MasterCard, the second largest credit card company, has posted a 12.3% increase in net revenue for its first quarter due to higher spending on its cards and a growth in the number of transactions.

<p>Net revenue was $739 million, although the company said that currency fluctuations negatively impacted this growth by 2%. Gross dollar volume spent on the cards was up 13.4% to $425.9 billion. The company added that price increases also helped boost revenue.<br /><br />Total operating expenses increased 9.7% in the first quarter of 2006, driven by the hiring of additional staff to support the company&#0039;s strategic initiatives. Advertising and market development expenses also grew 6.4%.<br /><br />Robert Selander, MasterCard president and CEO said: By leveraging our strengths, we are delivering on our commitment to bring our customers innovative products and value-added services to help them build, manage and enhance the profitability of their payments businesses.<br /><br />The US-based company, which is currently owned by the banks which it supplies its card processing and clearing services to, has also recently announced its IPO plans.</p>