PURCHASE, N.Y. -- MasterCard, the nation's second largest card brand, turned 40 years old this year. The company began life as the Interbank Card Association in 1966. The company remembered the anniversary in a small ceremony at its operations center in O'Fallon, Mo., earlier in November.
The anniversary may have been particularly sweet since MasterCard has also recently posted its first quarter of earnings as a publicly traded company. Earlier this week, MasterCard reported its first full quarter as a publicly listed company, posting an 82% increase in net income to $193 million while net revenues rose 14% to $902 million. Fueling the higher revenue was the growth in MasterCard's gross dollar volume, which increased 15% to $502 billion.
