By Stablehunter and Yokiiiya
A friend who works at Mastercard once recommended a book: Payments Systems in the U.S.: A Guide for the Payments Professional. His takeaway was simple: Visa and Mastercard are more than business.
Most people know the two brands from the logos on their cards: Visa in blue, Mastercard in overlapping red and yellow circles. They show up in the same checkout moments and compete for the same banks and customers. But treating them only as rival companies leaves out a large part of the story.
The two networks have shared member banks. They have also taken part in setting common technical standards. Banks have needed them and negotiated with them at the same time. The networks have competed with each other while also sharing an interest in security and interoperability. Mastercard and Visa did not start from the same place. Mastercard grew out of an association created by a group of banks and later became a global company with its own brand.
1966–1978: Banks join forces and the network moves overseas
Visa’s story began with a product launched by one bank. Mastercard’s story began when several banks decided to build a network together. In 1958, Bank of America launched BankAmericard in California. By 1966, it had started licensing the system to other banks in the United States and abroad.
That same year, another group of banks formed the Interbank Card Association, or ICA, the predecessor to Mastercard. From the start, it used a shared governance model among member banks rather than one bank controlling the system on its own.
At the time, banks outside Bank of America had a choice. They could join the BankAmericard system that later became Visa, or they could build another network together. Mastercard was the result of the second path.
For ICA, the first problem was practical: how could one card work across the boundaries between banks? For a single bank, issuing a card and making that card usable in many places were two very different tasks.
Banks knew their own customers. They could assess credit and decide how much to lend. But customers traveled to other cities and shopped at merchants served by other banks. Would those merchants accept the card? How would they know a transaction had been approved? After a sale, how would they get paid? If there was a dispute, who would handle it?
If every pair of banks had to negotiate separately, the web of relationships would quickly become too complex to manage. That is where the value of a shared network appeared. Participants accepted a common set of rules, used a shared system to pass transaction information, and arranged clearing and settlement across institutions. In its 60th anniversary review, Mastercard also described this shared system as a core task at the company’s founding.
Banks gave up part of their freedom to decide how products would operate on their own, and in return they got broader acceptance for a card. There was a direct revenue reason behind that trade. Credit cards allowed banks to extend loans to consumers beyond their original geographic footprint. A bank could start a customer relationship through a credit card without waiting for that person to open a deposit account. Wider acceptance meant access to more borrowers and a larger consumer lending business.
That also shaped who held influence inside the association. In the years when both networks were owned and managed by member banks, issuing cards was more profitable than acquiring merchants, and issuers often held the stronger voice on major committees and boards.
This was one of the earliest bargains in payments networks: banks accepted common rules because those rules helped them expand their business. The participants building the network together did not all carry the same weight.
Two years after ICA was formed, it began looking for partners outside the United States. In 1968, it established ties with Banco Nacional in Mexico, formed an alliance with Eurocard in Europe, and saw its first members join in Japan that same year.
In Europe, ICA worked with Eurocard, an existing local card organization. European banks already had their own customers and merchant relationships. By linking the networks, both sides could make their cards usable in more places. For ICA, that also meant expanding through banking relationships that already existed on the ground.
By 1970, BankAmericard had moved into an independent company, and in 1976 it adopted the Visa brand. Mastercard’s predecessor was still using the name Master Charge at that point.
For Mastercard, what began as a system built by multiple U.S. banks was starting to connect more banks and merchants in more countries through overseas partners.
1979–1990: The Mastercard name arrives and the network broadens
In 1979, Master Charge officially became Mastercard. As the business entered more countries, the unified brand began appearing on cards issued by a growing number of banks.
During the 1980s, the company expanded its product lineup. Gold Mastercard, launched in 1983, targeted customers with higher spending power, giving banks a way to offer different card products on the same network.
Mastercard also widened what a bank card could do. In the late 1980s, it acquired the Cirrus ATM network and brought cross-bank cash withdrawals into its business.
Buying goods and withdrawing cash are different needs for cardholders. Once the ATM network was connected, the use of a bank card stretched further. A customer away from home could pay in stores and also withdraw cash from ATMs connected to the network.
At this stage, Mastercard was expanding two kinds of connections at once: more banks in more countries, and more situations in which the card could be used. As banks looked for ways to let customers pay directly from deposit accounts, debit cards became the next growth opening.
1991–2001: Into everyday spending, with competition and cooperation alongside Visa
Maestro launched in 1991.
