MasterCard International has reported strong global debit activity for its fiscal quarter ending March 31, 2005, reporting an 8.3% annual increase over Q1 2004 to more than 567 million cards issued worldwide. Merchant acceptance of MasterCard online debit programs also grew substantially.
As of March 31, 2005, MasterCard’s online point of sale network had grown to nearly 8.8 million merchant locations globally. Additionally, there are now more than one million MasterCard/Cirrus ATMs around the world.
In the US online debit purchase transactions grew 459% for the first quarter of 2005, compared to the first quarter in 2004. Nearly 383,000 ATMs in the MasterCard ATM Network and 1.5 million merchant locations in the US accepted MasterCard online debit (and Maestro) at the end of this period.
MasterCard also experienced what it termed as exceptional card growth in the South Asia, Middle East and Africa regions, with more than a 42% increase to 32.1 million cards for the first quarter, compared to the same period in 2004. Gross dollar volume (GDV) for online debit activity in the region for the first quarter 2005 was almost $20 billion, with purchase volume at $1.6 billion.
Maestro card numbers increased 17% throughout Latin America, to almost 80 million cards in the first quarter of 2005, compared to the first quarter of 2004. GDV for online debit activity in the region was nearly $19.4 billion, with purchase volume at more than $3.3 billion.
The continued progress we’ve seen over the past quarter, especially in the US, and South Asia, Middle East and Africa, is a clear sign of our continued momentum in the marketplace, as well as a shifting of consumer preference away from cash and checks to debit cards, said Richard Lyons, senior vice president, MasterCard International.