hungarian Interchurch Aid's Advent Fundraiser particularly effective: the secure and convenient Tap on Phone solution, where the card donation platform was simply a smartphone. In Budapest and several other cities, Tap on Phone alone accounted for 10% of the total donations, more than HUF 2 million, collected during the holiday season.

In addition to security and simplicity, another significant attraction was undoubtedly the fact that every forint donated in the weeks leading up to the holiday was worth double: Mastercard undertook to double the amount received from supporters, in addition to providing digital solutions, so that in addition to the approximately HUF 20 million received as donations, a further HUF 20 million was transferred to support the work of the aid organization.

All this took place within the framework of the strategic cooperation, which was renewed for another three years last year and has yielded spectacular results in 2025 and the previous years. In 2022, when the war broke out in Ukraine, Mastercard provided EUR 100,000 (approximately HUF 38.5 million) in support of the Hungarian Interchurch Aid's humanitarian aid efforts through the Határtalan segítség (Borderless Aid) program. In 2022 and 2023, a Disneyland experience day was organized for disadvantaged Hungarian children who would otherwise be excluded from community programs due to their financial circumstances. In 2023 and 2024, MBH and Mastercard contributed HUF 16 million to the Aid Organization's Christmas and year-round aid campaigns during their Advent campaign. The strategic partnership itself will provide the Aid Organization with an additional EUR 85,000 (approximately HUF 33 million) in 2025 and EUR 50,000 (approximately HUF 20 million) annually in the following years.