Mastercard Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Cardinal Energy EPS Results

• Actual EPS: C$3.82
• Consensus EPS: C$3.71
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +C$0.11
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Cardinal Energy Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $7.38 billion
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Cardinal Energy Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 1/30/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, January 30, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

Cardinal Energy (TSE:CJ) Ltd is an oil-focused Canadian company. The company's principal business activity is the acquisition, exploration, and production of petroleum and natural gas in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Mastercard Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning. My name is Julianne, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Mastercard Incorporated Q4 and Full Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

[Operator]

Thank you. Mr. Devin Hoare, Head of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

[Devin Corr, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations at Mastercard]

Thank you, Julianne. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our Q4 2024 earnings call. With me today are Michael Miebach, our Chief Executive Officer and Sachin Mehra, our Chief Financial Officer. Following comments from Michael and Sachin, the operator will announce your opportunity to get into the queue for the Q and A session. It is only then that the queue will open for questions.

[Devin Corr, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations at Mastercard]

You can access our earnings release, supplemental performance data and a slide deck that accompany this call in the Investor Relations section of our website, mastercard.com. Additionally, the release was furnished with the SEC earlier this morning. Our comments today regarding our financial results will be on a non GAAP currency neutral basis unless otherwise noted. Both the release and the slide deck include reconciliations of non GAAP measures to GAAP reported amounts. Finally, as set forth in more detail in our earnings release, I would like to remind everyone that today's call will include forward looking statements regarding Mastercard's future performance.

[Devin Corr, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations at Mastercard]

Actual performance could differ materially from these forward looking statements. Information about the factors that could affect future performance are summarized at the end of our earnings release and in our recent SEC filings. A replay of this call will be posted on our website for 30 days. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Michael Milau.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Thank you, Devin. Good morning, everyone. We finished the year strong. 4th quarter net revenues were up 16% and adjusted net income up 19% versus a year ago on a non GAAP currency neutral basis. Our diverse capabilities in Payments and Services and Solutions, including the acquisition of Recorded Future this quarter, set us apart.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

They also position us well for long term growth as we outlined at our Investor Day. And this is what you will see in the new and expanded partnerships we will discuss this morning. The macroeconomic environment continues to perform well and it is underpinned by healthy consumer spending as we've seen in today's news. The labor market is strong with low unemployment and continued wage growth. Inflation has moderated, but to varying degrees across categories and countries.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Consumers remain engaged. Affluent consumers have benefited from the wealth effect, while the mass segment remains supported by the labor market. Our Economics Institute expects a year of global economic expansion in 2025, defined by shifts in monetary and fiscal policy, albeit geopolitical concerns remain. Overall, we remain positive about our growth outlook. We will continue to monitor the external environment and stand ready to adjust if needed.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

We remain hyper focused on successfully executing on what we can control. Our strategic priorities,

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

which fuel our growth algorithm.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

So we laid out in detail at our Investor Day, those 3 strategic priority areas include consumer payments, commercial and new payment flows and services and solutions. A clear proof point on how we're executing is our steady drumbeat of share wins across products and geographies. Now I often highlight our larger wins on these calls with you, but it's important to note that our local teams are competing for and winning deals of all sizes based on the differentiated value that we provide. Having a diverse portfolio with customers of all types is essential. It allows us to further expand our customer base and enables us to break into new areas where we can partner and grow together.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

In 2024, we flipped or expanded hundreds of relationships globally. Let's first focus on the U. S, where we have won several large flips over the last few years. That momentum continued this quarter. ICBA payments, which serve thousands of community banks, will significantly expand its partnership with Mastercard.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

This includes card issuance across their partner banks credit and debit portfolios. In Mid Florida, a large credit union will migrate their credit and debit portfolios to us. Both partners highlighted our differentiated product suite, analytics capabilities and the expertise of our people as a key in their decision to expand their relationship with Mastercard. In the public sector space, we renewed our long standing relationship supporting the Direct Express program, one of the largest social benefit card programs in the world. Direct Express disbursed benefits including Social Security, veterans and disability onto Mastercards held by over 3,000,000 Americans.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

And the momentum also continues in the travel and retail verticals. Porter Airlines and Bank of Montreal will launch a new co brand program with us in Canada. In the U. S, we renewed our consumer and small business co brand credit card partnership with IHG and Chase. They will leverage our data analytics and loyalty assets to enhance their value proposition.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

And we renewed our co brand partnership with Sam's Club, who will continue to leverage our products and services. Our success extends across all regions with several significant renewals and expansions. We secured long term exclusivity on debit with Saudi National Bank. We renewed and strengthened our partnership with NewBank. We've extended our relationship with Banco Santander in the UK.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

And we successfully renewed our global premier credit card agreement with HSBC in over 20 countries. All these wins are a result of the successful execution of the strategic priorities we discussed at Investor Day. I will share a few highlights on each area starting with consumer payments. Now these flows represent a long runway of opportunity for sustained growth. Today, there's over $11,000,000,000,000 and $1,500,000,000,000 transactions in cash and check around the world.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

We are capitalizing on the significant secular opportunity by expanding acceptance, reimagining checkout, opening closed loop systems and enabling new verticals. First up, we are positioned to be the most accepted payments network in the world with around 150,000,000 acceptance locations globally today. 2nd, we are reimagining Checkout and that is our 2,030 global plan to phase out manual card and password entry online in favor of smiles and fingerprints. Not only is that a better experience, but it's also more secure and it's fully aligned with our data privacy principles. And the online space needs that.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Fraud rates are 7 times higher online than in store. And approximately 25% of online shopping carts are abandoned because checkout is just too slow. Our tokenization biometric capabilities sit at the heart of these solutions. The proof? Well, in 2024, we tokenized about 4,000,000,000 transactions per month, which is up 40 times over the past 6 years.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

