Merchants using Sage Payment Solutions can now offer a new option to their customers looking for a seamless and secure way to pay

PURCHASE, NY – February 1, 2017 – Mastercard today announced that Masterpass is now accepted at more than 10,000 small- and medium-sized merchants leveraging Sage Payment Solutions, a value added payment solution provided by Sage North America. The partnership enables merchants to leverage Masterpass to provide the speed, simplicity and security of digital payments to their customers. 

Together, Mastercard and Sage Payment Solutions deliver an efficient way to enable merchants for Masterpass acceptance, which helps smaller businesses provide additional payment options to their customers quickly and easily, and often at minimal cost.

“Small and medium size businesses play an important role in displacing cash and driving digital payment growth,” said Linda Kirkpatrick, executive vice president, Merchants and Acceptance, U.S. “Our collaboration with Sage Payment Solutions means that thousands of smaller merchants will now have access to a new, secure checkout option to advance their business and remove friction at the point of sale.  This agreement reinforces the commitment we’ve made at Mastercard to increase acceptance by bringing the safest and best payment technologies to all merchants.”

Masterpass is a digital payment service from Mastercard that enables consumers to look no further than their own trusted bank to make fast, simple and secure digital payments – across devices and channels – anywhere they want to shop: online, in-app, and in-store using contactless technology. Masterpass makes shopping easier than ever, and leverages the most advanced methods of payment security available today. For more information on Masterpass, visit www.masterpass.com.

“We know that small businesses and their customers expect a frictionless buying experience from anywhere and need an affordable, dependable payment solution to provide this,” said Paul Bridgewater, CEO, Sage Payment Solutions. “Working with Mastercard, we’re able to keep both merchants and their customers ahead of change, providing simple, intuitive technology that enables the selling and buying of goods from anywhere via any type of payment system. This partnership represents an important step towards our ambition of helping customers take on what’s now and what’s next in their business.”

About Sage Payment Solutions USA

Sage energizes the success of businesses and their communities around the world through the use of smart technology and the imagination of our people. Sage has reimagined business and brings energy, experience and technology to inspire our customers to fulfil their dreams. We work with a thriving community of entrepreneurs, business owners, tradespeople, accountants, partners and developers who drive the global economy. Sage is a FTSE 100 company with 14,000 employees in 24 countries. For more information, visit Sage.com.

About Mastercard

Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com, is a technology company in the global payments industry.  We operate the world’s fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories.  Mastercard products and solutions make everyday commerce activities – such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances – easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone.  Follow us on Twitter @MastercardNews, join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau.

 

Mastercard Media Contact:

Robyn Cottelli

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914.249.1347

Original author: Robyn Cottelli

By Akos Lada, Research Scientist, James Li, Research Scientist, and Shilin Ding, Engineering Manager

Our goal with News Feed is to show people the stories that are most relevant to them. Today we’re announcing two updates to better rank posts in your feed:

Incorporating new signals to better identify and rank authentic content A new way to predict and rank in real-time when posts might be more relevant to you

New Signals to Identify Authentic Content

One of our News Feed values is authentic communication. We’ve heard from our community that authentic stories are the ones that resonate most — those that people consider genuine and not misleading, sensational or spammy.

When ranking News Feed we look at many signals personal to you, such as how close you are to the person or Page posting, as well as more universal signals like the overall engagement (likes, comments, shares) that a post has.

With this update, we’re adding new universal signals to determine whether a post might be authentic. To do this, we categorized Pages to identify whether or not they were posting spam or trying to game feed by doing things like asking for likes, comments or shares. We then used posts from these Pages to train a model that continuously identifies whether posts from other Pages are likely to be authentic. For example, if Page posts are often being hidden by people reading them, that’s a signal that it might not be authentic.

If a post is likely to be authentic based on the new signals we look at, it might show up higher in your feed.

Updates to Real-Time Signals

When ranking feed to determine the relevance of a post, we always look at real-time signals, such as whether a friend has just commented on it. We continue to improve News Feed to evaluate the importance of different signals at different times.

With today’s update, we will now take into account how signals change in real time. So now if there is a lot of engagement from many people on Facebook about a topic, or if a post from a Page is getting a lot of engagement, we can understand in real-time that the topic or Page post might be temporarily more important to you, so we should show that content higher in your feed.

