In addition to these results, 2006 was a year of accomplishment on many strategic fronts. Chief among these was the completion of our initial public offering — the largest listing in the United States during 2006 — and the election of what I believe to be an exceptional board of directors.

I thank the members of our former board who had the vision and the fortitude to lead us through the company's transformation, and for whose support and courage we are all grateful. I also welcome the members of our new board, who offer a collective wealth of business know-how, strategic insight and global experience. In particular, I am pleased to welcome Rick Haythornthwaite as our new chairman. His deep knowledge of international markets and his strong leadership skills will surely prove valuable as we execute our strategy around the world.

Accomplishments and Initiatives

The year 2006 saw many significant accomplishments and initiatives, such as the launch of our new corporate positioning. The name MasterCard Worldwide embraces what MasterCard represents, from our world-renowned brands and advanced network, to our unified global structure and our talented, multinational workforce. Importantly, the name underscores our commitment to meeting the unique needs of customers worldwide.

To that end, we substantially advanced our strategy by deepening relationships with target customers around the world. Throughout the year, we shared industry insights, delivered custom-tailored solutions and provided innovative payments options, such as MasterCard PayPass® contactless technology and the World Elite MasterCard.™ We will continue to demonstrate the value we bring by leveraging our assets to the advantage of our customers.

In 2006, we also continued to build upon major upgrades to our core technologies, enabling our customers to connect to a single, unified network with unsurpassed speed, flexibility and scale. Through our leading-edge technology and applications, our customers have the ability to expand operations worldwide, deliver customized value to partners and cardholders, and introduce breakthrough technologies without making major changes to their own infrastructures.

We also strengthened ties with major merchants and launched a number of significant co-branding programs. To give merchants a stronger voice on strategic business initiatives that can benefit them and their customers, we held Merchant Advisory Group meetings in Australia, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. In addition, MasterCard endeavored to meet a key merchant demand to bring greater transparency to the way we conduct business. Thus in 2006, we became the first payments company to announce that we would publish our interchange rates that apply to merchants in the United States, along with comprehensive information that merchants need to better understand these rates.

At the same time, we continued to address mutually critical security issues. We co-hosted Payment Card Industry Security Forums in Australia, Japan and New Zealand; piloted advanced counterfeit card detection systems with retailer Best Denki in Singapore; and advanced MasterCard SecureCode® as a superior e-commerce security solution for customers and online merchants. We also hosted four Global Risk Management Symposia, bringing together bank and security experts from around the world.

Meanwhile, financial institutions in Europe continue to accommodate the requirements of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) initiative. In 2006, we established SEPA fall-back interchange rates for Maestro® that are necessary for a competitive, transparent payment system across the euro zone. We believe that Maestro is firmly positioned as the solution that will best enable a smooth transition from national-use-only debit payment schemes to global and pan-European solutions.

(1) For the full-year 2004, net income excludes a special item, a $14 million after-tax litigation settlement, and is a non-U.S. GAAP financial measure. For the full-years 2005 and 2006, total net income and earnings per share, each of which excludes special items, are non-U.S. GAAP financial measures that are reconciled to their most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measures in the Financial Highlights section of this online version of the report.