Double-Digit Growth Continues for MasterCard Europe

Waterloo, Belgium, 31 October 2007 - MasterCard Worldwide has announced its third quarter 2007 operating results for the Europe region. For the quarter, the region reported double-digit growth in MasterCard gross dollar volume (16.1%), purchase volume (16.8%), purchase transactions (13.9%), cash transactions (11.2%) and cards issued (19.3%) versus the same period in 2006.

As of 30th September 2007, 172 million MasterCard cards (excluding Maestro® and Cirrus®) had been issued by MasterCard customer financial institutions across Europe. Cardholders in the region made 1.5 billion purchase transactions in the third quarter of 2007 and could use their MasterCard cards at eight million acceptance locations throughout the region.

Javier Perez, President, MasterCard Europe, said:

"Our business in Europe is vibrant and continues to go from strength to strength. In fact, our strong regional performance continues to be a major contributor to MasterCard Worldwide’s global business success story.

"Leading the way in product innovation is fundamental to everything we do in Europe -providing our customers across the region with the latest payment products designed to drive value for merchants while simultaneously making consumers’ lives simpler. The ongoing roll-out of contactless 'Tap & Go' payments across a number of countries in the region is just one example of this, with the significant roll-out of contactless in the UK market.”

"We are also responding to the unique challenges presented by the launch of SEPA, which is fast approaching. The remainder of this year will see us doing all we can to make the introduction of a Single European Payments Area as smooth and effective as possible for everyone. 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® brand mark appeared on over 295 million cards, up 4.8 percent compared to the third quarter of 2006 in Europe. Consumers can now make point of sale purchases with their Maestro cards at 6.7 million merchant locations throughout Europe.

MasterCard in Europe reported a number of significant business achievements for the quarter including:

• The further roll-out of MasterCard® PayPass™ with pilots launched in Italy with Banco Posta and in Spain with Caja Segovia. In the UK, to mark the launch of contactless payments, the renowned London landmark, the Millennium Bridge, was carpeted by MasterCard with images of millions of pounds of cash and coins to signify the path to a cashless future.
• The launch of Europe's first World™ MasterCard® programme, issued in the UK by Capital One.
• The Allied Irish Bank’s decision to convert its entire debit and ATM-only card portfolios from local-brand Laser to Maestro.