As the 1990s began, the network moved into more everyday payment scenarios. Credit cards were only one entry point. ATM networks served cash access. Debit cards connected directly to bank deposit accounts. Maestro, introduced in 1991, was a major step in Mastercard’s push into debit payments.
But banks that were already members of the network did not automatically adopt every new product. When Visa and Mastercard tried to persuade banks to issue their debit cards, they often went to the executives they already knew from credit cards. Then they found that credit cards were managed by one department, while savings accounts, ATMs, and branch networks were controlled by another. Familiar contacts could not always approve the move.
The departments running savings accounts were often promoting their own PIN-based debit products. They also had to think about revenue and cost. If a bank switched to a different product, responsibility and income allocation had to be renegotiated. It took banks years to sort out those internal relationships, and they gradually concluded that in the U.S. market at the time, Visa and Mastercard debit products could offer more attractive economics.
That showed what Mastercard had to do to grow: it needed banks to adopt the product, and it had to identify the people inside the bank who could actually make the decision.
In 1997, Priceless moved toward consumers.
Getting banks to issue Mastercard cards was only the first step. Once the card was in a consumer’s wallet, another question followed: would that person actually pull it out to pay?
A wallet might hold several cards. One might offer better rewards. Another might have stronger discounts. A third might simply be familiar. For Mastercard, winning an issuing partnership with a bank did not mean winning every future purchase made by the cardholder.
In 1997, Mastercard launched the Priceless advertising campaign. The first ad showed a father taking his child to a baseball game: tickets cost money, snacks cost money, but the time they spent together could not be priced. Mastercard placed its brand inside an ordinary life moment that people could immediately understand.
The first Priceless ad in 1997 carried a simple message: a real conversation with your child has no price.
The campaign tried to build a link between the brand and the moments people care about. When consumers spent money on people and experiences that mattered to them, Mastercard wanted to be present. The red and yellow circles on the card gained a story people could remember.
Commercially, Mastercard had to win on both sides. Banks decided which cards to issue. Cardholders decided which card to use. Brand advertising was one of the ways it could influence cardholders directly.
A card carried both the bank’s name and the Mastercard logo, but the goals behind them were not identical. Banks wanted customers to keep using their own products. Mastercard wanted consumers to recognize and choose its brand across cards issued by different banks. The two sides needed each other, but each also wanted a deeper relationship with the consumer.
From 1998 to 2001, competition, cooperation, and legal conflict with Visa unfolded at the same time.
Visa and Mastercard were not cleanly separated camps. During the long period when both operated as bank associations, they shared member banks and overlapping economic interests and governance ties. A bank could benefit from both networks at once.
Their operating rules were historically similar in part because many banks belonged to both associations and issued both brands. Those banks wanted the rules to stay as consistent as possible so they would not have to manage two very different systems.
That added another layer to the relationship between the companies. The customers they competed for had also been common owners. The networks competed, while banks wanted both systems to avoid creating too many different requirements.
In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Visa and Mastercard. The challenge covered the dual-governance structure and exclusivity rules that limited member banks from working with other card networks.
At the same time, the two networks shared needs in security and compatibility. Cards and terminals in different countries had to work together, and security technology needed a common base. Europay, Mastercard, and Visa helped develop the original EMV specifications, and EMVCo was formed in 1999 to manage those standards and interoperability work.
There was a business logic to that cooperation. Banks could choose among card organizations, but merchants could not easily absorb a world in which every brand required completely different acceptance equipment.
Common standards lowered the barrier to entry. After that, competition still remained over which provider a bank selected, which card a consumer used, and whose services a client bought. The transaction networks themselves still operated separately.
In 2001, a court ruled that exclusivity rules restricting member banks from issuing cards on other networks were illegal. The ruling targeted the exclusivity limits. It did not declare all overlapping membership or all cooperation between the two companies illegal.
During those years, the companies pushed technical standards together while also facing legal challenges tied to exclusivity rules. Technical compatibility and commercial participation were separate issues, and they had to be handled separately.
2002–2008: From bank association to listed company
In 2002, Mastercard merged with Europay International and shifted from a member association to a private shareholding company. In 2006, it went public on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker MA.
The Europay merger brought Mastercard’s relationship with European banks more directly under one company. Before that, Mastercard had been an association built and governed by banks, mainly serving member banks. After the listing, it had public shareholders. Those shareholders cared about how much the company earned, whether profits could rise, and where the business could expand next.
Former member banks could turn part of their holdings into cash through the listing. The board was no longer controlled mainly by representatives of member banks. Banks remained important customers, but Mastercard now had to weigh the interests of the company and other shareholders when making decisions. The restructuring also involved questions around potential litigation and antitrust liability, not only fundraising.
