Mastercard
Mastercard Inc. (stylized as MasterCard from 1979 to 2016 and as mastercard since 2016) is an American multinational payment card services corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York. It provides payment transaction processing and other related-payment services, including travel-related payments and bookings. Its principal business globally is to process payments between the banks of
Overview
Mastercard Inc. (stylized as MasterCard from 1979 to 2016 and as mastercard since 2016) is an American multinational payment card services corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York. It provides payment transaction processing and other related-payment services, including travel-related payments and bookings. Its principal business globally is to process payments between the banks of merchants and the card-issuing banks or credit unions of purchasers who use its branded debit, credit and prepaid cards to make purchases. Mastercard has been publicly traded since 2006. Mastercard (originally Interbank, then Master Charge) was created by an alliance of several banks and regional bankcard associations in response to the BankAmericard issued by Bank of America, which later became Visa and remains its biggest competitor. Both companies have faced numerous antitrust lawsuits. Prior to its initial public offering, Mastercard Worldwide was a cooperative owned by the more than 25,000 financial institutions that issue its branded cards.
1958–1968: Founding
Although BankAmericard's debut in September 1958 was a failure, it began to turn a profit by May 1961. Bank of America kept this information secret and allowed widespread negative impressions to linger in order to ward off competition. This strategy was successful until 1966, when BankAmericard's profitability had become too big to hide. From 1960 to 1966, there were 10 new credit cards introduced in the United States, but from 1966 to 1968, approximately 440 credit cards were introduced by banks large and small throughout the country. These newcomers promptly banded together into regional bankcard associations. At the time, sixteen states limited the ability of banks to operate through branch locations, and another fifteen states entirely prohibited branch banking and required unit banking. A unit bank can legally operate only at a single site, forcing it to remain very small. By joining a regional bankcard association, a unit bank could add a credit card to its financial products, and achieve economies of scale by outsourcing tedious back office tasks like card servicing to the association. Such associations also enabled unit banks to aggregate their customer bases and merchant networks in order to make a credit card useful for both customers and merchants; early credit cards had failed because they could only be used within a small radius around their respective issuing banks. In 1966, Karl H. Hinke, an executive vice president at Marine Midland Bank, asked representatives of several other banks to meet him in Buffalo, New York. Marine Midland had just launched its own regional bankcard in the Upstate New York market after Bank of America declined its request for a BankAmericard regional license because Marine Midland was too big. The result of the Buffalo meeting was that several banks and regional bankcard associations agreed to join forces as Interbankard, Inc., which then became the Interbank Card Association (ICA). By the end of 1967, ICA had 150 members and Hinke became ICA's chairman. Bank of America eventually joined Mastercard as well. The Interbank branding in 1966 consisted of a small unobtrusive lowercase 'i' inside a circle in the lower right-hand corner of the front of each Interbank card; the rest of the card design was the prerogative of each issuing bank. This tiny logo was unsatisfactory for creating nationwide brand awareness in order to compete against the established leader, BankAmericard. In 1969, Interbank developed a new brand, "Master Charge: The Interbank Card" by combining the two overlapping yellow and orange circles of the Western States Bankcard Association with the "Master Charge" name coined by the First National Bank of Louisville, Kentucky.
1969–2005: International expansion
Also in 1969, First National City Bank joined Interbank and merged its proprietary Everything Card program with Master Charge. In 1979, Master Charge: The Interbank Card was renamed MasterCard. Beginning in 1980, the company rolled out new cards with a refreshed logo. Cards retained the overlapping red and yellow circles first adopted in 1969; subsequent card designs have continued to use this motif. In July 1983 the company became the first card-issuer to use holograms as part of its credit card security, with Visa following along 6 months later. Mastercard acquired the Cirrus network of automated tellers in 1985. In 2002, MasterCard International merged with Europay International, another large credit-card issuer association, of which Eurocard had become a part in 1992. Mastercard became a Delaware corporation in connection with the merger, as well as in anticipation of an IPO.
2006–2026: IPO, acquisitions, and further expansion
The company, which had been organized as a cooperative of banks, had an initial public offering on May 25, 2006, selling 61 million shares at $39 each. The stock is traded on the NYSE under the symbol MA, with a market capitalization of $434 billion as of April 2024. The deal was designed to maintain the value of the brand and minimise regulatory costs. In August 2010, Mastercard Worldwide, as it had been rebranded, expanded its e-commerce offering with the acquisition of DataCash, a UK-based payment processing and fraud/risk management provider. In March 2012, Mastercard announced the expansion of its mobile contactless payments program, including markets across the Middle East. In 2014, Mastercard acquired Australian rewards program manager company Pinpoint for an undisclosed amount. In July 2016, Mastercard acquired 92.4% of VocaLink, a British company, for $920 million. In August 2017, Mastercard acquired Brighterion, a company with intellectual property in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Brighterion holds several patents. In 2017, Mastercard introduced a program using biometric cards where a fingerprint sensor is embedded with the payment card's secure chip, enabling cardholder authentication directly on the card. By 2025, Mastercard had extended its program to cards used by Eastern Bank in Bangladesh and Jordan Kuwait Bank in the Middle East. In August 2019, Mastercard launched an offer to acquire part of the operations of Nets, a Scandinavian company, for €2.85 billion. In April 2021, Mastercard created a calculator that gathers information and measures the carbon footprints of customers to aid awareness of carbon emissions and global warming. The same month, Mastercard announced the acquisition of Ekata, a company specializing in identity verification, for $850 million. In March 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mastercard announced that it would suspend all business operations in Russia. On November 17, 2023, the Chinese government approved the local bank card clearing license for a joint venture established by Mastercard in China. As of May 9, 2024, the joint venture can issue Mastercard bank cards that use the Chinese yuan for payment. In September 2024, Mastercard acquired cybersecurity company Recorded Future for $2.65 billion. In January 2026, Mastercard launched an Agentic AI suite called the Mastercard Agent Suite to help banks, retailers and other enterprises build, test, and deploy autonomous AI-driven workflows and agents. It is expected to be available in the second quarter of 2026. In March 2026, Mastercard announced its biggest digital currencies deal through the $1.8 billion acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure startup BVNK. BVNK was founded in 2021 and operates across 130 countries on all major blockchain networks.
