ICT / Telecommunication
"Global leader in financial services and payments technology."
MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE: MA), also known as MasterCard Worldwide, is a global American financial services corporation headquartered at the MasterCard International Global Headquarters in Purchase, New York, United States, within Westchester County. The company’s Global Operations Headquarters is situated in O’Fallon, Missouri, United States, a suburb of St. Louis. MasterCard’s core business involves facilitating payment transactions between merchants’ banks and the issuing banks or credit unions of consumers who use MasterCard-branded debit and credit cards. MasterCard Worldwide has been publicly traded since 2006, having previously operated as a cooperative owned by over 25,000 financial institutions that issued its branded cards.
Originally established as Interbank/Master Charge, MasterCard was founded by several California banks to compete with BankAmericard, issued by Bank of America—later rebranded as the Visa credit card by Visa Inc. From 1966 to 1979, the company operated under the names “Interbank” and “Master Charge.”