And as we have said in the past, there are many use cases for tokens. Take for example, the next click of our multi option payment solutions. We are rolling out the Mastercard 1 credential, which allows consumers the flexibility and control to set their payment preferences in their banking app for each transaction, if they so choose to be it credit, debit, prepaid or buy now, pay later, all behind one credential, one token. And the merchant, the merchant accepts that through the same simple and secure digital connections as always, no added work. Tokens provide tremendous value and we offer a set of services on and around those tokens, such as life cycle management and authentication, which enhance that value.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Now while the growth of token makes the ecosystem safer and more secure, we also benefit on the natural tailwind associated with the growth of token usage. Shifting gears, we are also driving incremental volume and transactions in our network by opening up closed loop systems. Beyond the transit opportunities we talked about many times, we're also partnering with local wallet providers to create greater simplicity and access for the end consumer. In Sweden, we're working with Swish so that users can tap to pay in store both domestically and abroad by adding their Mastercard to the Swish app. In Latin America, we collaborated with Davi Dienda to co create a digital first debit product aimed at driving financial inclusion.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

We signed an exclusive partnership with them to launch the product on the Dabi Plata digital app. And our Pay Local service seamlessly connects with local digital wallets, enabling consumers who use Mastercard to make card payments across a broader set of local merchants. At the same time, merchants benefit from access to more consumers and the protections we provide. The solution supports local tourism, that market that we travel to where we couldn't pay, provides a seamless consumer experience and helps drive cross border volumes. Building on partnerships with leading wallet providers like Alipay and GrabPay, several additional players in Asia Pacific will now open their wallets to cards.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

This includes Dana in Indonesia, Touch and Go in Malaysia, Bakong in Cambodia and Lanka Pay in Sri Lanka. We're also capturing new verticals like consumer bill payments. This quarter, we partnered with Bemobi in Brazil. Bemobi will integrate click to pay into their bill payment platform, enabling fast and secure payments for recurring services like telecoms and utilities. Now as a network company, we're focused on enabling the broader ecosystem and that's exactly what we have been doing in the crypto sector.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

We have a well planned balanced strategy that serves financial institution, crypto players and of course consumers to drive growth and provide choice in this space. We're partnering with a wide range of crypto players to enable consumers to buy cryptocurrencies on card and spend their crypto balances anywhere that Mastercard is accepted. I'm very excited about our new partnerships with crypto.com and MetaMask, just a few of the many new players we have added in 2024. And we're enthusiastic about the future of blockchain technology. But to reach its full potential, we believe there's a need for sound governance, interoperability and real world use cases.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

All this is a core competency of ours built over decades. To meet these needs, we developed the multi token network MTN. This quarter, we partnered with Connexus by JPMorgan, the firm's blockchain based unit to integrate MTN as a payment settlement solution. By bringing together the power and connectivity of Mastercard's MTN with Connexus digital payments, we aim to unlock greater speed, transparency and faster settlement capabilities for cross border B2B payments. And while it's early days, we're excited about the opportunities, which digital assets can bring to the world of payments as the space evolves complementing our existing solutions.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Now, while consumer payments offer a significant runway for growth, commercial flows represent an even larger $80,000,000,000,000 serviceable addressable market. Only about $3,000,000,000,000 is carded today. In 2024, our commercial credit and debit volumes represented 13% of our total GDV and grew at 11% year over year on a local currency basis, just to give you the latest stats. On top of that, disbursements and remittances represent an additional $20,000,000,000,000 in addressable market. We're pursuing that opportunity with Mastercard Move, where transactions were up over 40% year over year in Q4.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

But let's dig into commercial. 1st, we're expanding our global leadership in virtual cards by expanding across use cases, geographies and verticals. For example, partnering with NetNeves to distribute our new mobile VCN to UK companies and their employees. We're deploying virtual cards with Citi in Argentina, the first deployment of VCN in that market. And in the travel vertical, we've established new partnerships with Worldpay and Emirates NBD to offer virtual cards to their customers.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

We're also leaning into our success in travel and applying into new high potential verticals. For example, trade and logistics. Building on our previous announcement of Dubai First World, we're driving continued growth in this sector. Global FinTech Invoice Bazaar will distribute new co branded Mastercards to help digitize payments across the trade ecosystem. And similar in consumer packaged goods, we partnered with Deem Finance and Primedash to enable small business in the Middle East to automate payments to Coca Cola distributors.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

This builds on partnerships with leading beverage distributors in Latin America that I spoke about in previous calls. We have good momentum on connecting small business in this space. We're also driving small business growth through expanded issuer partnerships. We signed an exclusive commercial deal with BNA, the state owned bank in Argentina. AMP Bank in Australia will launch Mastercard debit cards for their new digital SME and consumer bank.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

And Ant International's World First will expand our partnership to now issue virtual cards for SMEs in new markets, including Singapore and Australia. Now let me turn to our 3rd strategic priority, services and solutions. As we outlined at our Investor Day, services represent a serviceable addressable market of at least $165,000,000,000 We delivered almost $11,000,000,000 in service and solutions revenue in 2024, dollars 11,000,000,000 That's exciting, but it's equally exciting that we're less than 7% penetrated. That's a significant runway for growth. We have a clear plan to execute against it.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

First, we're developing and launching differentiated products. This quarter, we launched new services to support customer acquisition, provide unique market insights, manage subscriptions and identify threats. This includes closing on the acquisitions of both Minna Technology and Recorded Future. Let's stay right there. Cyber criminals have been around for decades, but attacks and fraud attempts are increasing at high levels as commerce increasingly moves online and as AI becomes more prevalent.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Our investments, both organic and inorganic, are key to fighting fraud and protecting the ecosystem. They also drive revenue growth and add Recorded Future to this list. It is now part of Mastercard. Recorded Future is the world's largest threat intelligent company with more than 1900 customers across 75 countries. Customers include over 50% of the Fortune 100 and government agencies in 45 countries including more than half of the G20.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

We've been deploying AI at scale for well over a decade, so has Recorded Future. They leverage AI powered insights to analyze threat data from every corner of the Internet and customers gain real time visibility and actionable insights to proactively reduce risks. We now have an even more robust set of powerful intelligence, identity, dispute, fraud and scam prevention solutions. Together, these uniquely differentiated technologies will enable us to create smarter models, distribute these capabilities more broadly and help our customers anticipate threats before cyber attacks can take place. That means better protection for governments, businesses, banks, consumers, the entire ecosystem and well beyond the payment transactions.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

