Mastercard Incorporated operates as a technology company in the global payments industry.
The company connects consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments, digital partners, businesses, and other organizations worldwide by enabling electronic payments and making those payment transactions secure, simple, smart, and accessible. The company makes payments easier and more efficient by providing a wide range of payment solutions and services using its family of well-known and trusted...
Mastercard Incorporated operates as a technology company in the global payments industry.
The company connects consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments, digital partners, businesses, and other organizations worldwide by enabling electronic payments and making those payment transactions secure, simple, smart, and accessible. The company makes payments easier and more efficient by providing a wide range of payment solutions and services using its family of well-known and trusted brands, including Mastercard, Maestro, and Cirrus. The company operates a payments network that provides choice and flexibility for consumers, merchants, and its customers. Through its unique and proprietary global payments network, it switches (authorizes, clears, and settles) payment transactions. The company has additional payments capabilities that include automated clearing house (‘ACH’) transactions (both batch and real-time account-based payments). Using these capabilities, the company offers consumer and commercial payment products, captures new payment flows, and provides services and solutions. These services and solutions include, among others, security solutions, consumer acquisition and engagement services, and business and market insights, all of which draw on its principled and responsible use of secure data. The company's capabilities strengthen, reinforce, and complement each other and are fundamentally interdependent. For its global payments network, the company's franchise model sets the standards and ground rules that balance value and risk across all stakeholders and allows for interoperability among them. The company employs a multi-layered approach to help protect the global payments ecosystem in which it operates.
Strategy
The company's strategy centers on growing its core, diversifying its customers and geographies, and building new areas for the future through a combination of organic and inorganic strategic initiatives. It is executing on this strategy through a focus on three priorities: consumer payments; commercial and new payment flows; and services and other solutions. The company's priorities strengthen, complement, and reinforce each other and are fundamentally interdependent.
Business
Payments Capabilities
The company enables a wide variety of payments capabilities (including products, services, and solutions) over its network among account holders, merchants, financial institutions, businesses, governments, and others, offering its customers one partner for their payment needs.
Payment Network
The company's payment network links issuers and acquirers around the globe to facilitate the switching of transactions, permitting account holders to use its products at approximately 150 million acceptance locations and over 250 million digital access points worldwide. This network facilitates an efficient, safe, and secure means for making and receiving payments, a convenient, quick, and secure payment method for consumers to access their funds, and a channel for businesses to receive insight through information that is derived from its network. The company enables transactions for its customers through its payment network in more than 150 currencies and in more than 220 countries and territories.
Payment Network Transactions: The company's payment network supports what is often referred to as a ‘four-party’ payments network and includes the following participants: account holder (a person or entity who holds a card or uses another device enabled for payment), issuer (the account holder’s financial institution), merchant, and acquirer (the merchant’s financial institution).
In a typical transaction, an account holder purchases goods or services from a merchant using one of the company's payment products. After the transaction is authorized by the issuer, the issuer pays the acquirer an amount equal to the value of the transaction, minus the interchange fee, and other applicable fees, and then posts the transaction to the account holder’s account. The acquirer pays the amount of the purchase, net of a discount (referred to as the ‘merchant discount’ rate), to the merchant.
Interchange Fees: Interchange fees reflect the value merchants receive from accepting the company's products and play a key role in balancing the costs and benefits that consumers and merchants derive. Generally, interchange fees are collected from acquirers and paid to issuers to reimburse the issuers for a portion of the costs incurred. These costs are incurred by issuers in providing services that benefit all participants in the system, including acquirers and merchants, whose participation in the network enables increased sales to their existing and new customers, efficiencies in the delivery of existing and new products, guaranteed payments, and improved customer experience. The company (or, alternatively, financial institutions) establishes ‘default interchange fees’ that apply when there are no other established settlement terms in place between an issuer and an acquirer. The company administers the collection and remittance of interchange fees through the settlement process.
Additional Four-Party System Fees: The merchant discount rate is established by the acquirer to cover its costs of both participating in the four-party system and providing services to merchants. The rate takes into consideration the amount of the interchange fee, which the acquirer generally pays to the issuer.
Switched Transactions
Authorization, Clearing and Settlement: Through its payment network, the company enables the routing of a transaction to the issuer for its approval, facilitates the exchange of financial transaction information between issuers and acquirers after a successfully conducted transaction, and settles the transaction by facilitating the exchange of funds between parties via settlement banks chosen by the company and its customers.
