MasterCard delivers strong performance

MANILA, Philippines - MasterCard Inc. recently announced successful fourth quarter and full year results for the Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa (APMEA) region. For the fourth quarter of 2008, the region witnessed double-digit growth in gross dollar volume (16.4 percent), purchase volume (17.7 percent), purchase transactions (17.4 percent), cash transactions (24.9 percent) and cards issued (15.6 percent).

As at December 31 last year, 241 million MasterCard cards (excluding Maestro® and Cirrus®) had been issued by MasterCard customer financial institutions in APMEA. Cardholders in the region made 947 million purchase transactions in the fourth quarter of 2008 and cardholders could use their MasterCard cards at 28.5 million acceptance locations worldwide.

“In 2008, MasterCard demonstrated the strength of our customer-centric strategy and innovative suite of products which catered to the needs of our customers. Even in these distressed economic conditions, we delivered strong results,” said Andre Sekulic, president, Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa, MasterCard Worldwide. “We will remain focused on helping our customers through the difficult times by sharing our world-class market insights, assisting them in building market share, seizing new and diverse opportunities, and achieving sustainable profit growth.”