MasterCard Europe announced its first quarter 2009 operating results
for the Europe region. Despite challenging economic circumstances at
the close of 2008, a focus on innovation and customer service has
helped to deliver growth for MasterCard Europe.
Javier Perez, president, MasterCard Europe said: “2009 is set
to be another
eventful year as the world continues to chart its course through a
challenging and shifting financial landscape. The emergence of the ‘new
European consumer’ – for whom a card programme is an important gateway
to money management, requires participants in the payments and
retailing industry to focus on the new consumers’ key watchwords:
Security, stability, value for money.”
“Our first quarter activity has underscored this approach.
Innovation continues
to be key – especially technology-led innovation, such as mobile
payments, contactless payments and secure online payments with further
adoption of PayPass and mobile payments across the region.”
“In April, we also reached an arrangement with the European
Commission on interim interchange fees for cross-border consumer
payments within the European Economic Area (EEA). The Commission
acknowledges the legitimacy of interchange fees in open four-party
payment systems, and provides a degree of clarity for our customers
while we pursue our appeal of the Commission’s decision on these
interchange fees.”
For the first quarter 2009, the European region reported growth in MasterCard
gross euro volume (3.9%), purchase volume (4.2%), purchase transactions (6.4%)
and cash transactions (4.3%), compared to the first quarter 2008. In the first three
months of 2009 European cardholders made over 1.5 billion purchase transactions
with their MasterCard cards, including e-commerce.
As
of 31 March 2009, 195 million MasterCard cards (excluding Maestro and
Cirrus) had been issued by MasterCard customer financial institutions
across Europe, up 7.0 % compared to the same quarter in 2008.
European cardholders could use their MasterCard cards at 8.4 million
acceptance
locations in the region.
In addition, the Maestro brand mark appeared on 312 million cards, up 4.4%
compared to the same quarter in 2008. Consumers can now make point of sale
purchases with their Maestro cards at over 7.1 million merchant locations
throughout Europe.
MasterCard