Cross-Border and Domestic: The company's payment network switches transactions throughout the world when the merchant country and country of issuance are different (‘cross-border transactions’), providing account holders with the ability to use, and merchants to accept, its products and services across country borders. The company also provides switched transaction services to customers where the merchant country and the country of issuance are the same (‘domestic transactions’). It switches approximately 70% of all transactions for Mastercard and Maestro-branded cards, including nearly all cross-border transactions.
The company guarantees the settlement of many of the transactions from issuers to acquirers to help ensure the integrity of its payment network. It refers to the amount of this guarantee as its settlement exposure.
Payment Network Architecture: The company's payment network features a globally integrated structure that provides scale for its issuers, enabling them to expand into regional and global markets. It is based largely on a distributed (peer-to-peer) architecture that enables the network to adapt to the needs of each transaction. The network accomplishes this by performing intelligent routing and applying multiple services (such as fraud scoring, tokenization services, etc.) to appropriate transactions in real time. This architecture enables the company to connect all parties regardless of where or how the transaction is occurring. It has 24-hour-a-day availability and world-class response time.
Account-Based Payments Capabilities
The company offers ACH batch and real-time account-based payments capabilities, enabling payments for ACH transactions between bank accounts in real-time. Its real-time account-based payments capabilities provide consumers and businesses the ability to make instant (faster) payments while providing enhanced data and messaging capabilities. The company builds, implements, enhances, and operates real-time clearing and settlement infrastructure, payment platforms, and direct debit systems for jurisdictions globally. It operates real-time payments infrastructure in several countries around the world. The company also uses its real-time account-based payments capabilities to enable consumers, businesses, governments, and merchants to send and receive money directly from account to account.
Security and Franchise
Payments Ecosystem Security: The company employs a multi-layered approach to help protect the global payments ecosystem, including a robust program designed to protect its network from cyber and information security threats. Its network and platforms incorporate multiple layers of protection, providing greater resiliency and security protection. The company's programs are assessed by third parties and incorporate benchmarking and other data from peer companies and consultants. The company engages in many efforts to mitigate information security challenges, including maintaining an information security program, an enterprise resilience program, and insurance coverage, as well as regularly testing its systems to address potential vulnerabilities. It works with experts across the organization (as well as through other sources, such as public-private partnerships) to monitor and respond quickly to a range of cyber and physical threats, including threats and incidents associated with the use of services provided by third-party providers.
As another feature of its multi-layered approach, the company works with issuers, acquirers, merchants, governments, and payments industry associations to develop and put in place technical standards for safe and secure transactions, and it provides solutions and products that are designed to help provide safety and security for the global payments ecosystem. The company's approach includes supporting small businesses by sharing best practices and providing access to free utilities and services, benefiting both them and the entire payments ecosystem.
Franchise: The company manages an ecosystem of stakeholders that participate in its global payments network, setting standards and rules for all participants and aiming to ensure interoperability among them while balancing risk and value across all stakeholders. Its franchise model achieves this by creating and sustaining a comprehensive series of value exchanges across its ecosystem. Through its franchise model, the company works to ensure a balanced ecosystem where all participants may benefit from the availability, innovation, safety, and security of its network. The company achieves this goal through the following key activities:
Participant Onboarding: The company determines that each new customer meets the necessary prerequisites to use and contribute to its network by defining clear ecosystem roles and responsibilities for their operations.
Operating Standards: The company defines the technical, operational, and financial standards that all network participants are required to uphold.
Safety and Security: The company establishes central principles, including safeguarding consumer protections and integrity, so participants feel confident to transact on the network.
Responsible Stewardship: The company sets performance standards to support ecosystem optimization and growth and uses proactive monitoring designed to both ensure participant adherence to operating standards and protect the integrity of the ecosystem.
Issue Resolution: The company operates a framework to address disputes between its network participants.
Payment Products and Applications
Consumer Payments
The company provides a wide variety of products and services that support payment products that customers can offer to consumers and merchants. These offerings facilitate transactions across its payments network and platforms among account holders, merchants, financial institutions, digital partners, businesses, governments, and other organizations in markets globally.
