MasterCard 2014 Annual Report Download - page 5

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3
In this Report on Form 10-K (“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 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:
• our focus on growing, diversifying and building our business and providing value to our strategic partners;
• our management of the impact on our business of legal and regulatory challenges;
• the stability of economies around the globe;
• our advertising and marketing strategy;
• our belief that our existing cash, cash equivalents and investment securities balances, its cash flow generating
capabilities, its borrowing capacity and our access to capital resources are sufficient to satisfy our 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 pursuant to our 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:
• payments system-related regulation, legislation and litigation (including interchange fees and surcharging);
• regulation related to our participation in the payments industry;
• existing regulation leading to new regulation in other jurisdictions or of other products;
• preferential or protective government actions;
• potential or incurred liability and limitations on business resulting from litigation;
• potential changes in tax laws;
• competition in the global payments industry;
• banking industry consolidation;
• loss of significant business from significant customers;
• impact of our relationships with merchants, issuers, acquirers and governments;
• competitor relationships with our customers;
• brand perception and reputation;
• the overall business environment, including global economic and political events and conditions;
• declines in cross-border activity;
• exposure to loss or illiquidity due to guarantees of settlement and certain other third-party obligations;
• impact of information security failures, disruptions to our transaction processing systems, account data breaches
and increases in fraudulent activity;
• the challenges resulting from rapid technological developments in the payments industry;
• the effect of adverse currency fluctuation;