We're also leveraging our distribution at scale to deepen market penetration of our services and solutions. For example, we provide a fraud solution that facilitates real time information sharing between merchants, issuers and consumers to streamline disputes and reduce chargebacks. This quarter, we announced a new partnership with Stripe, who will offer these capabilities to their millions of users. In Latin America, Itau Unibanco will make them available across its digital channels to support millions of cardholders. In loyalty, we partnered with Nordea to consolidate their loyalty offering with Mastercard and launch new cashback offers across Norway and Sweden.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

And we're also selling it to new buying centers with traditional customers, opening up a larger share of wallet. For example, we partner with the CISO at Webster Bank to deploy risk recon and cyber quant solutions. And finally, we're seeing strong demand for our services and solutions across a more diverse customer base, including online delivery services, gaming companies and travel partners. For example, we expanded our partnership with DoorDash, who will use our insights and analytics to optimize business performance globally. Sony PlayStation will leverage our capabilities to showcase digital receipt to cardholders and banking apps and provide purchase information to banks call center agents.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

In currency, we'll incorporate our open banking capabilities to support Hilton's new debit co brand offering. Services and solutions are a large and growing revenue opportunity. They are essential powerful virtuous cycle without payments. We're laser focused on executing capitalized on the significant runway in services in front of us. So in summary, we delivered another strong quarter, close out another strong year.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

There's significant opportunity ahead. The fundamentals of our business are strong. So I'm very optimistic about the future for us here at Mastercard. Our proven growth algorithm and differentiated solutions position us to deliver and to win as we've demonstrated time and time again. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Sachin.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Well, great. Thanks, Michael. Turning to Page 3, which shows our financial performance for the Q4 on a currency neutral basis, excluding where applicable special items and the impact of gains and losses on our equity investments. Net revenue was up 16%, reflecting continued growth in our payment network and our value added services and solutions. Acquisitions had a minimal impact to this growth.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Operating expenses increased 15%, including a 1 ppt increase from acquisitions. And operating income was up 17%, which includes a minimal impact from acquisitions. Net income and EPS increased 19% 22%, respectively, driven primarily by the strong operating income growth and further aided by a discrete tax benefit recognized in the 4th quarter. EPS was $3.82 which includes an $0.08 contribution from share repurchases. During the quarter, we repurchased $3,400,000,000 worth of stock and an additional $644,000,000 through January 27, 2025.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

So let's turn to Page 4, where I'll speak to the growth rates of some of our key drivers for the Q4 on a local currency basis. Worldwide gross dollar volume or GDV increased by 12% year over year. In the U. S, GDV increased by 9% with credit growth of 8% and debit growth of 11%. Credit and debit growth was aided by the conversions of the previously announced Wells Fargo Commercial Credit and Citizens debit migrations respectively.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Outside of the U. S, volume increased 13% with credit growth of 11% and debit growth of 14%. Overall, cross border volume increased 20% globally for the quarter, reflecting continued strong growth in both travel and non travel related cross border spending. Turning to Page 5, switch transactions grew 11% year over year in Q4. Both card present and card not present growth rates remain strong.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Card present growth was aided in part by an increase in contactless penetration as contactless now represents approximately 72% of all in person switched purchase transactions. In addition, card growth was 6%. Globally, there are 3,500,000,000 Mastercard and Maestro branded cards issued. Turning now to Slide 6 for a look into our net revenue growth rates for the 4th quarter discussed on a currency neutral basis. Payment Network net revenue increased 15%, primarily driven by domestic and cross border transaction and volume growth.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

It also includes growth in rebids and incentives. Dally guided services and solutions net revenue increased 17%. Acquisitions contributed approximately half of PPT to this growth. Growth was primarily driven by growth in our underlying drivers, strong demand for our consumer acquisition and engagement and business and market insight services, the scaling of our security, digital and authentication solutions and pricing. Now let's turn to Page 7 to discuss key metrics related to the payment network.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Again, all growth rates are described on a currency neutral basis unless otherwise noted. Looking at each key metric. Domestic assessments were up 10%, while worldwide GDV grew 12%. The difference is primarily driven by cross border mix. Cross border assessments increased 24%, while cross border volumes increased 20%.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

The 4 ppt difference is primarily driven by pricing in international markets. Transaction processing assessments were up 15%, while switch transactions grew 11%. The 4 ppt difference is primarily due to favorable cross border mix and pricing. Other network assessments were $239,000,000 this quarter. As a reminder, these assessments primarily relate to licensing, implementation and other franchise fees and they may fluctuate from period to period.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Moving on to Page 8, you can see that on a non GAAP currency neutral basis excluding special items, total adjusted operating expenses increased 15%, which includes a 1 ppt impact from acquisitions. Total adjusted operating expenses were higher than anticipated, primarily due to the impact of the acquisition expenses. The acquisition of Recorded Future closed earlier than expected in Q4 2024 versus originally expected in Q1 2025 and was therefore not part of our Q4 forecast. Excluding acquisitions, the growth in operating expenses was primarily due to increased spending to support the continued execution of our strategic initiatives. Now turning to Page 9, let me comment on the operating metric trends.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Starting with Q4, our switched volume metrics were strong with sequential increases versus the prior quarter driven by healthy consumer and commercial spending. As was the case with switched volumes, cross border volumes also benefited from healthy spending, easier comps as well as a pull forward of travel spend. Specific to cross border card not present ex travel, we saw an uptick due to the purchases of cryptocurrency in Q4. Of note, the timing of high volume versus low volume calendar days as well as the timing of Black Friday impacted switched volume and cross border metrics within the quarter. Transaction growth remained flat sequentially as compared to volumes due to higher average ticket sizes in Q4.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Now looking through the 1st 4 weeks of January, the metrics are holding up well and are generally in line with the 4th quarter. The increase in switched volume growth in the U. S. Was primarily driven by an easier comp. Specifically, severe weather events across the country negatively impacted volumes this year and last year.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

