August 4, 2003 -- Statement Regarding Visa’s Rule Restricting Member Choice By Alan Heuer, MasterCard Senior Executive Vice President, Customer Group.

"Restrictions of this nature take away members’ freedom to choose, and are inappropriate and antithetical to free markets. Financial institutions should make their brand decisions based on their best judgments about strength of brand, quality of service and other competitive factors, not because of prohibitive fines designed to eliminate choice.

Numerous industry analysts have cited MasterCard’s gains on Visa in the U.S. credit segment as proof that our strategy of being the best business partner for our member financial institutions is working. This heavy-handed attempt by Visa to restrict competition seems to indicate that Visa is afraid that absent the threat of harsh punishment, they would not be able to hold on to their debit business."