MasterCard Worldwide has announced its second quarter 2007 operating results for the Europe region.
For the quarter, the region reported double-digit increases in MasterCard credit card gross dollar volume (14.3%), purchase volume (14.7%), purchase transactions (12.6%), cash transactions (11.0%) and cards issued (18.2%) versus the same period in 2006.
As of 30th June 2007, 164 million MasterCard cards (excluding Maestro and Cirrus) had been issued by MasterCard customer financial institutions across Europe. Cardholders in the region made 1,390 million purchase transactions in the second quarter of 2007 and could use their MasterCard cards at eight million acceptance locations throughout the region.
Javier Perez, President, MasterCard Europe, said: "Today's announcement shows our business in Europe operating from a position of strength and continuing to be a major contributor to MasterCard's global business success story.
"Product innovation and excellence are at the heart of everything we do in Europe. This is exemplified by the further roll-out of contactless 'Tap & Go' payments across a number of countries including the UK and Spain.
"In the UK, for example, in May we led the announcement of the London launch of contactless payments which will allow consumers to pay with their PayPass 'Tap & Go' cards later this year. This marks the beginning of a national roll-out expected to take place in 2008."
Javier Perez concluded: "In addition to ensuring that all of our customers continue to benefit from our innovative payment solutions, the remainder of 2007 will see us re-doubling our efforts to make sure that the Single European Payments Area becomes a reality from January 2008. Its launch will introduce competition into every point of the payments value chain benefiting consumers, merchants and banks as well as the wider Euro zone economy."
In addition, the Maestro and Cirrus brand marks appeared on over 292 million cards, up 4.7 percent compared to the second quarter of 2006 in Europe. Consumers can now make online debit point of sale purchases witth their Maestro cards at over 6.5 million merchant locations throughout Europe.
MasterCard in Europe also reported a number of significant business achievements for the quarter:
- In April, MasterCard announced a new agreement with Lloyds TSB to issue the majority of the Bank's credit card portfolio through the MasterCard scheme.
- In May, to coincide with the announcement of details of the London Launch of contactless payments, MasterCard partnered with Royal Bank of Scotland Group to launch the results of the first live trials of 'Tap & Go' payments in Europe.
- In May, MasterCard launched Europe's first watch equipped with MasterCard PayPass contactless technology, in partnership with Garanti Bank in Turkey.
- In June, MasterCard and Caja Madrid launched Spain's first PayPass pilot.