However, the impact was more pronounced last year. As it relates to the decrease in intra Europe cross border volumes, this is primarily driven by the mix of calendar days and travel spend pull forward I just mentioned. Turning to Page 10, I wanted to share our thoughts on fiscal year 2025. Let me start by saying that the fundamentals of our business remain strong, and we are well positioned for the opportunities ahead, driven by a diversified business model, the significant opportunity for further secular shift to digital forms of payment in both consumer and commercial and strong demand for our differentiated value added services and solutions. The macro environment remains supportive of our base case, reflecting healthy consumer spending, and we remain confident in our ability to successfully execute our strategy while maintaining a disciplined capital planning approach.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Overall, we are positive about the growth outlook for the short, medium and long term. As it relates to our expectations for full year 2025, we expect net revenues to grow at the high end of low double digits to low teens range on a currency neutral basis excluding acquisitions. We estimate a headwind of approximately 2 ppt from foreign exchange, while acquisitions are expected to add 1 to 1.5 ppt to this growth rate for the year. From an operating expense standpoint, we expect growth to be at the low end of a low double digits range versus a year ago on a currency neutral basis, excluding acquisitions and special items. We expect a tailwind of approximately 1 to 2 ppt from foreign exchange, while acquisitions are forecasted to increase the OpEx growth rate for the year by approximately 5 ppt.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

To be clear, this impact of acquisition related expenses was already contemplated in the 3 year performance objectives that we shared with you last November at our Investor Community Meeting. Let's dig into the acquisition related expenses a bit. We closed the acquisition of Recorded Future and Minna Technologies at the very end of 2024, And now we will see a full year impact in 2025. The 5 ppt impact can be broken down into 3 main components. Slightly more than 2.5 ppt relates to the run rate expenses for operating the business.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Approximately 1 ppt is from the amortization of acquired intangible assets related to the purchase price allocation and the remaining relates to integration costs and other one time expenses. Now let me remind you about our acquisition philosophy. As you know, our acquisitions are strategy led. We purchase companies that are complementary to our capability suite and they add to our addressable market. These companies are primarily in earlier stages with modest revenues compared to Mastercard, albeit fast growing.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

At the same time, these companies are in investment mode to drive longer term growth. Post acquisition, we look to scale revenues, drive synergies and ultimately deliver positive operating leverage over the medium term consistent with how we run our overall business. Now turning to the Q1 of 2025. Year over year net revenue growth is expected to be at the low teens range on a currency neutral basis excluding acquisitions. Acquisitions are forecasted to have a 1 to 1.5 ppt impact to this growth rate, while we expect a headwind of approximately 3 ppt from foreign exchange for the quarter.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

From an operating expense standpoint, we expect Q1 growth to be in the low double digits range versus a year ago, again, on a currency neutral basis, excluding acquisitions and special items. Acquisitions are forecasted to have a 4% to 5% ppt impact to this OpEx growth, while we expect a tailwind of approximately 2 ppt from foreign exchange for the quarter. Other items to keep in mind. On other income and expenses, in Q1, we expect an expense of approximately $120,000,000 given the prevailing interest rates and debt levels. This excludes gains and losses on our equity investments, which are excluded from our non GAAP metrics.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Finally, we expect a non GAAP tax rate in the range of 20% to 21% for the full year and approximately 20% for Q1 based on the current geographic mix of our business. A lower forecasted tax rate for Q1 as compared to the balance of the year is consistent with prior years due to expected discrete tax benefits related to share based payments in the Q1. And with that, I will turn the call back over to Devin.

[Devin Corr, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations at Mastercard]

Thank you, Sachin. Thank you, Michael. Julian, you may now open the line for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our first question comes from Andrew Schmidt from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Andrew Schmidt, Analyst at Citigroup]

Hey, Michael. Hey, Sachin.

[Andrew Schmidt, Analyst at Citigroup]

Thanks for taking my questions this morning. Good metrics across the board here. Great to see. If we could just dig into the cross border piece, the month to date trends to Jan 28. If you talk about just the drivers of the growth there, whether it was relatively similar to the Q4 and then your expectations for 2025.

[Andrew Schmidt, Analyst at Citigroup]

And then if I could just sneak one more in, just thinking about 2025. We get a lot of questions on the Cap One and Discover, maybe some thoughts about how you're thinking about that with respect to the model? Thanks so much.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Sure. No problem, Andrew. I'll take that question. So from a cross border volume standpoint, just at the highest level, what I'm going to remind you is the value prop we offer from a cross border standpoint continues to be incredibly solid. Our teams are out there, they're working hard, they're winning various kinds of portfolio, some of which Michael spoke about even today about, which is some of the co brand programs we've got with various airlines, etcetera, etcetera.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Specific to your question around the metrics, again, really good performance from a volume growth standpoint and cross border at 20% for Q4. First of all, what you're seeing for the 1st 4 weeks of January is exactly that. It's the 1st 4 weeks of January. And what you're seeing in the nature of the 20% going down to 18% is going back exactly to the comments I made in my prepared remarks, which is at the end of the day, the vast majority of that you're seeing come through an intra Europe, which is primarily being driven by 2 factors. 1 is a pull forward of travel spend into the month of December and you can see those metrics because you'll see intra Europe growth in December at about 23%.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

And then there's the calendarization of days, which I kind of mentioned to you as well. Those are the two factors. But fundamentally, the health of what we're seeing from an overall spend standpoint on cross border continues to be excellent. We have no real reason to believe that going forward that there's something going to change as it relates to the value prop. Obviously, the strength of cross border as well as domestic spend is a function of how consumer health is.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

And right now, we're seeing the consumer to be in very good shape. We also mentioned about how commercial is actually performing well. And you know that commercial actually also lends to our cross border metrics. So something to keep in mind out there as well.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Right. On the CAP 1, Andrew, let me start and then I happily hand it to Sachin for the model side of the question. But overall, the acquisition is in flight. As we know, it's going through the motions. I think it's fair to say the indications are positive that it will be approved.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

