Mastercard Inc. is an American multinational payment card services corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York. It processes payments between the banks of merchants and the card-issuing banks or credit unions of purchasers who use its branded debit, credit and prepaid cards. It also provides related services, including travel-related payments and bookings. The company has been publicly traded since 2006 and remains the principal competitor of Visa.
Founding and early growth
Mastercard was created by an alliance of several banks and regional bankcard associations as a response to the BankAmericard issued by Bank of America, which later became Visa. In 1966, Karl H. Hinke of Marine Midland Bank brought several banks together in Buffalo, New York, forming Interbankard, Inc., later the Interbank Card Association. The network was originally known as Interbank, then as Master Charge, and was renamed MasterCard in 1979.
Public offering and acquisitions
In 2002, MasterCard International merged with Europay International and became a Delaware corporation. It had an initial public offering in 2006, after operating as a cooperative owned by its member financial institutions. Over the following years the company made acquisitions in e-commerce, fraud management, artificial intelligence and identity verification, and in 2022 it suspended its business operations in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.