Finances
As of 2026, Mastercard ranked 141 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
Market power
Operating a payment processing network entails risk of engaging in anticompetitive practices due to the many parties involved (that is, the customer and their bank and the merchant and their bank). Few companies have faced more antitrust lawsuits both in the US and abroad.
United States
Mastercard, along with Visa, engaged in systematic parallel exclusion against American Express during the 1980s and 1990s. Mastercard used exclusivity clauses in its contracts and blacklists to prevent banks from doing business with American Express. Such exclusionary clauses and other written evidence were used by the United States Department of Justice in regulatory actions against Mastercard and Visa. Discover has sued Mastercard for similar issues. Both Mastercard and Visa have paid approximately $3 billion in damages resulting from a class-action lawsuit filed in January 1996 for debit card swipe fee price fixing. The litigation cites several retail giants as plaintiffs, including Wal-Mart, Sears, Roebuck & Co., and Safeway. In 1996, four million merchants sued Mastercard in federal court for making them accept debit cards if they wanted to accept credit cards and dramatically increasing credit card swipe fees. This case was settled with a multibillion-dollar payment in 2003. This was the largest antitrust award in history. In 1998, the Department of Justice sued Mastercard over rules prohibiting their issuing banks from doing business with American Express or Discover. The Department of Justice won in 2001 and the verdict withstood appeal. American Express also filed suit. On August 23, 2001, Mastercard International Inc. was sued for violating the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. On November 15, 2004, Mastercard Inc. paid damages to American Express, due to anticompetitive practices that prevented American Express from issuing cards through U.S. banks, and paid $1.8 billion for settlement.
Swipe fee fixing and merchant discount bans
On November 27, 2012, a federal judge entered an order granting preliminary approval to a proposed settlement to a class-action lawsuit filed in 2005 by merchants and trade associations against Mastercard and Visa. The suit was filed due to alleged price-fixing practices employed by Mastercard and Visa. About one-fourth of the named class plaintiffs have decided to opt-out of the settlement. Opponents object to provisions that would bar future lawsuits and prevent merchants from opting out of significant portions of the proposed settlement. Plaintiffs allege that Visa Inc. and Mastercard fixed interchange fees, also known as swipe fees, that are charged to merchants for the privilege of accepting payment cards. In their complaint, the plaintiffs also alleged that the defendants unfairly interfere with merchants from encouraging customers to use less expensive forms of payment such as lower-cost cards, cash, and checks. A settlement of $6.24 billion got preliminary approval in November 2019. A settlement of $5.54B was approved in 2019. Certain merchants appealed the settlement and were heard. The case is ongoing as of October 2022.
Antitrust settlement with U.S. Justice Department
In October 2010, Mastercard and Visa reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department in another antitrust case. The companies agreed to allow merchants displaying their logos to decline certain types of cards (because interchange fees differ), or to offer consumers discounts for using cheaper cards.
ATM operators
Mastercard, along with Visa, has been sued in a class action by ATM operators that claim the credit card networks' rules effectively fix ATM access fees. The suit claims that this is a restraint of trade in violation of federal law. The lawsuit was filed by the National ATM Council and independent operators of automated teller machines. More specifically, it is alleged that Mastercard's and Visa's network rules prohibit ATM operators from offering lower prices for transactions over PIN-debit networks that are not affiliated with Visa or Mastercard. The suit says that this price-fixing artificially raises the price that consumers pay using ATMs, limits the revenue that ATM operators earn, and violates the Sherman Act's prohibition against unreasonable restraints of trade. Johnathan Rubin, an attorney for the plaintiffs said, "Visa and Mastercard are the ringleaders, organizers, and enforcers of a conspiracy among U.S. banks to fix the price of ATM access fees in order to keep the competition at bay."
Merchant costs related to fraudulent card uses
In October 2025, merchants agreed to a $231.7 million settlement before a U.S. District Judge, as B & R Supermarket, Inc., et al v. Visa, Inc. et al, for costs imposed in frauds related to counterfeit, lost, or stolen cards, with Mastercard paying $79.8 million of the settlement.
Oceania
In 2003, the Reserve Bank of Australia required that interchange fees be dramatically reduced, from about 0.95% of the transaction to approximately 0.5%. One notable result has been the reduced use of reward cards and increased use of debit cards. Australia also prohibited the no surcharge rule, a policy established by credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard to prevent merchants from charging a credit card usage fee to the cardholder. A surcharge would mitigate or even exceed the merchant discount paid by a merchant, but would also make the cardholder more reluctant to use the card as the method of payment. Australia has also made changes to the interchange rates on debit cards and has considered abolishing interchange fees altogether. As of November 2006, New Zealand was considering similar actions, following a Commerce Commission lawsuit alleging price-fixing by Visa and Mastercard. In New Zealand, merchants pay a 1.8% fee on every credit card transaction.
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