Visa followed with its own listing in 2008. Both companies then moved more clearly toward pursuing their own growth, adjusting products, fees, and rules. For merchants that accepted both brands, that meant the two sets of requirements could gradually diverge and require separate adaptation.
This was a turning point in Mastercard’s history. It began deciding its own direction more independently, and it also had to rethink how to keep banks willing to work with it while increasing company profits.
To understand the business, it helps to look at where a card payment fee ends up. After a customer pays with a card, the merchant usually pays a fee. That money is split among several participants. One part is the interchange fee, usually paid by the institution helping the merchant collect payment to the bank that issued the customer’s card. Mastercard processes that money through settlement flows, but it does not count interchange as its own revenue. Its own income mainly comes from fees for providing the payment network, transaction processing, and other services.
Even though interchange does not belong to Mastercard, issuing banks care deeply about that revenue. When banks can choose among card networks, they consider which card is more profitable to issue. If one card offers better economics, a bank may be more willing to issue and promote it. Mastercard may also use fee incentives and service support to win issuing partnerships with large banks.
That means Mastercard’s rules affect not only its own earnings, but also how much banks make and which cards they are willing to promote. Those same fees also become part of merchants’ acceptance costs. An arrangement that looks attractive to banks may look expensive to merchants.
One rule, or even one clause inside a rule, can change who earns a little more and who pays a little more in a transaction. Mastercard has to balance those interests so banks keep issuing cards and merchants keep accepting them.
2009–2016: From card swipes to mobile payments
Consumer shopping behavior began to change. In physical stores, merchants could see the customer and the card. On websites and phones, new questions appeared: how to reduce the friction of entering information, how to verify the payer, and how to protect card numbers.
In 2010, Mastercard acquired DataCash to expand its e-commerce payment services. It wanted to help merchants connect to online payments and add more processing capability before and after transactions entered the network.
In 2013, Mastercard launched Masterpass. Consumers could save payment and shipping information and check out on supported websites or apps without repeatedly entering the same details. Mastercard was moving closer to the online checkout experience itself.
In 2014, Apple Pay launched, and Mastercard joined Visa and American Express as one of the first supported card networks. Mastercard’s digital service MDES also played a role, allowing bank cards to be placed into mobile payment environments more securely.
One key technology was tokenization. Put simply, a payment could use a digital identifier that stood in for the real card number, with limits on where and how it could be used. Consumers saw a card inside a phone wallet, but the verification and transaction processing still required the bank, the card network, and the mobile wallet to work together.
Users might pull out plastic cards less often, or stop paying attention to the logo on the card itself, but the payment could still run through the same network underneath. Mastercard had to adapt to new payment entry points, and it also had a chance to provide security and connectivity for those entry points.
By 2016, Mastercard was working with Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, and other wallets while continuing to develop Masterpass. It was building its own products and supporting other companies’ wallets at the same time.
New participants also pushed the networks to adjust their rules. The two networks each set rules clarifying how PayPal and similar companies could use bank cards in their businesses. As payment entry points multiplied, the networks had to decide how to bring those companies in and under what terms they would work together.
At this stage, Mastercard was responding to the shift from cards to websites, apps, and phones. New platforms stood between it and consumers, and relationships beyond banks were becoming more important.
2017–2022: Beyond cards into account payments and financial data
After going public, Mastercard kept looking for new business lines. One direction was to expand beyond bank cards.
In 2017, it took a majority stake in Vocalink, extending into account-to-account payment infrastructure. Systems used for transfers between bank accounts, not just card spending, became part of the business it could participate in.
In 2020, it completed the acquisition of Finicity, adding financial data connectivity and open banking capabilities. This time, the expansion was into services that help clients connect to and use financial data.
In 2021, Mastercard also completed the acquisition of most of Nets’ Corporate Services business, adding capabilities in account-to-account payments, real-time payment infrastructure, bill payments, and e-invoicing.
Taken together, those deals show Mastercard moving into more payment methods that do not depend on card swipes and into financial data services as well. When banks, businesses, and other payment firms need to move money, connect accounts, or use data, Mastercard wants to be involved there too.
By this point, “card network” no longer fully described the scope of the company. Whether those acquisitions turn into durable revenue still depends on whether customers keep using the products.
2023–2025: Domestic clearing in China and another round of service expansion
A global card brand being usable for cross-border spending is not the same thing as being approved to conduct domestic bank card clearing in China. Mastercard’s joint venture with NetsUnion, Wan Shi Wang Lian, received a bank card clearing license in 2023 and began domestic operations in May 2024.