Consumer Credit: The company offers products that enable issuers to provide consumers with credit, allowing them to defer payment. These programs are designed to meet the needs of its customers around the world and address standard, premium, and affluent consumer segments.
Consumer Debit: The company supports a range of payment products and solutions that allow its customers to provide consumers with convenient access to funds in deposit and other accounts. Its debit and deposit access programs can be used to make purchases and to obtain cash from bank branches, at ATMs, and, in some cases, at the point of sale. The company's branded debit programs consist of Mastercard (including standard, premium, and affluent offerings), Maestro (its PIN-based solution that operates globally), and Cirrus (its primary global cash access solution).
Prepaid: Prepaid accounts are a type of electronic payment that enables consumers to pay from pre-funded accounts whether or not they previously had a bank account or a credit history. These accounts can be tailored to meet specific program, customer, or consumer needs, such as paying bills, sending person-to-person payments, or withdrawing cash from an ATM. The company's focus ranges from digital accounts (such as fintech and gig economy platforms) to business programs, such as employee payroll, health savings accounts, and solutions for small business owners. The company's prepaid programs also offer opportunities in the private and public sectors to drive financial inclusion of previously unbanked individuals through social security payments, unemployment benefits, and salary cards.
Consumer Bill Payments: The company's solutions enable consumers and small businesses to pay their billers in a seamless and secure way, providing an experience that offers flexibility and benefits consumers, financial institutions, and billers. Utilizing its merchant acceptance network (which includes many billers), the company offers consumers the choice of paying their bills in a convenient and secure manner using credit, debit, or prepaid, as well as account-based payments methods.
Commercial and New Payment Flows
The company offers platforms, products, and applications that apply its payments capabilities to capture commercial and new payment flows, enabling it to serve the needs of a significant addressable market.
Commercial
The company offers commercial credit, debit, and prepaid payment products and solutions that meet the payment needs of large corporations, midsize companies, small businesses, and government entities at the point of sale. Its point-of-sale solutions streamline procurement and payment processes, manage information and expenses (such as travel and entertainment), and reduce administrative costs. The company's point-of-sale offerings include:
Small business cards (credit, debit, and prepaid) tailored to small and medium businesses.
Commercial travel and entertainment, procurement, and fleet cards, consisting mostly of credit cards and associated platforms for corporations to manage travel and expense, procurement, and fleet expenses. The company's Mastercard Smart Data platform provides expense management and reporting capabilities.
The company also offers solutions that enable businesses or governments to make invoiced payments to businesses with whom they have a trusted relationship for goods and services. As part of its solutions, the company offers a platform to optimize supplier payment enablement campaigns for financial institutions.
Across both point-of-sale and invoiced payments, the company offers a Virtual Card Number (VCN) solution, which is generated dynamically from a physical card and leverages the credit limit of the funding account. Its VCN solution may include the use of Mastercard In Control, its virtual card platform that allows buyers to pay suppliers using a one-time use card number that can be set with transaction level controls, providing unmatched configurability, flexibility, and control over spending.
Disbursements and Remittances
Through its Mastercard Move platform, the company enables consumers, businesses, governments, and merchants to send and receive money domestically and across borders to consumers with greater speed and ease, with a payout reach of more than 10 billion endpoints globally across multiple channels, and in more than 60 originating countries and 155 receiving countries:
The company partners with digital messaging and payment platforms to enable consumers to send money directly within applications to other consumers.
The company partners with central banks, fintechs, and financial institutions to help governments and nonprofits more efficiently enable, as applicable, distribution of social and economic assistance and business-to-consumer (‘B2C’) disbursements across various use cases (such as wallet funding, cash payouts, gig worker payouts, and insurance claims).
The company enables a wide range of cross-border payment flows and use cases to customers (including trade payments, remittances, and disbursements). These flows are enabled via a distribution network with a single point of access that allows financial institutions, fintechs, and digital partners to send and receive money globally through multiple channels, including bank accounts, mobile wallets, cards, and cash payouts.
Benefiting and Innovating the Payments Ecosystem
The company provides functionality and technology to help its customers provide benefits and experiences for consumers, merchants, businesses, and others.
Delivering digital functionality and consumer experiences: The company uses its technologies and security protocols to develop solutions to make digital shopping and selling experiences, such as on smartphones and other connected devices (both online and in person), simpler, faster, and safer for consumers, businesses, and merchants. The company also offers products that make it easier for merchants to accept payments and expand their customer base.
