Earnings Review: A Look Back to Prepare for the Road Ahead

If you closely follow our company or are a frequent reader of this post, some of what I share today may seem familiar.

After all, it was only a few weeks ago that we met with many of you at our investor day. In that meeting and webcast, we shared updates on how our work every day is setting the foundation to make Mastercard a much stronger, well-positioned and resilient company.

You see, it’s not just about one quarter or one conference call or one meeting when this comes together. We have carefully crafted our strategy to create a diversified portfolio of capabilities and solutions, which will help us grow the company and deliver long-term sustainable returns for our shareholders.

It’s with that view that I want to reinforce a few highlights that we shared during our call with the financial community earlier today.

In the third quarter, we continued to demonstrate strong growth. Revenue was up 16 percent and EPS increased 23 percent versus a year ago, both on a non-GAAP, currency-neutral basis. These results reflect the continued effort of our teams around the globe to deliver real solutions that help people and businesses meet real needs and solve real problems. Some examples discussed during our call include:

Issuer Relationships – Our focus in this area strengthens our relationship with the institutions who issue our cards. On the call, Ajay noted where we deepened relationships with several of these important customers, based on the combination of a way to pay safely and simply with additional services that provide value beyond the transaction. We are bringing new technologies – like our click-to-pay effort based on the EMV Secure Remote Commerce standard – to make any digital checkout as seamless and as secure as what we’re all used to in stores today.

New Partnerships and Programs – We’re strengthening our relationship with fintechs. Through Mastercard Accelerate, these partners will have easier access to the resources they need to continue to address specific consumer pain points, regardless of where they are in their own development. And, just this week, we introduced a new suite of services to help create greater efficiencies and experiences in healthcare. While most people are familiar with the HSA and FSA cards in their wallet, we are also working with healthcare providers to reduce fraud and better protect health information with biometrics.

New Payment Innovations – And, we continue to develop our capabilities in the account-to-account space. Our acquisitions – including the recent announcement of the Nets Corporate Services business – combined with investments in data analytics and expansion of our anti-money laundering solutions, have the potential to bring even greater efficiencies and a better user experience to these real-time payments.

These are just a few examples of the world-class work by our teams across the globe. We’ll have more to share early in the new year as we report our full-year performance and continue to drive toward our long-term strategy.