That stands out as an important point in its development. A global network entering a market still needs local regulatory approval, bank partnerships, and actual integration. The logo on the card may look the same, but the path to operating in a country has to be completed market by market and institution by institution.
The significance is straightforward: even a network built over decades still needs local cooperation to enter a new category of business. Brand and technology accumulated elsewhere do not automatically replace that process.
During the same period, Mastercard expanded another capability. At the end of 2024, it completed the acquisition of Recorded Future, adding threat intelligence and cybersecurity services.
From account payments and financial data connectivity to threat intelligence, these deals broadened the range of services Mastercard could offer. They point to a shared commercial aim: when clients need to connect accounts, use financial data, assess risk, or protect systems, Mastercard wants to be one of the providers.
It is trying to widen the answer to a basic question: why do customers need Mastercard? One answer is that transactions run through its card network. Another is that it can solve problems around payments.
While expanding into new businesses, Mastercard still has to manage its original card business. When banks launch new cards or replace old ones, the decision to stay on its network determines whether existing customers and transaction flows remain in place.
A card replacement cycle in the Netherlands in 2025 shows how that continuity works.
Local banks have been replacing Mastercard’s Maestro debit cards with Debit Mastercard, which belongs to the same system. By the end of 2025, Mastercard and local banks jointly announced progress on the replacement. For cardholders, it meant receiving a new card from their bank. For Mastercard, it meant banks continuing to use its network as they refreshed products.
That also shows the role banks play in this business. Most people choose a bank first and then pick from the cards that bank offers. When a bank decides which network a product will use, Mastercard gets a chance to enter the customer’s wallet through that card. A bank may offer both Visa and Mastercard, but the network used for a specific product is usually decided in advance by the bank.
For example, if a bank with a large customer base chooses Mastercard’s network for a debit product, then as customers open accounts, receive cards, and make everyday payments, Mastercard enters their lives through that bank. It does not need to persuade each person one by one to choose it first.
That is why earlier bank choices can shape Mastercard’s later development. Over time, banks connect systems, build experience in issuing cards and processing transactions, and place a large installed base of cards in customers’ hands. Switching networks can require system changes, card replacement, and customer notifications, all of which carry costs. Of course, if another network offers better terms, a bank can still change partners.
To go global, it first has to go local
Mastercard spent decades linking banks and merchants in different countries into one network. But global coverage does not mean business in every country comes automatically.
In China, it needed a partnership with NetsUnion and a domestic clearing license to launch a new line of business. In the Netherlands, existing bank relationships have continued through the shift from Maestro to Debit Mastercard. One case is about entering a market. The other is about keeping a market. Both depend on choices made by local institutions.
Consumers see the red and yellow circles on a card. Mastercard has to deal with a different set of questions in each market: why banks want to issue its cards, why merchants want to accept them, and what regulators allow it to do. Those questions are hard to solve through a single global brand and a single technology stack alone.
That also helps explain why Visa and Mastercard do not hold the same position in every country. Who built local bank relationships earlier, whose products fit local demand better, and who can keep those relationships going all shape the market structure seen today. Domestic card organizations and consumer payment habits also affect how much room each company has to grow.
Chart note: the data refers to estimated 2023 card-organization purchase volume shares, including online and offline consumer payments to merchants and excluding ATM transactions. It does not represent card issuance volume or the share of all payment methods. The gray portion represents other card organizations, including rounding differences. The countries shown are examples rather than a complete global ranking.
For Mastercard, the value of a global network is that one card can be used in more places. The value of local cooperation is that local banks are willing to issue that card and merchants are willing to accept it. Every time it enters a market, it has to connect those two pieces again.
Mastercard’s 60-year history began when a group of banks decided to build a network together. It later developed its own brand, became a listed company, and expanded into mobile payments, account transfers, and security services. But wherever it goes, the same question remains: why would local banks, merchants, and partners choose it?
Its relationship with Visa runs through that entire history. The two companies compete for the same customers and want more transactions to move across their own networks. At the same time, for a card to work across banks and borders, common technical and security standards still matter. They compete over business, while jointly maintaining part of the foundation that makes that business possible.
Seen from that angle, the line “Visa and Mastercard, more than business” carries extra weight. What people recognize are the blue letters and the red-yellow circles. Behind them sits a decades-long story of changing competition, cooperation, and interests. It is also the story of how a bank card came to connect the world.