MasterCard‘s declared better than expected earnings. This largely validated the massive shopping strategy the company went into in emerging and developing nations. They expanded into international markets and ended up boosting the stock by 14%. They reported a 33% jump in profits for the quarter, driven by 16% increase in spending on MasterCard, Masestro and other brands which we have reported in the past. They include the Lebara and MasterCard Worldwide.
Ethnic market Lebara has launched a new sub brand, Lebara Money, to provide customers with a range of financial services and products.
Lebara Money’s first product, the Lebara Prepaid MasterCard offers customers – particularity those from ethnic communities – an international money service where they can issue ‘sub cards’ to family or friends overseas.
MasterCard Worldwide and InterSwitch in Nigeria have started to offer a debit card – the Mastercard Verve. This collaboration between the two parties aims to encourage debit card use in Nigeria whilst creating wider acceptance of the cards home and abroad by utilizing the MasterCard brand.
It does seem that card payment is making way into more developing nations. Yet, mPayment could be a potential disruption in this MasterCard party. For instance, in Kenya, most payments are done via cellphone these days. MasterCard better look into that as with cellphone adoption and diffusion, there is a possibility that more people will move from card to phone payment especially in the developing nations.
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