The company's contactless payment solutions help deliver a simple and intuitive way to pay. Solutions, such as SmartPOS and SoftPOS reduce the barrier to entry for merchants (including small businesses). Its Tap on Phone acceptance technology enables businesses of all sizes to accept payments from any contactless card or mobile wallet directly from their device, providing a turnkey and cost-effective solution without any additional hardware required. The company extends its contactless payment solutions to a wide set of commerce use cases, including instant provisioning of a card into a mobile wallet, verification of a transaction, and sending money to family and friends or between businesses.
The company's Mastercard Digital First program enables its issuing customers to offer their cardholders a fully digital payment experience with an optional physical card, meeting cardholder expectations of immediacy, safety, and convenience during card application, authentication, and instant card access, securing purchases (whether contactless, in-store, in-app, or online) and managing alerts, controls, and benefits.
The company's Click to Pay checkout experience is designed to provide consumers convenience and security in a digital environment, make it easier for merchants to implement secure digital payments, and provide issuers with improved fraud detection and prevention capabilities. This experience enables a faster, more secure checkout experience across internet and mobile sites, mobile apps, and connected devices.
Enhancing security and effectiveness of transactions: The company focuses on securing transactions by replacing card numbers with secure tokens, scaling Mastercard Authentication (including enabling device-based biometrics, such as fingerprints or facial scans, through Mastercard Payment Passkey Service), and streamlining online checkout by eliminating manual entry (through Click to Pay and Secure Card on File). The company switches through its differentiated services, increasing approval rates by utilizing inputs from its network and lifting spend and activation rates through personalized campaigns and data-driven strategies.
Creating solutions to unlock new blockchain-based business models: Through a principled approach (including applying prudent risk management practices and maintaining continuous monitoring of its partners that are active in the digital asset market), the company is focused on supporting blockchain ecosystems and digital currencies. It integrates with financial institutions using the Mastercard Multi-Token Network to enable programmable payments, which helps make transactions within blockchain ecosystems more secure, scalable, and interoperable. The company works with a wide range of crypto players to enable consumers to buy cryptocurrencies on card and spend those balances anywhere its brands are accepted.
Simplifying access to, and integration of, its digital assets: The company's Mastercard Developer platform makes it easy for customers and partners to leverage its many digital assets and services. By providing a single access point with tools and capabilities to find APIs across a broad range of Mastercard services, the company enables easy integration of its services into new and existing solutions.
Identifying and experimenting with future technologies, start-ups, and trends: Through Mastercard Foundry, the company continues to provide customers and partners access to thought leadership, innovation methodologies, new technologies, and relevant early-stage fintech players.
Services and Other Solutions
The company offers an expansive and diversified portfolio of services and solutions built on unique and proprietary data sets and supported by global consulting and advisory expertise. These services and solutions help to differentiate its payments products and serve the needs of sizeable addressable markets beyond payments.
Security Solutions
The company offers products and services designed to safeguard the payments ecosystem from fraud and cyber-attacks, and to enhance security for payments across card and non-card rails. The company's security solutions suite provides organizations with the ability to adapt to the dynamic and multifaceted nature of threats while maintaining continuity and confidence in their operations. This includes:
Prevention solutions designed to help customers establish and strengthen measures that keep systems, applications, and data secure from potential security risks. The company continues to grow global usage of EMV chip and contactless security technology, helping to reduce fraud. The company also utilizes its technology to evaluate and continuously monitor the cybersecurity posture of organizations worldwide, offering insights into potential vulnerabilities and risks.
Identification solutions designed to help banks and merchants verify identities and authenticate consumers during digital interactions, like account openings, account access, and money movements, using identity data and identity signals, device intelligence, biometric technologies, and behavioral user data assessments.
Detection solutions designed to both spot and take action to stop fraudulent behavior and cyber-attacks. The company's offerings include fraud scoring technology that scans billions of transactions each day while increasing approvals and reducing false declines, alerts when accounts are exposed to data breaches or security incidents, and network-level monitoring on a global scale to help detect the occurrence of widespread fraud attacks when a customer may be unable to detect or defend against them.