For example, if your favorite soccer team just won a game, we might show you posts about the game higher up in News Feed because people are talking about it more broadly on Facebook.

Will This Impact My Page?

We anticipate that most Pages won’t see any significant changes to their distribution in News Feed. Some Pages might see a small increase in referral traffic or outbound clicks, and some Pages might see minor decreases. Pages should continue to post stories that are relevant to their audiences.

Net revenue for the fourth quarter of 2016 was $2.8 billion, an increase of 9%, or 10% on a currency-neutral basis, versus the same period in 2015. Net revenue growth was driven by the impact of the following:

An increase in switched transactions3 of 17%, to 15.2 billion; A 9% increase in gross dollar volume, on a local currency basis and adjusting for the impact of recent EU regulatory changes, to $1.2 trillion; and An increase in cross-border volumes of 13%.

These factors were partially offset by an increase in rebates and incentives, primarily due to new and renewed agreements and increased volumes. As of December 31, 2016, the company’s customers had issued 2.3 billion Mastercard and Maestro-branded cards.

Total operating expenses decreased 1% to $1.4 billion during the fourth quarter of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015 and were flat on a currency-neutral basis. Excluding the special item, total operating expenses decreased 2%, or 1% on a currency-neutral basis. The decrease reflects the impact of ongoing cost management activities offsetting our continued investments in strategic initiatives.

Operating income for the fourth quarter of 2016 increased 23%, or 22% on a currency-neutral basis, versus the year-ago period. Excluding the special item, operating income increased 24%, or 23% on a currency-neutral basis. The company delivered an operating margin of 49.4%, or 49.8% excluding the special item.

Mastercard reported other expense of $52 million in the fourth quarter of 2016, versus $82 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. The decrease was mainly due to lower impairment charges on investments in the current quarter versus the comparable period in the prior year, partially offset by increased interest expense related to the company’s recent debt offerings.

Mastercard’s effective tax rate was 28.8% in the fourth quarter of 2016, or 28.7% excluding the special item, versus a rate of 13.1% in the comparable period in 2015. The difference was primarily due to the recognition of discrete benefits in the fourth quarter of 2015.

During the fourth quarter of 2016, Mastercard repurchased approximately 11 million shares at a cost of $1.1 billion. Quarter-to-date through January 26, the company repurchased an additional 2.3 million shares at a cost of $247 million, which leaves $4.7 billion remaining under current repurchase program authorizations.

Full-Year 2016 Results

For the full-year 2016, Mastercard reported net income of $4.1 billion, an increase of 7%, or 8% on a currency-neutral basis, and earnings per diluted share of $3.69, up 10%, or 11% on a currency-neutral basis, versus the year-ago period. Excluding special items, net income was $4.1 billion, up 6%, or 7% on a currency-neutral basis. Earnings per diluted share were $3.77, up 10%, or 11% on a currency-neutral basis, compared to the same period in 2015.

Net revenue for the full-year 2016 was $10.8 billion, an increase of 11%, or 13% on a currency-neutral basis, versus the same period in 2015. Contributing to this growth were switched transactions growth of 16%, cross-border volume growth of 12% and gross dollar volume growth of 11%, on a local currency basis and adjusting for the impact of recent EU regulatory changes. These factors were partially offset by an increase in rebates and incentives.

Total operating expenses were $5.0 billion, an increase of 9%, or 11% on a currency-neutral basis, for the full-year 2016, compared to full-year 2015. Excluding special items, total operating expenses were $4.9 billion, an increase of 10%, or 12% on a currency-neutral basis. The increase was primarily due to continued investments to support strategic initiatives, lapping of the favorable impact of foreign exchange gains in 2015 and higher data processing expenses.

Operating income for the full-year 2016 was $5.8 billion, an increase of 13%, or 15% on a currency-neutral basis, versus the same period in 2015. Excluding special items, operating income was $5.9 billion, an increase of 13%, or 14% on a currency-neutral basis, versus the same period in 2015. The company delivered an operating margin of 53.5%, or 54.5% excluding special items.

