MasterCard registers 20% growth

MasterCard, the world's second-largest credit card operator, yesterday announced that it registered double-digit growth for the second quarter in Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa (APMEA) region.

MasterCard said it recorded growth of 20.3 per cent in gross dollar volume, 23.4 per cent in purchase volume, 19.3 per cent in purchase transactions, 22.6 per cent in cash transactions and 16.7 per cent in card issuance for the quarter ended 30 June 2008.

More than 226 million MasterCard cards (excluding Maestro and Cirrus) had been issued by MasterCard customer financial institutions across APMEA.

Cardholders in the region made more than 842m purchase transactions in the second quarter of 2008 and could use their MasterCard cards at 27.3m acceptance locations worldwide.

"Despite challenging economic conditions, MasterCard achieved strong growth across our wide spectrum of products in the diverse region," said Andre Sekulic, president, APMEA, MasterCard Worldwide.

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