Business continuity solutions designed to enable uninterrupted commerce, fostering trust and reliability for both merchants and consumers. These solutions include Mastercard’s Stand-In processing, which is designed to ensure transaction continuity when a card issuer’s systems are unavailable. This solution provides a backup mechanism to authorize transactions on behalf of the issuer based on predefined rules and risk parameters.
To deliver effective security solutions, the company harnesses its proprietary data assets, combined with its AI, data analytics, and cyber risk assessment capabilities.
At the core of the company's security solutions suite is a focus on delivering an exceptional payments experience. The company's solutions are designed to ensure that approvals of legitimate transactions are boosted and transactions flow more smoothly. The company's solutions are also designed so that the consumer bears no responsibility (or ‘zero liability’) for counterfeit or lost card losses in the event of fraud, increasing consumer confidence. In addition, the company's solutions further enhance the consumer experience by providing effective dispute resolution, subscription controls, and transparency through digital receipts.
Consumer Acquisition and Engagement Services
The company offers solutions that drive customer acquisition, increased activation, deepened engagement, and loyalty, delivering results to customers globally. Offerings within this area include:
Marketing services, which drive business growth and profitability through end-to-end, data- and technology-driven marketing. The company advances its customers’ growth by helping them to acquire new customers, as well as increase engagement with existing customers, through a curated set of direct marketing solutions and strategies. The company focuses on business outcomes and combines its proprietary data and insights with its marketing expertise to create innovative solutions that span the entire customer lifecycle, from brand design and product adoption to customer retention and portfolio optimization. The company's end-to-end approach is built on collaboration with its customers and partners to constantly optimize marketing performance and deliver results.
Personalization services, which leverage AI to help businesses provide personalized digital experiences for their customers. The company's personalization platform and decision engine deliver product recommendations, offers, and content to consumers across digital channels.
Issuer and merchant loyalty services. The company has built a scalable rewards platform that enables issuers to provide consumers with a variety of benefits and services, such as personalized offers and rewards, access to a global airport lounge network, concierge services, insurance services, emergency card replacement, emergency cash advances, and a 24-hour account holder service center. For merchants, the company provides campaigns with targeted offers and rewards, management services for publishing offers, and accelerated points programs for co-brand and rewards program members. The company also provides a loyalty platform that enables stronger relationships with retailers, restaurants, airlines, and consumer packaged goods companies by creating experiences that drive loyalty and impactful consumer engagement.
Business and Market Insights
The company offers solutions that provide organizations with targeted data-powered solutions, insights, and advisory services in order to drive confident decision-making for better outcomes. Offerings within this area include:
Advanced analytics, which utilize AI and advanced techniques to help customers solve critical business problems, focusing on marketing, credit risk, custom projects, data strategy, and business experimentation.
Business intelligence, which provides customers with data and insights designed to decode future trends, optimize portfolio strategies, and make informed decisions for sustainable business growth.
Economic and location-based insights, which are designed to empower decision-makers to drive smarter actions and achieve commercial success.
Payments consulting, which offers strategic guidance and innovative solutions designed to help the company's customers optimize payment processes, enhance their customer engagement, and drive their revenue growth through global expertise and localized support.
Operational insights, which provide platforms that help customers enhance transaction processing, settlement reconciliation, and operational performance through timely and comprehensive operational insights.
Processing and Gateway
The company extends its processing capabilities in the payments value chain in various regions with an expanded suite of offerings, including:
Issuer solutions designed to provide customers with a complete processing solution to help them create differentiated products and services, and allow quick deployment of payments portfolios across banking channels.
Payment gateways that offer a single interface to enable e-commerce merchants to process secure online and in-app payments, and offer solutions, including outsourced electronic payments, fraud prevention, and alternative payment options.
Other Solutions
The company offers an open banking platform that enables data providers and third parties, on a permissioned basis, to reliably access, securely transmit, and confidently manage consumer and small business data to improve the customer experience. The company's platform enables individuals to have choice of financial services, providing them the ability to access, control, and benefit from the use of their data. This choice provides individuals with an improved payment experience. The company's platform also serves the needs of the lending market, including through streamlining loan application processes and improving credit decisioning, thereby driving further financial inclusion. The network connections that underpin this platform utilize API technology and the company's Data and Tech Responsibility Principles (including data usage guardrails, consumer protection, and consent management). The company's advanced open banking solutions include account opening (providing seamless onboarding through its open banking APIs), lending (focusing on empowering confident lending decisions and hassle-free experiences), payments (centered on enabling secure and cost-effective account-to-account payments with valuable transaction insights), and small business solutions (providing real-time data and financial insights to drive informed decision-making).