Mastercard’s effective tax rate was 28.1% for the full-year 2016, versus a rate of 23.2% in 2015. Excluding special items, the effective tax rate was 28.1% for the full-year 2016, versus a rate of 23.4% in the comparable period in 2015. The increase was primarily due to the recognition of larger discrete tax benefits in 2015.

Fourth-Quarter Financial Results Conference Call Details

At 9:00 a.m. ET today, the company will host a conference call to discuss its fourth-quarter financial results.

The dial-in information for this call is 877-201-0168 (within the U.S.) and 647-788-4901 (outside the U.S.), and the passcode is 40272333. A replay of the call will be available for 30 days and can be accessed by dialing 855-859-2056 (within the U.S.) and 404-537-3406 (outside the U.S.), using passcode 40272333.

This call can also be accessed through the Investor Relations section of the company’s website at www.mastercard.com/investor. Presentation slides used on this call are also available on the website.

Non-GAAP Financial Information

The company has presented certain financial data that are considered non-GAAP financial measures that are reconciled to their most directly comparable GAAP measures in the accompanying tables.

The presentation of growth rates on a currency-neutral basis represent a non-GAAP measure and are calculated by remeasuring the prior period’s results using the current period’s exchange rates for both the translational and transactional impacts in our operating results.

About Mastercard Incorporated

Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com, is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the world’s fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. Mastercard products and solutions make everyday commerce activities – such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances – easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardNews, join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical facts may be forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, the words “believe”, “expect”, “could”, “may”, “would”, “will”, “trend” and similar words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements that relate to the Mastercard’s future prospects, developments and business strategies. We caution you to not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as they speak only as of the date they are made. Except for the company’s ongoing obligations under the U.S. federal securities laws, the company does not intend to update or otherwise revise the forward-looking information to reflect actual results of operations, changes in financial condition, changes in estimates, expectations or assumptions, changes in general economic or industry conditions or other circumstances arising and/or existing since the preparation of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of any unanticipated events.

Many factors and uncertainties relating to our operations and business environment, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control, influence whether any forward-looking statements can or will be achieved. Any one of those factors could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in writing in any forward-looking statements made by Mastercard or on its behalf, including, but not limited to, the following factors:

payments system-related legal and regulatory challenges (including interchange fees, surcharging and the extension of current regulatory activity to additional jurisdictions or products); the impact of preferential or protective government actions; regulation to which we are subject based on our participation in the payments industry; regulation of privacy, data protection and security; the impact of competition in the global payments industry (including disintermediation and pricing pressure); the challenges relating to rapid technological developments and changes; the impact of information security failures, breaches or service disruptions on our business; issues related to our relationships with our customers (including loss of substantial business from significant customers, competitor relationships with our customers and banking industry consolidation); the impact of our relationships with stakeholders, including issuers and acquirers, merchants and governments; exposure to loss or illiquidity due to settlement guarantees and other significant third-party obligations; the impact of global economic and political events and conditions, including global financial market activity, declines in cross-border activity; negative trends in consumer spending and the effect of adverse currency fluctuation; reputational impact, including impact related to brand perception, account data breaches and fraudulent activity; issues related to acquisition integration, strategic investments and entry into new businesses; and potential or incurred liability and limitations on business resulting from litigation.

For additional information on these and other factors that could cause Mastercard’s actual results to differ materially from expected results, please see the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and any subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K.

Footnote

The tables set forth the gross dollar volume (“GDV”), purchase volume, cash volume and the number of purchase transactions, cash transactions, accounts and cards on a regional and global basis for Mastercard™-branded cards. Growth rates over prior periods are provided for volume-based data.

Debit transactions on Maestro® and Cirrus®-branded cards and transactions involving brands other than Mastercard are not included in the preceding tables.

For purposes of the table: GDV represents purchase volume plus cash volume and includes the impact of balance transfers and convenience checks; “purchase volume” means the aggregate dollar amount of purchases made with Mastercard-branded cards for the relevant period; and “cash volume” means the aggregate dollar amount of cash disbursements obtained with Mastercard-branded cards for the relevant period. The number of cards includes virtual cards, which are Mastercard-branded payment accounts that do not generally have physical cards associated with them.

