MasterCard growth up 22% in 2000

MasterCard International has generated $857 billion in gross dollar volume (GDV) in 2000 for a 21.5 percent increase over 1999. For the fourth quarter alone GDV rose 19 percent to $231 billion, marking the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit global GDV growth. GDV includes both purchase activity and cash transactions.

Strong GDV increases were registered in all regions for the entire year: Asia Pacific (excluding China), 53.9 percent; Canada, 16.6 percent; Latin America, 21.5 percent; Middle East/Africa was up 14.8 percent.

In Europe, through its alliance with Europay International, GDV for MasterCard-branded cards rose 15.8 percent. In the US, full-year GDV registered the highest growth rate in six years, rising 20.2 percent to $423 billion.

Global purchasing volume (excluding cash transactions) rose 17.3 percent to $633.5 billion for 2000, and 14 percent, to $170.6 billion, in the fourth quarter of the year. In 2000, MasterCard-branded cards, excluding Maestro, were used for almost nine billion purchase transactions worldwide, a 17.4 percent increase from 1999. Fourth quarter purchase transactions were up 16.6 percent to 2.5 billion.

MasterCard’s 20,000 member institutions had issued more than 437 million MasterCard-branded cards globally, a 15.4 percent jump from the previous year. This represents the highest year-to-year card growth rate in more than four years, and is more than double the global growth rate reported for 1999.

MasterCard also reported that, by the end of 2000, its cardholders were able to use their MasterCard cards at 21 million acceptance locations worldwide, a 12.7 percent increase over the previous year. Its efforts to ensure that no card is accepted at more places or by more merchants have yielded notable results as the number of MasterCard acceptance locations increased by nearly 36 percent between 1997 and 2000.

During the year, both credit and debit showed strong momentum. Global credit GDV rose 20.7 percent for the year, to $740 billion. In the debit card arena, GDV grew 26.3 percent for off-line debit programs, to reach $117 billion.

"These impressive results clearly demonstrate the success of our customer-oriented strategy," said Robert Selander, MasterCard’s president and chief executive officer. "In 1997, MasterCard embarked on a new corporate strategy to sharpen our focus on our customers, strengthen our core products and services, and differentiate ourselves from the competition by building customized, value-added services. With each passing quarter we’re seeing our customers rewarding us for focusing on making their payments businesses more profitable."

Strong GDV increases were registered in all regions for 2000. The US was up more than 20 percent; Asia Pacific (excluding China), 53.9 percent; Canada, 16.6 percent; Latin America, 21.5 percent; Middle East/Africa was up 14.8 percent.

In Europe, through its alliance with Europay International, GDV for MasterCard-branded cards rose 15.8 percent.

The Asia Pacific region (excluding China) recorded particularly strong results, as 2000 GDV rose 53.9 percent for the full year, and 51.2 percent for the fourth quarter. In 1999, the Asia Pacific region (excluding China) had reported a 16.5 percent year-to-year increase, as the region began to recover from an economic crisis.