There's a whole range of examples where we have strategic partners who we also compete with on certain aspects of the business. Look in the acquiring space, for example. So this is not a new situation for us. Now Capital One is a tremendous partner to ours, highly strategic partner, tremendous growth that we've seen in our joint business. They have been public about shifting debit volumes to the Discover network.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Now we are a competing network and we will continue to invest in our network and ensure that we have a leading and differentiated solution out there. At the same time, we've been growing together in credit and other parts of the business. So, we value this partnership. We'll continue along those lines. Fundamentally, there's no surprises here to what we've said last time around, Sachin.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Yes. And I'll just add to what Michael said. Like Michael said right now, right, I mean, they've talked about Capital One has talked about migrating the debit volumes over. I think you're aware about the fact that those debit volumes are primarily on the Mastercard network. And we've built in our best assumptions, both from a timing perspective, network.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

And we built in our best assumptions, both from a timing and a migration pace standpoint into the full year thoughts that I've shared with you today. So again, things might move around and they likely will just because ours is a forecast. There's no predictability. The deal is going to get approved. Migrations have to start, but we built in our best estimates as to how that's going to roll out.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

One last thing, I should add one more thing. I talked about it in my prepared remarks earlier. There's great momentum in debit, which we have created in the U. S. So this isn't the only partner that we have and we're building out the set of partnerships.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Darrin Peller from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Darrin Peller, Managing Director at Wolfe Research, LLC]

Hey, thanks guys. Nice job. Just when we follow-up on what we learned at your Investor Day, which was really helpful on the long term trajectory of growth. If we could just take that and then put it into 25%, what are you expecting more specifically around your value added services in the year ahead of us that we're in right now versus the consumer payments just to triangulate with growth? And maybe Sachin also just as a reminder, we're exiting the year at a 16% constant currency growth.

[Darrin Peller, Managing Director at Wolfe Research, LLC]

Obviously, Discover could be a factor, but what other comp compares or lapping? Just remind us how much is in the outlook for lapping or other factors that could cause a deceleration from the exit rate down to the 12% to 13% from 16%? Thanks again, guys.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Sure. No problem. So first, on your question around value added services and solutions. Look, I mean, it goes back to what Michael said, Darren, in his prepared remarks, which is we continue to invest in that space. It continue to build out excellent capabilities, which are going after what is a sizable and fast growing addressable market.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

So again, we're not giving you a forecast as it relates to what we expect value added services solutions to grow in 2025, but the underlying fundamentals of what we're doing there continue to be very healthy. And again, remember, we gave you a little bit of color at Investor Day as to what the composition of those revenues are, what the drivers of those revenues are, including payment network drivers, including what we're doing from an overall safety and security standpoint with consumer engagement and acquisition standpoint. So there's a lot of good stuff going on and this is broad based. It is not region specific. I just want to be clear.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Sometimes people think about this as highly U. S. Centric or maybe U. S. And Europe.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

The reality is across the globe, we're working hard. The teams are working incredibly hard to actually keep pushing value added service and solutions. We close the year strong again there, right? I mean, now again, remember, value added service and solutions is one of those things where quarter over quarter, you might see some level of variability, but the reality is overall, the fundamentals of the business continue to be very strong. Then your second question was around the fact that we closed Q4 exit rates at about 16% on a local currency basis.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

And you're kind of doing this compare with what the thoughts for 2025 are. A few things to keep in mind. Number 1, there's a few things going on. Number 1, you've got basically the fact that you'll know we talked about pricing coming on starting off Q2, 2024, ramping up in Q3 and Q4. You're going to start to see some level of lapping take place on that.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

We've had several significant wins in 2024, the likes of Citizens, the likes of Wells Fargo and UniCredit. Now UniCredit will still continue to convert because it's a multiyear conversion, but some of those are going to start to lap as the year kind of progresses, right. The other thing is, as I sit back and I just think about basic fundamentals, the point really is you've got to kind of remember that overall the consumer remains healthy. We've factored that in. The thoughts we shared for 2025 is a range which is high end of low double digits to low teens, right?

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

So again, you got to keep that in mind. In that, we're building in assumptions around FX volatility. FX volatility picked up in Q4. You saw that come through in the exit rate you're talking about. Hard to predict what FX volatility looks like through the end of the year of 2025.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

We build in our best assumptions around that, but things could move around on that as well. So again, there are various factors which are actually influencing this, but that's what I kind of tell you more holistically as to what's going on here.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Harshita Rawat from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Harshita Rawat, Analyst at Bernstein]

Good morning. I want to ask about stablecoins. It's likely that we get some regulatory clarity in the U. S. This year.

[Harshita Rawat, Analyst at Bernstein]

I know vast majority of Stablecoin usage is in crypto native use cases and trading. But are you seeing anything in the cross border money movement front? And more importantly, and Michael, I know you talked about kind of like the new settlement capabilities, and you've done a lot of work in crypto over the years. How are you positioned for the growth in the crypto ecosystem? Thank you.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Right. Thank you, Harshita. So overall, as I said in my prepared remarks, this is a space that we've been active in over a while. Your question doesn't really talk about the crypto space as crypto as an investment, on ramp, off ramp, we've been doing this successfully. Crypto.com is clearly an exciting addition to the set of partnerships.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

You were really talking more about the potential of the underlying technology and what can it do. And the cross border use case has been talked about for years now. Now we've started to move beyond the proof of concept stage. Now there are real transactions that took place, first one in Hong Kong last year. So we're in the business of stablecoin transactions.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

We're in the business of having the MTN live. It hasn't scaled yet. That's also the reality. But we have long believed that this is an interesting space for us B2B cross border payments to get into. So I see as a net addition and upside opportunity for us, there's enough push now.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

The crypto has gone mainstream with the ETFs and there's clearly push from the incoming administration here in the U. S. So we'll see more momentum and I feel we're well prepared and our strong partnerships with players like JPMorgan and other large settlement players, settlement bank players will help us on that front. Now this isn't the only cross border solution that's out there. There is real time payments, where there's initiatives to potentially connect those systems.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

It's important to keep in mind that we're in 12 of large RTP markets where we have a presence. So that's an interesting space for us to also watch. In the end, it fundamentally comes down to choice, where do countries want to take this? Countries have looked at this as in potentially connecting in bilateral fashions. We've always been an advocate to saying multilateral approaches work better.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

That's what we've proven on the card side. So that's a topic that we engage on when it comes to RTP side of things, but also from the stablecoin side. But again, interoperability between different kinds of stablecoins also matters, which is kind of the same concept. So exciting space, leaning in. For now, we're powering on with cross border payments on the card side, which worked really well.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Rayna Kumar from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Rayna Kumar, Managing Director - Fintech Equity Research at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.]