The Mastercard payment product is comprised of credit, charge and debit programs, and data relating to each type of program is included in the tables. Debit programs include Mastercard-branded debit programs where the primary means of cardholder validation at the point of sale is for cardholders either to sign a sales receipt or enter a PIN. The tables include information with respect to transactions involving Mastercard-branded cards that are not switched by Mastercard and transactions for which Mastercard does not earn significant revenues.

Information denominated in U.S. dollars is calculated by applying an established U.S. dollar/local currency exchange rate for each local currency in which Mastercard volumes are reported. These exchange rates are calculated on a quarterly basis using the average exchange rate for each quarter. Mastercard reports period-over-period rates of change in purchase volume and cash volume on the basis of local currency information, in order to eliminate the impact of changes in the value of foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar in calculating such rates of change.

The data set forth in the GDV, purchase volume, purchase transactions, cash volume and cash transactions columns is provided by Mastercard customers and is subject to verification by Mastercard and partial cross-checking against information provided by Mastercard’s transaction processing systems. The data set forth in the accounts and cards columns is provided by Mastercard customers and is subject to certain limited verification by Mastercard. A portion of the data set forth in the accounts and cards columns reflects the impact of routine portfolio changes among customers and other practices that may lead to over counting of the underlying data in certain circumstances. All data is subject to revision and amendment by Mastercard’s customers subsequent to the date of its release.

Performance information for prior periods can be found in the “Investor Relations” section of the Mastercard website at www.mastercard.com/investor.

Original author: Seth Eisen

View a mobile-optimized version on Apple Newsroom

iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch Set All-Time Records

CUPERTINO, California — January 31, 2017 — Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2017 first quarter ended December 31, 2016. The Company posted all-time record quarterly revenue of $78.4 billion and all-time record quarterly earnings per diluted share of $3.36. These results compare to revenue of $75.9 billion and earnings per diluted share of $3.28 in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 64 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

“We’re thrilled to report that our holiday quarter results generated Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever, and broke multiple records along the way. We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Revenue from Services grew strongly over last year, led by record customer activity on the App Store, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”

“Our outstanding business performance resulted in a new all-time record for earnings per share, and over $27 billion in operating cash flow,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We returned nearly $15 billion to investors through share repurchases and dividends during the quarter, bringing cumulative payments through our capital return program to over $200 billion.”

Apple is providing the following guidance for its fiscal 2017 second quarter:

revenue between $51.5 billion and $53.5 billion gross margin between 38 percent and 39 percent operating expenses between $6.5 billion and $6.6 billion other income/(expense) of $400 million tax rate of 26 percent
Apple’s board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.57 per share of the Company’s common stock.  The dividend is payable on February 16, 2017 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on February 13, 2017.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2017 financial results conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PST on January 31, 2017 at www.apple.com/investor/earnings-call/. This webcast will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.

This press release contains forward-looking statements including without limitation those about the Company’s estimated revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, other income/(expense), and tax rate. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ. Risks and uncertainties include without limitation the effect of competitive and economic factors, and the Company’s reaction to those factors, on consumer and business buying decisions with respect to the Company’s products; continued competitive pressures in the marketplace; the ability of the Company to deliver to the marketplace and stimulate customer demand for new programs, products, and technological innovations on a timely basis; the effect that product introductions and transitions, changes in product pricing or mix, and/or increases in component costs could have on the Company’s gross margin; the inventory risk associated with the Company’s need to order or commit to order product components in advance of customer orders; the continued availability on acceptable terms, or at all, of certain components and services essential to the Company’s business currently obtained by the Company from sole or limited sources; the effect that the Company’s dependency on manufacturing and logistics services provided by third parties may have on the quality, quantity or cost of products manufactured or services rendered; risks associated with the Company’s international operations; the Company’s reliance on third-party intellectual property and digital content; the potential impact of a finding that the Company has infringed on the intellectual property rights of others; the Company’s dependency on the performance of distributors, carriers and other resellers of the Company’s products; the effect that product and service quality problems could have on the Company’s sales and operating profits; the continued service and availability of key executives and employees; war, terrorism, public health issues, natural disasters, and other circumstances that could disrupt supply, delivery, or demand of products; and unfavorable results of legal proceedings. More information on potential factors that could affect the Company’s financial results is included from time to time in the “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” sections of the Company’s public reports filed with the SEC, including the Company’s Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 24, 2016 and its Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2016 to be filed with the SEC. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information, which speak as of their respective dates.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

Press Contact:
Kristin Huguet
Apple
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(408) 974-2414

Investor Relations Contacts:
Nancy Paxton
Apple
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(408) 974-5420

Joan Hoover
Apple
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(408) 974-4570

 

Today we are providing an update on some of the long-term investments we’re making with our measurement partners.

