Mastercard Inc

Decision Points

 

MasterCard Worldwide Inc is an American multinational corporation with its headquarters in the MasterCard International Global Headquarters in Harrison, New York, United States. Throughout the world, its principal business is to process payments between the banks of merchants and the card issuing banks or credit unions of the purchasers who use the "MasterCard" brand debit and credit cards to make purchases. MasterCard Worldwide has been a publicly traded company since 2006. Prior to its initial public offering, MasterCard Worldwide was a membership organization owned by the 25,000+ financial institutions that issue its card.
MasterCard Incorporated (MasterCard) is a payment solutions company that provides a variety of services in support of the credit, debit and related payment programs of approximately 23,000 financial institutions and other entities that are its customers. Through its three-tiered business model as franchisor, processor and advisor, the Company develops and markets payment solutions, process payment transactions, and provides support services to its customers and, depending upon the service, to merchants and other clients. MasterCard manages a family of payment card brands, including MasterCard, MasterCard Electronic, Maestro and Cirrus, which the Company licenses to its customers. In December 2008, MasterCard acquired Orbiscom Ltd. In October 2010, the Company acquired DataCash Group PLC. Listed in New York Stock Exchange on May 25,2006. P/E ratio is 19.28, Indicated annual dividen is 0.60, Earning per share is 13.13 and shares outstanding is 130,881,000.
MasterCard, originally known as MasterCharge, was created by several California banks as a competitor to the BankAmericard issued by Bank of America, which later became the Visa credit card issued by Visa Inc. The original banks behind MasterCharge were United California Bank (later First Interstate Bank and subsequently merged into Wells Fargo Bank), Wells Fargo, Crocker National Bank (also subsequently merged into Wells Fargo), and the Bank of California (subsequently merged into the Union Bank of California).
On December 7, 2010 MasterCard suspended the acceptance of its credit cards on the WikiLeaks website following Julian Assange's arrest in London..