The company also offers ACH batch and real-time account-based payments and solutions (both domestic and cross-border).
Brand
The company's family of well-known brands includes Mastercard, Maestro, and Cirrus. The company manages and promotes its brands and brand identities through advertising, promotions, and sponsorships, as well as digital, mobile, and social media initiatives, in order to increase people’s preference for its brands and usage of its products. The company sponsors a variety of sporting, entertainment, and charity-related marketing properties to align with consumer segments important to it and its customers. The company's advertising plays an important role in building brand visibility, preference, and overall usage among account holders globally. The company’s ‘Priceless’ advertising campaign, which has run in more than 50 languages and in more than 120 countries worldwide, promotes Mastercard usage benefits and acceptance, markets Mastercard payment products and solutions, and provides Mastercard with a consistent, recognizable message that supports its brands around the globe.
Data and AI
The company creates a range of products and services for its customers (including most of its services and solutions) that use its data and AI assets, technology, expertise, and platforms. These products and services are designed to make commerce smarter, safer, and more personal. These data assets include data from an increasing variety of sources, such as transaction data (including from gateway, card, real-time payments, and open banking), digital identities, buyer/supplier payment preferences, device attributes, digital threat assessments, and rewards redemptions. The company continually invests in data cleansing, structuring, and modeling, as well as robust governance to make this data available for use in AI to be deployed at scale. The company utilizes its data using traditional analytical methodologies and an ever-increasing range of AI, including machine learning, natural-language processing, neural networks, and generative AI. The company aims to help power economies and empower people through AI-driven initiatives that enhance security, data analysis, personalization, and efficiency. The company does all this while following its Data and Tech Responsibility Principles in how it designs, implements, and delivers those solutions.
Revenue Sources
Mastercard is a payments network service provider that generates revenue from a wide range of payments solutions the company provides to its customers. The company classifies its net revenues, which include the impact of rebates and incentives, from contracts with customers into two categories: payment network and value-added services and solutions.
Within its payment network, revenue is primarily generated from charging fees to its customers based on GDV (which includes both domestic and cross-border volume) on the cards that carry its brands, and for providing switching and other network-related services.
Within its value-added services and solutions, the company generates revenue primarily related to the following: security solutions; consumer acquisition and engagement services; business and market insights; digital and authentication solutions; processing and gateway; and other solutions (including ACH batch and real-time account-based domestic and cross-border payments and solutions, as well as open banking).
Intellectual Property
The company owns a number of valuable trademarks that are essential to its business, including Mastercard, Maestro, and Cirrus, through one or more affiliates.
Competition
General Purpose Payments Networks. The company competes worldwide with payments networks, such as Visa, American Express, JCB, China UnionPay, and Discover, among others.
Government Regulation
The company is subject to anti-money laundering (‘AML’) and countering the financing of terrorism (‘CFT’) laws and regulations globally, including the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act and the USA PATRIOT Act, as well as the various economic sanctions programs, including those imposed and administered by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) and the European Union.
The company is also subject to anti-corruption laws and regulations globally, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Bribery Act, which, among other things, generally prohibit giving or offering payments or anything of value for the purpose of improperly influencing a business decision or to gain an unfair business advantage. The company has implemented policies, procedures, and internal controls to proactively manage corruption risk.
Aspects of the company's operations or business are subject to increasingly complex and fragmented privacy, data, AI, and information security laws and regulations in the U.S., the EU, and elsewhere around the world. For example, in the U.S., the company and its customers are respectively subject to, among other laws and regulations, Federal Trade Commission and federal banking agency information safeguarding requirements under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) that require, among other things, the maintenance of a written, comprehensive information security program, and, increasingly, a number of state data and privacy laws.
With respect to information security, the company is subject to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (‘SEC’) disclosure rules that require, among other things, disclosing material cybersecurity incidents in a Current Report on Form 8-K, generally within four business days of determining an incident is material. In the EU, the company is subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) and its equivalent in the U.K., which requires, among other things, a comprehensive privacy, data protection, and information security program to protect the personal and sensitive data of EEA residents.
History
Mastercard Incorporated was founded in 1966. The company was incorporated in 2001.
