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MasterCard Incorporated () or MasterCard Worldwide is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in the MasterCard International Global Headquarters, Purchase, New York, United States,〔 in Westchester County. The Global Operations Headquarters is located in O'Fallon, Missouri, United States, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Throughout the world, its principal business is to process payments between the banks of merchants and the card issuing banks or credit unions of the purchasers who use the "MasterCard" brand debit and credit cards to make purchases. MasterCard Worldwide has been a publicly traded company since 2006. Prior to its initial public offering, MasterCard Worldwide was a cooperative owned by the more than 25,000 financial institutions that issue its branded cards. MasterCard, originally known as Interbank/Master Charge, was created by several California banks as a competitor to the BankAmericard issued by Bank of America, which later became the Visa credit card issued by Visa Inc. From 1966 to 1979, MasterCard was called "Interbank" and "Master Charge". ==History== The original banks behind MasterCard were United California Bank (later First Interstate Bank and subsequently merged into Wells Fargo Bank), Wells Fargo, Crocker National Bank (also subsequently merged into Wells Fargo), and the Bank of California (subsequently merged into the Union Bank of California). Robert Leavelle, Senior Vice President of Farmer's & Merchants Bank of Long Beach, California, along with his son Martin Leavelle, created the graphic image based on the two overlapping circles with the Master Charge title overlaid in the center of the logo. This was part of an effort by The Independent Banker's Association. In 1966, the aforementioned group of California banks formed the Interbank Card Association (ICA). With the help of New York's Marine Midland Bank, now HSBC Bank USA, these banks joined with the ICA to create "Master Charge: The Interbank Card". The card was given a significant boost in 1969, when First National City Bank joined, merging its proprietary Everything Card with Master Charge. In 1968, MasterCard International and Eurocard started a strategic alliance, which effectively allowed MasterCard access to the European market, and for Eurocard to be accepted on the MasterCard network. The Access card system from the United Kingdom joined the MasterCard/Eurocard alliance in 1972. In 1979, "Master Charge: The Interbank Card" was renamed simply "MasterCard". In the early 1990s MasterCard then bought the British Access card and the Access name was dropped. In 2002, MasterCard International merged with Europay International SA, another large credit-card issuer association, which for many years issued cards under the name Eurocard (payment card). In 2006, MasterCard International underwent another name change to MasterCard Worldwide. This was done in order to suggest a more global scale of operations. In addition, the company introduced a new corporate logo adding a third circle to the two that had been used in the past (the familiar card logo, resembling a Venn diagram, remains unchanged). A new corporate tagline was introduced at the same time: "The Heart of Commerce". In 2010, MasterCard expanded its e-commerce offering with the acquisition of DataCash, a UK-based payment processing and fraud/risk management provider. In 2012, MasterCard announced the expansion of its mobile contactless payments program, including markets across the Middle East. In 2014, MasterCard acquired Australian leading rewards program manager company Pinpoint for an undisclosed amount.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://news.biharprabha.com/2014/04/mastercard-to-acquire-business-reward-services-provider-pinpoint/ )〕 MasterCard teamed with Apple in September 2014, to incorporate a new mobile wallet feature into Apple's new iPhone models, enabling users to more readily use their MasterCard, and other credit cards. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「MasterCard」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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