Good morning, Michael and Sachin. Thanks for taking my question. Could you give us an update on your progress in gaining market share in Europe and whether there are any particular countries that you're seeing stronger performance from?

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Right. So Europe's been a real success story for Mastercard. If I look back over the last 5, 6 years, we've seen tremendous growth on the continent, seen tremendous growth in the UK. In the UK with market share leaders, credit, prepaid and in debit, it's about a third of the cards, the debit cards that are now Mastercard, large conversions. I just talked earlier about extending our partnership with Santander in the UK.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

So that's a growth story. On the continent, I'm particularly excited about the strategic partnership with UniCredit. That's 13 markets across continent. So there's not that many pan European players. In fact, that is probably the most pan European player there is.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

That's a fantastic partnership, strategic in nature, but other breakthroughs, deeper in Italy, Banco Popular there, that's a large win. So big momentum, I think that's the first thing to say. The second thing to say is in these markets, it's not just about shifting shares, also really taking advantage of the secular opportunity that still exists in Europe. If you take some of the large developed economic economies, G7 economy like Italy, still significant amounts of cash to go after and we're doing that very actively. And we're doing that very actively also deploying our services in that space.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Italy has historically been one of the most significant services opportunities for us. So with all the talk that's there about Europe, concerns about Europe, Europe's competitiveness, in Davos, this is a big theme. Really, it's important to remember that our business in Europe is in the European economy. Overall, we're well positioned and growing parts of that economy, and this is tremendous for us. We've seen volumes grow in Europe at 16% level.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

That's a tremendous growth rate for us. So overall, I think we're pressing every button that is there to press for us to push ahead on that growth story.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Tien Tsin Huang from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Tien-tsin Huang, Senior Analyst at JP Morgan]

Thanks a lot. I want to stay in Europe. If you don't mind and ask about Mastercard 2,030. I think the whole one click payments initiative to get rid of manual card entry in Europe. To me, it feels like eliminating Signature, which ushered in growth in contactless.

[Tien-tsin Huang, Senior Analyst at JP Morgan]

Is that a fair analogy to think about Mastercard 2,030 potentially pushing tokenization? I'm curious why Europe, why not more regions and what makes Europe special for you to set this goal up for Mastercard? Thanks.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

So tokenization in Europe, when I think of the evolution of the European payment markets from PSD 1 to PSD 2 to PSD 3, the topic of security, the topic of consumer experience, the topic of a fair and level playing field have been themes throughout all of these regulations. This is a market in our view that's ripe for the doing away with one time passports and keying in card numbers. I think all everything that is needed to make that successful is there in Europe, and we want to prove it. It's been a strategy of ours to have reference markets and show that an initiative works and we go where there is open arms and where we feel this is going to be successful. In Europe, we now have very relevant share position that makes us a strategic partner across markets because if you do this just in one country in Europe, then you know it is going to be problematic.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

So we have the regulation, we have partnerships across the board, so that's good. Now tokens are at the core of that. And as I said earlier and biometric and biometrics, we have that technology deployed widely in Europe. And then we'll see where we take it from that. The wider use of tokens is this sets us up for exactly that and we'll be looking at other use cases and see what that can do for our company overall.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

But it's a tremendous opportunity. And of course, this is not about just Europe. You asked the question about Europe. This is a global goal. This is what we can go after.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

As I said earlier, it's a safer ecosystem that makes sense for everybody. In the world where there's government interest and payments and so forth, if we're seen as a responsible partner that drives overall payment ecosystem safety, that's a fantastic position for us as well. And I'm sure that will be received well globally. We'll go region by region whenever we feel is the right time.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Ramsey El Assal from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Ramsey El-Assal, Managing Director at Barclays]

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Michael, I wanted to get your view on potential impacts of the sort of new political environment. I'm just curious if you're expecting any or you're seeing any tailwinds or headwinds from policy changes? And more specifically, if we do end up seeing kind of widespread tariff supply, which we may or may not, how would that impact your business?

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Ramsey, this is a it's a question that I think is top of mind in many industries. So here's how I would go about that. The new political environment, first of all, we've seen waves of political changes around the world. I think at the earlier part of last year, we were looking into 2024 and more than half of the population of the world was going to go to the polls, from India to Europe, and now in November, in the United States. So

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

there

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

is a lot of change, there's a lot of volatility. There's some political uncertainty. But when we sit in our boardroom and we sit in our management team and we talk about this is payments will continue regardless, because the economic we power the economy and we power in particular the digital economy. And that is a fundamental underlying secular trend as we discussed at our Investor Day that just keeps going on. So that's the fundamental starting point in response to your question.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Now we have a new administration here in the United States. Confirmations haven't fully been done yet. But Secretary of Treasury has confirmed and so forth. So some of the key partners that we would normally engage with. And we have an administration coming in that is touting a business friendly approach, and that's fundamentally good for us.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

The conversation around tariffs and the intended use of tariffs, it's been discussed. We have to see how it plays out and what will happen. It's also clear we're not in the import export industry. So the way that we would be affected is really in indirect ways and how potentially some of our customers and partners get affected by that. So that's something that we'll come to when we get.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

I think the point that I just made before, fundamentally underlying drive of a digitizing world, questions like digital trade are going to be important questions. So how is the world dealing with digital trade and how digital trade policy will play out over the years? And we have been actively engaging here in the U. S, in Europe, in ASEAN and so forth. So important topic for us to continue to watch in advance because that's good for all the economies around the world.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

So fundamentally, positive business outlook here from the U. S. Administration. And we see a Europe that is now in active conversations with the 2nd term of Ursula von der Leyen to drive a more growth oriented approach in Europe as well, which with our position in Europe should be a good thing.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Dave Koning from Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[David Koning, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co]

Yes. Hey, guys. Thanks. Good job. I guess my question, you mentioned FX volatility briefly.

[David Koning, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co]

It got better kind of through Q4 and quite a bit better in January. I just want to refresh on that, that helps the transaction line, right? And it should help the transaction yield going forward. Should that be a nice accelerant factor to the transaction yield over the next quarter or 2 if it stays kind of where it is now?

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Hey, David. So yes, it's in our transaction processing assessments line. That's where it is. So you got that right. And then again, volatility will be what volatility will be.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

But to the extent there's higher volatility, you get the impact come through in that line item, which impacts yields positively to the extent it kind of goes in the opposite direction and has a negative impact on yield. But that's the line item where you'll see that.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Bryan Bergin from TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Bryan Bergin, MD - Equity Research at TD Cowen]

Hi, all good morning. Thank you. Wanted to ask on rebates and incentives. Just how to think about the level of renewal activity here in 2025? And directionally, just any commentary you can share on how you expect R and I growth to progress versus how you finished in 2024?

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Sure.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

So Ryan, again, I think Michael kind of talked about this a little bit earlier. We continue to compete out in the marketplace. We are winning, and we're winning the right kinds of portfolios, which is really important. We're not going to win every portfolio. We're going to hopefully win the yes, and we don't want to.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

And but we want to win the right kinds of portfolios, which is what we've been doing and that's the plan going forward as well. From a renewal activity standpoint, nothing unusual to call out in 2025, as in there isn't like a lumpiness in terms of renewals in 2025 versus prior years. So it's kind of business as usual. Our teams are out there engaged with our customers, selling on the basis of the value we deliver across payments, but also across value added services and solutions. And you know that's been a key enabler to help us win on the payment side.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

So super important for us to continue to do that. I'll tell you from an overall rebates and incentive standpoint, you can see what the metrics are for Q4. For Q1, we expect rebates and incentives as a percentage of payment network assessments to be roughly similar to what we saw in Q4. I'm not going to give you an outlook as it relates to the full year. I mean, that's really subject to what kind of deal flow and deal activity we see.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

The most important thing to keep in mind is, while we're all very focused on the level of rebates and centers we pay, what we're even more focused on is driving an accretion in our net revenue yield. And that is really important. And that's what we'll continue to do from a strategy standpoint and an execution standpoint.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

It comes back to the virtuous cycle between payments and services. We have to be in we have to be relevant in payments. We have to be in the flow so we can apply our payment solutions and our services solutions. That is what's always in focus. And our strategic portfolio is to win and less strategic portfolios to win, but important across the different spectrum of different types of wins as I talked about smaller deals earlier.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

The mix of all of that is always focused on the outcome of an attractive net revenue yield. That is the target in mind where we press all of them.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Tim Chiodo from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Timothy Chiodo, Managing Director at UBS Group]

Great. Thank you for taking the question. Just given the stronger dollar, there's been a lot of incoming questions around the hedging strategy. I just thought maybe it'd be a good opportunity to recap some of the mechanics. I understand you've talked about doing it on a net basis, a basket of roughly 30 currencies, but not hedging some of the functional currencies.

[Timothy Chiodo, Managing Director at UBS Group]

Maybe you could just recap the approach and some of the mechanics and how this all flows through to the income statement?

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Sure. No problem. So let me first define where the exposure arises from and then what the hedging strategy is. So you got to think about the exposure to foreign exchange rates coming across 3 primary areas. 1 is what we call transaction exposures, which is when the transaction currency is different than the functional currency of the business unit in question.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

The next is what we have in the nature of monetary assets and liabilities, where the currency of those monetary assets and liabilities is different than the functional currency of the business unit in question. And the third is what we call translation exposure, which is the conversion of our overseas earnings into U. S. Dollars. So for example, we are euro functional for the European entities.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Those euro earnings are ultimately translated back to U. S. Dollars when we do our highest reported numbers. So there are 3 levels over which we get these exposures. We hedge layer number 1, which is transaction exposures.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

We hedge them. We have a philosophy around that. We have hedge ratios, which vary by currency. They're generally in that range of, call it, somewhere in that 50% to 80% range in terms of what we hedge on a net basis, net of expenses. So again, that's kind of the thinking there.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

There are some currencies which are not necessarily hedgeable just because the market is not liquid enough and we don't hedge those. We also don't hedge right down to the smallest currency exposure, which is there. So we exercise materiality thresholds on that. On the monetary assets and liabilities, similar to transaction exposures, we hedge those as well, right? And again, it's based on what the forecasts are.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

On the translation exposures, we do not hedge them. And the reason you don't hedge them is we view our hedging strategy as being one of focused on driving the right economic outcome for the company. So what we try and do is we hedge cash flow exposures where we expect cash movements to take place. In the instance of translation, there is no real cash movement taking place from a euro functional entity to a U. S.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Dollar functional entity. The cash movement takes place when dividends are made and then we'll hedge the dividend payment at that point in time. So that's kind of the philosophy as to how we go about hedging. Also remember, on translation exposures, which are not hedged, is what I just spoke about right now, things move around, right? I mean, we all know that there's dollar strength in the last couple of months and then there's 0 strength or there's BRL strength, Brazilian real strength.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

So these things tend to revert to the mean. We run the business for the fundamentals of the business in terms of driving underlying value. Currencies will do what currencies do. We hedge them on an economic basis, much like I just explained.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

And the one thing I would like to add to that is we love the fact that we have a geographically diversified business. So this comes with it. This is a fundamental differentiator for us. And many of these markets around the world are fast growing markets where that is where we find the biggest secular opportunity. So the FX is the last thing that I think about.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

I think about the growth opportunity in those markets.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Trevor Williams from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Trevor Williams, Managing Director at Jefferies LLC]

Great. Thanks very much. I wanted to go back to domestic assessments and the growth there relative to GDV and purchase volume. There's been a pretty consistent spread between those growth rates over the last few years. And then Sachin, you called out cross border mix as a driver of that spread this quarter.

