MasterCard 2015 Annual Report Download - page 10

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4
including authorization, clearing and settlement, and deliver related products and services. We make payments easier and more
efficient by creating a wide range of payment solutions and services using our family of well-known brands, including MasterCard®,
Maestro® and Cirrus®. We also provide value-added offerings such as loyalty and reward programs, information services and
consulting. Our network is designed to ensure safety and security for the global payments system.
A typical transaction on our network involves four participants in addition to us: cardholder (an individual who holds a card or
uses another device enabled for payment), merchant, issuer (the cardholder’s financial institution) and acquirer (the merchant’s
financial institution). We do not issue cards, extend credit, determine or receive revenue from interest rates or other fees charged
to cardholders by issuers, or establish the rates charged by acquirers in connection with merchants’ acceptance of our branded
cards. In most cases, cardholder relationships belong to, and are managed by, our financial institution customers.
We generate revenue by charging fees to issuers and acquirers for providing transaction processing and other payment-related
products and services, as well as by assessing these customers based primarily on the dollar volume of activity, or gross dollar
volume (“GDV”), on the cards and other devices that carry our brands.
Our Strategy
Our ability to grow our business is influenced by personal consumption expenditure growth, driving cash and check transactions
toward electronic forms of payment, increasing our share in electronic payments and providing value-added products and
services. We achieve our strategy by growing, diversifying and building our business.
Grow. We focus on growing our core businesses globally, including growing our credit, debit, prepaid and commercial products
and solutions and increasing the number of payment transactions we process.
Diversify. We look to diversify our business by focusing on:
• diversifying our customer base in new and existing markets by working with partners such as governments, merchants,
large digital companies and other technology companies, mobile providers and other businesses;
• encouraging use of our products and solutions in areas that provide new opportunities for electronic payments, such
as transit and person-to-person transfers;
• driving acceptance at small business merchants, including those who have not historically accepted electronic payments;
and
• broadening financial inclusion for the unbanked and underbanked.
Build. We build our business by:
• taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the evolving ways consumers interact and transact as physical
and digital payments converge; and
• using our safety and security products and solutions, data analytics and loyalty solutions to add value.
We grow, diversify and build our business through a combination of organic growth and strategic investments, including
acquisitions.
Strategic Partners. We work with a variety of stakeholders. We provide financial institutions with solutions to help them increase
revenue and increase preference for their MasterCard-branded products. We help merchants by delivering data-driven insights
and other services to help them grow and create better and secure purchase experiences for consumers across physical and
digital channels. We partner with large digital companies and other technology companies, mobile providers and
telecommunication companies to support their digital payment solutions with our technology, expertise and security protocols.
We help national and local governments drive increased financial inclusion and efficiency, reduce costs, increase transparency
to reduce crime and corruption and advance social programs. For consumers, we provide better, safer and more convenient
ways to pay.
Recent Business and Legal/Regulatory Developments
Product Innovation. We have launched and extended products and platforms that take advantage of the growing digital economy
(including the Internet of Things), where consumers are increasingly using technology to interact with merchants. Among our
recent developments: