MasterCard 2013 Annual Report Download - page 7

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3
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
operating subsidiary, MasterCard International Incorporated.
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. All statements other than statements of historical facts may be forward-
looking statements. When used in this Report, the words “believe”, “expect”, “could”, “may”, “would”, “will”, “trend”
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, statements relating
to:
• the Company’s focus on growing, diversifying and building its business;
• the Company's focus on providing value to merchants, governments, consumers and financial
institutions;
• the Company's development of innovative platforms and solutions;
• the Company's focus on ensuring the safety and security of the payments system;
• the stability of economies around the globe;
• the Company’s advertising and marketing strategy and investment;
• the Company's belief that its existing cash, cash equivalents and investment securities balances, its
cash flow generating capabilities, its borrowing capacity and its access to capital resources are
sufficient to satisfy its future operating cash needs, capital asset purchases, outstanding commitments
and other liquidity requirements associated with its existing operations and potential obligations; and
• the manner and amount of purchases by the Company pursuant to its share repurchase program,
dependent upon price and market conditions.
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. Such risk factors
include: legislation, competition-related regulatory proceedings, regulation by central banks and similar types of
regulatory authorities and litigation related to interchange fees and other practices; regulation established by the Dodd-
Frank Act (as defined below) in the United States; requirement to permit U.S. merchants to surcharge credit cards;
regulation or other regulatory activity with respect to the payments industry in one jurisdiction or of one product resulting
in regulation (or impact on pending regulatory proceedings) in other jurisdictions or of other products; competitive
issues caused by preferential or protective government actions; regulation of the payments industry, consumer privacy,
data use and/or security; potential or incurred liability and limitations on business resulting from litigation; potential
changes in tax laws; substantial and increasingly intense competition in the payments industry; potential future changes
in the competitive landscape; competitive pressure on pricing; banking industry consolidation; loss of significant
business from significant customers; merchant activity; the relationship of our competitors with our issuers and
acquirers; our relationship with our issuers and acquirers; brand perceptions and reputation; our work with governments;
global economic events and the overall business environment; decline in cross-border travel; the effect of general
economic and global political conditions on consumer spending trends; exposure to loss or illiquidity due to guarantees
of settlement and certain other third-party obligations; impact of a failure or breach of our security systems or
infrastructure as a result of cyber attacks; disruptions to our transaction processing systems and other services; account
data breaches; reputation damage from increases in fraudulent activity; the challenges resulting from rapid technological
developments in the payments industry; the effect of adverse currency fluctuation; acquisition, entry into new businesses
and other integration issues; and issues relating to our Class A common stock and corporate governance structure.