MANILA, Philippines - MasterCard Inc. recently announced strong fourth quarter and full year results for the Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa region. For the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2009, the region witnessed double-digit growth in gross dollar volume purchase transactions, cash transactions and cards issued, versus the same period in 2008.
As of Dec. 31, 2009, 268 million MasterCard cards had been issued by MasterCard customer financial institutions in the region. Cardholders in the region made 1,130 million purchase transactions in the fourth quarter of 2009 and cardholders could use their MasterCard cards at 29.9 million acceptance locations worldwide.
“Despite difficult global economic conditions in the first half of the year, MasterCard delivered strong results in the region,” said Vicky Bindra, president, Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa, MasterCard Worldwide. “As the economic climate continues to improve, MasterCard will continue to focus on innovation, share our world-class market insights, work closely with our customers and assist them with building their market share, and work to achieve sustainable growth.