During the year ending 31 December 2006, MasterCard’s customer banks had issued 152 million MasterCard-branded cards in Europe, a growth of 17.4 per cent, with 7.7 million locations accepting the cards. The number of Maestro® and Cirrus-branded cards rose to 287 million in Europe, an increase of 5.7 per cent on 2005, with acceptance levels of 6.9 million European locations. Javier Perez, President, MasterCard Europe, said: “In 2006, we saw increased activity and spending by European consumers using a growing number of MasterCard®-branded cards. Every day more of our cards replace cash transactions and are accepted in more locations. We have made our mark on the European payments sector by providing our customers with truly innovative flagship payment solutions and strengthened our leadership positions in areas such as prepaid and contactless payments.” Perez continued: “We share the European Union’s aim of delivering a truly borderless and competitive payments area for European consumers and merchants and laid a solid foundation for our Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) strategy. We announced our SEPA fallback interchange fees for Maestro®, to help bolster competition through greater transparency and choice for banks, merchants and cardholders. Our key focus in 2007 will be to work with our customers and other stakeholders to ensure SEPA compliance ahead of the 1 January 2008.” Taking a leadership role in Europe, MasterCard rolled-out its award-winning MasterCard® PayPass™ contactless payments platform in 2006, through a combination of the first full-scale credit programme with merchants such as Burger King and Starbucks in Turkey, and a series of ground-breaking pilots. These included the first European trial of contactless debit payments through Maestro® PayPass™ with the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, which has now been extended. MasterCard also announced the first trials of contactless EMV1 standard, chip-based MasterCard credit payments in Europe, with two major new pilots in Strasbourg and Toulouse, France. Consistently innovating to meet customer’s needs MasterCard continued to develop innovative new payment tools to replace cash in the European economy, including the launch of several new prepaid programmes. The company introduced the first EMV chip-based Social Card in Europe in conjunction with the Russian Government and Ural Sib bank. The Social Card enables welfare beneficiaries to receive social benefits, including free municipal transport, discounted medicines and electricity payments, more efficiently and with greater convenience. Perez concluded: “MasterCard Europe contributed significantly to the global performance of MasterCard Worldwide in 2006. With our heritage and knowledge of the European market, we continue to deliver tailored solutions that work for our customers, wherever they do business – in Europe and all over the world.” louise_herbert@mastercard.com www.mastercardworldwide.com