MasterCard 2009 Annual Report Download - page 13

Forward-Looking Statements
This Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this Report, the words “believe,” “expect,”
“could,” “may,” “would”, “will” and similar words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These
forward-looking statements relate to the Company’s future prospects, developments and business strategies and
include, without limitation, the Company’s belief in the continuing trend from paper-based forms of payment
toward electronic forms of payment and its ability to drive growth by: further penetrating its existing customer
base and by expanding its role in targeted geographies and higher-growth segments of the global payments
industry, pursuing domestic processing opportunities throughout the world and building relationships to expand
such opportunities, enhancing its relationships with merchants, expanding points of acceptance for its brands,
seeking to maintain unsurpassed acceptance and continuing to invest in its brands, pursuing incremental payment
opportunities throughout the world, increasing its volume of business with customers over time, expanding its
processing capabilities in the payment value chain (including continuing to develop opportunities to further
enhance its Integrated Processing Solutions (“IPS”) offerings and expanding capabilities through the
development of strategic alliances), maintaining a strong business presence in Europe as well as effectively
positioning the business as the Single European Payment Area (“SEPA”) initiative creates a more open and
competitive payment market in many European countries and increasing global MasterCard brand awareness
preference and usage through integrated advertising, sponsorship and related activities on a global scale. Many
factors and uncertainties relating to our operations and business environment, all of which are difficult to predict
and many of which are outside of our control, influence whether any forward-looking statements can or will be
achieved. Any one of those factors could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or
implied in writing in any forward-looking statements made by MasterCard or on its behalf. We believe there are
certain risk factors that are important to our business, and these could cause actual results to differ from our
expectations. Please see a complete discussion of these risk factors in Part I, Item 1A—Risk Factors.
In this Report, references to the “Company,” “MasterCard,” “we,” “us” or “our” refer to the MasterCard
brand generally, and to the business conducted by MasterCard Incorporated and its consolidated subsidiaries,
including our principal operating subsidiary, MasterCard International Incorporated (d/b/a MasterCard
Worldwide).
Item 1. Business
Overview
MasterCard is a leading global 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 our customers. Through our three-tiered business model as franchisor, processor and advisor, we develop
and market payment solutions, process payment transactions, and provide support services to our customers and,
depending upon the service, to merchants and other clients. We manage a family of well-known, widely accepted
payment card brands, including MasterCard®, MasterCard Electronic™, Maestro®and Cirrus®, which we license
to our customers. As part of managing these brands, we also establish and enforce rules and standards
surrounding the use of our payment card network. MasterCard generates revenue by charging fees to our
customers for providing transaction processing and other payment-related services and assessing our customers
based on the dollar volume of activity on the cards that carry our brands.
A typical transaction processed over our network involves four parties in addition to us: the cardholder, the
merchant, the issuer (the cardholder’s bank) and the acquirer (the merchant’s bank). Consequently, the payment
network we operate supports what is often referred to as a “four-party” payment system. Our customers are the
financial institutions and other entities that act as issuers and acquirers. Using our transaction processing
services, issuers and acquirers facilitate payment transactions between cardholders and merchants throughout the
world, providing merchants with an efficient and secure means of receiving payment, and consumers and
businesses with a convenient, quick and secure payment method that is accepted worldwide. We guarantee the
settlement of many of these transactions among our customers to ensure the integrity of our payment network. In
addition, we undertake a variety of marketing activities designed to maintain and enhance the value of our
brands. However, cardholder and merchant transaction relationships are managed principally by our customers.
3