QSR and Debit Gains Among Highlights for MasterCard in ’04

MasterCard International reports its U.S. dollar volume on transactions on all of its products except online debit cards grew 11.5% in the fourth quarter last year, to $188.5 billion, while U.S. volume for 2004 as a whole expanded by 9.3%, to $695.9 billion. Total MasterCard purchase and cash transactions in the U.S., again excluding online debit, totaled 2.2 billion for the quarter and 8 billion for the year. In its year-end statistical summary, released this week, MasterCard also reports progress last year in penetrating the key fast-food market. Driven by recruitment of the McDonald's Corp. and Taco Bell Corp. chains for acceptance, the number of quick-serve locations accepting the brand jumped 23%, with a 67% increase in transactions and a 51% rise in dollar volume, the card company says. And MasterCard picked up more signature-debit issuers by signing Associated Bank, Bank of the West, and Washington Mutual last year. Washington Mutual, which is defecting from Visa to become a MasterCard debit issuer, is the third-largest debit card issuer in the country, with a portfolio of 10.5 million cards (Digital Transactions News, Jan. 7). The breakdown in total U.S. dollar volume for the fourth quarter was 78% credit, 22% signature debit, MasterCard says, proportions that also held for the year. Credit cards, however, accounted for a somewhat lesser proportion of point-of-sale and cash transactions, or 66% of the total traffic for both the quarter and the year. For signature debit, where cash transactions account for a far higher proportion of network volume than with credit cards, point-of-sale activity still accounted for 80% of total debit traffic. MasterCard also reports it ended the year with 337.8 million cards and 5.6 million acceptance locations in the U.S. Of these cards, 271.5 million are credit cards, with 66.3 million falling into the signature-debit category.