MasterCard registered growth in Q3 key operation performance measures in the Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa region

For the quarter ending 30 September 2008, the region registered growth in gross dollar volume (22.7%), purchase volume (24.6%), purchase transactions (20.9%), cash transactions (29.1%) and cards issued (16.9%) versus the same period in 2007.

As of 30 September 2008, 232 million MasterCard cards (excluding Maestro and Cirrus) had been issued by MasterCard customer financial institutions across APMEA. Cardholders in the region made 901 million purchase transactions in the third quarter of 2008 and could use their MasterCard cards at 28.4 million acceptance locations worldwide.

"I am pleased with our third quarter results. Despite unprecedented economic turmoil, MasterCard was able to achieve growth in the region. The collaboration with our customers on products such as Debit MasterCard resulted in a year-on-year increase of 54.0% in Debit MasterCard gross dollar volume which can be attributed to growth in preference for debit in markets such as Indonesia, India, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Kuwait and Egypt,"

said Andre Sekulic, President, Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa, MasterCard.

"As the economic uncertainty continues, MasterCard believes it is imperative that we continue to provide valuable insights on opportunities within our region to customers and merchant partners and focus on developing our product range to meet changing needs of consumers across the region."

In addition to the performance highlights, MasterCard in the APMEA region also reported a number of significant achievements for the quarter ending 30 September 2008.