[Trevor Williams, Managing Director at Jefferies LLC]

If you could just unpack what that means? And if we should interpret as meaning if cross border volume is outgrowing GDV that we'll kind of see that mix headwind persist? Thanks.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Sure. So the first thing I'll mention in terms of the delta between what we see in domestic assessments and GDV is there's a rounding impact, which is taking place there. So while you see the numbers as we've kind of talked about it as 10% 12%, the reality is the 10% is a rounded down number, the 12% is a rounded up number. So the delta isn't as big as it kind of seems out there. But kind of that's by the way, just FYI.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

On your question around the cross border mix component, here's the reality. By its very definition, domestic assessments does not include cross border revenue. GDV includes cross border volumes. And so what happens effectively is if GDV if cross border volumes are growing at 20%, which is what we kind of reported for the 4th quarter, you've got the impact of that coming through in the GDV number. You have no associated revenue coming through in domestic assessments.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

And that's what I mean by cross border.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Will Nance from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Will Nance, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Hey, I appreciate you taking the question. Michael, I wanted to ask you about your thoughts on the European market, following up on the kind of mid teens growth you've been putting up in that geography more recently. Just wanted to get your thoughts on the competitive dynamics with some of the local schemes being folded up into the European payments initiative, I think including in your home market of Germany. Any thoughts about how this kind of changes the landscape and just remind us kind of conceptually how you think about the competitive dynamics on the continent? Thanks.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Right. So that's a great question. And I always love to talk about my home country. The I want to put a stat into your mind. Earlier on, we talked about how we're driving payments growth by shifting volumes from domestic networks and closed loop networks.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Over the years, we have driven up our switching ratio to 70%. So that's an important as a backdrop into this question. So we have success and we know how to deal with domestic competitors and partners. Now on that backdrop, particularly in Europe, there has been over the years push to come up with local payment solutions as an alternative offer to consumers. And there's a whole range of reasons why that is contemplated in Europe, partly sovereignty, partly more control, all of that.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

The fundamental truth though is that in the end, the consumer is a really deciding factor here. What's a good user experience? How about availability? If you put a new app into a payment market and has tons of choices already, it's going to be very hard to convince merchants and consumers to change. We've seen it in the U.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

S. With a bank led app as well. So all in, we feel this is it's good for competition. It motivates us to continue to compete and invest in our proposition across channels. We talked about the token topic earlier on and how that makes checkout easier and so forth.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

So right now, we are looking at particularly at Wiro. So Wiro is currently an initiative of 3 countries. This was multi country in previous years, and now it's down to 3. And the first transaction took place in December. So there's proof of concept, pilot stage, and we'll see where it goes.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

At this point in time, we don't see it as a material concern or threat to our business. But our approach has always been a one of partnership. We partner with domestic schemes in many countries around the world, maybe on the services side, and we'll see how that goes over time. The more choice there is, because it will generally bode for a level playing field on the competition side is which we'd like, and then we'd love to compete with our solutions.

[Devin Corr, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations at Mastercard]

So then we can squeeze one more question in.

[Operator]

Certainly. Our last question will come from Sanjay Sakhrani from KBW. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[Sanjay Sakhrani, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Thank you. Good morning.

[Sanjay Sakhrani, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

I just wanted

[Sanjay Sakhrani, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

to go back to the volume acceleration Sachin. I mean, I know you mentioned a bunch of different things, but as we look underneath it all, is it that the consumers really gaining strength and that's sort of what's driving the acceleration? Is it share part of its share gains? I'm just trying to think about the acceleration in the Q4, the sustained one in actually a further acceleration in the United States year to date. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about that.

[Sanjay Sakhrani, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)]

Thank you.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Sure, Sanjay. So I'll speak to

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

the fact that the metrics you're talking about for the Q4 compared to the Q3 is the acceleration you're kind of alluding to. I think at the highest level, we should all kind of take comfort in the fact that the consumer continues to be very healthy and we're seeing strong consumer spending and good commercial spending as well. So those are important. As it relates to whether it's driven by share or not driven by share, frankly, quarter over quarter, there is very minimal impact, which is there from a share standpoint because the wins which we've talked about have been helping our volume growth in the Q3 as they have in the Q4. So it's really the underlying strength of the consumer and the merchant spend, which is helping us.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

There's a little bit of lift, which is coming from crypto, which we kind of talked about, right, which is there. And there's a little bit in the nature of the travel spend pull forward, kind of, which I spoke about in my prepared remarks. But other than that, I got to tell you, I mean, look, I mean, when you do the right things in the market, you win the right portfolios and those portfolios go at a good pace and there's a healthy consumer, you tend to see the kind of metrics you see, which is what we're kind of showing you right now.

[Devin Corr, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations at Mastercard]

Thank you, Sachin. Michael, any closing remarks?

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Well, I'm happy we got Sanjay in even though we're over time. So excellent. Good conversation. Thank you very much for your support as always. This is a there was a lot going on this quarter, so it was good to overrun a little bit.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

I still want to do what I always do is thank the 34,000 colleagues at Mastercard for being out there with our customers every day and pushing this business forward. And thank you to all of you for your support. We'll speak to you next quarter.

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

Thank you

[Michael Miebach, CEO at Mastercard]

very much.

[Sachin Mehra, CFO at Mastercard]

Thanks, everyone.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Devin Corr, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations
• Michael Miebach, CEO
• Sachin Mehra, CFO

Analysts

• Andrew Schmidt, Analyst at Citigroup
• Darrin Peller, Managing Director at Wolfe Research, LLC
• Harshita Rawat, Analyst at Bernstein
• Rayna Kumar, Managing Director - Fintech Equity Research at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.
• Tien-tsin Huang, Senior Analyst at JP Morgan
• Ramsey El-Assal, Managing Director at Barclays
• David Koning, Senior Research Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co
• Bryan Bergin, MD - Equity Research at TD Cowen
• Timothy Chiodo, Managing Director at UBS Group
• Trevor Williams, Managing Director at Jefferies LLC
• Will Nance, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Sanjay Sakhrani, Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)