PURCHASE, N.Y. – MasterCard has announced that its gross dollar volume on its branded cards rose 11.9% in 2005, flowing from 19.1 billion transactions worth $1.7 trillion. "Innovations like our PayPass contactless payments technology, combined with the global strength of our brand and ability to provide our customers with leading-edge processing services and industry expertise continue to resonate around the world," said MasterCard chief operating officer Alan Heuer. MasterCard's strong performance in 2005 was fueled by growth in both credit and debit programs, the card brand said. GDV for worldwide credit and charge programs grew 9.2% to more than $1.3 trillion, while GDV for offline debit programs rose 23.6% to $347.3 billion. MasterCard also reported that at year-end, its almost 25,000 customer financial institutions around the world had issued 749.3 million MasterCard-branded cards, a 10.5% increase over 2004