From Metrics to Measurement 

Until now, our FYI posts have focused solely on updates to our metrics. But metrics—like the time recorded on an athlete’s stopwatch—are only valuable if they can be mapped to a larger goal, such as an improved marathon result. The same is true for advertisers: Measurement is the process of using metrics to understand the outcomes that matter to them.

Over the last two years, advertisers have started to move from tracking intermediate metrics to measuring business outcomes such as brand affinity and sales lift. We’re committed to providing the tools and partnerships to make that possible for all advertisers. We want to help advertisers effectively measure business value and outcomes, so they can purchase ads with confidence. To that end, we’re expanding this channel to focus on all aspects of measurement. It will be renamed Measurement FYI and will include updates to our metrics, partnerships, products and research.

Adding More People-Based Measurement Partnerships

People are engaging with ads in more places than ever before, which leaves advertisers with two pressing measurement needs: cross-channel comparability and third-party verification. Today, we’re expanding our current measurement partnerships to further address those needs and increase transparency.

Cross-Channel Comparability

In September, we kicked off our partnerships with marketing mix modeling measurement providers to help advertisers better understand their media mix across channels. Today, we’re introducing the marketing mix modeling (MMM) portal where measurement partners can gather information directly from Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network on behalf of their clients. Better quality data in MMM models will support more accurate and actionable insights for advertisers who engage in cross-channel measurement and planning.

Advertisers will now be able to compare which ads — TV, digital and print — are driving their desired outcomes. Over 150 brands are already making marketing decisions based on this information.

Third-Party Verification

We’ve made several updates to our third-party verification program.

First, we’ve expanded our partnership with Nielsen to enable their Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) product to measure reach and in-target performance on desktop and mobile across eight additional markets, bringing the total to 25 global markets.

Second, we’re expanding our partnership with comScore, going beyond viewability to include in-target performance for Facebook properties in the US. We formed a partnership with comScore in early 2016 to enable viewability verification of our video impressions. While viewability remains an important metric, in-target reach — the metric that media plans are built around — is critical for evaluating a campaign’s success. To that end, we’re beginning tests with comScore to evaluate in-target reach for US audiences on desktop and mobile through their validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) product.

Third, we’ve made significant progress in extending our viewability measurement to more placements across Facebook’s apps and services. We started with video on Facebook, then we extended to video on Instagram, and today we’re extending to video on Audience Network with two partners: comScore and Integral Ad Science.

Fourth, we continue to make progress on the integrations we announced in November. We’ve completed the integration of display viewability on Facebook with comScore, Integral Ad Science and Moat. These partners will be able to provide metrics on when a display ad enters the Facebook screen and when the entire ad appears on the screen.

“IAS is excited to be Facebook’s first partner able to measure viewability and ad fraud for display ads across desktop and mobile. Brands and agencies continue to ask for greater transparency, and this is a huge step in the right direction.”
— Scott Knoll, CEO of Integral Ad Science

Lastly, we’re adding a new viewability verification partner, DoubleVerify. We’ll start the integration with DoubleVerify in the coming year — and when completed, it will support both video and display. With the addition of DoubleVerify, we now have 24 global third-party measurement partners available to advertisers, providing much-needed choice and flexibility when it comes to independent, third-party measurement.

Through our third-party measurement partners, advertisers are now able to verify or measure outcomes for every impression they buy on Facebook. We will continue to make investments in these integrations over the coming months to meet advertisers’ needs for transparency and verification.

London – January 30, 2017 – Mastercard is grateful that the Court has found in its favor with respect to the significant issues being heard in this case. The Court recognized the immense benefits that retailers derive from our payment system.  In rejecting the retailers’ claims, it found that Mastercard’s interchange fees did not restrict competition and were necessary for the functioning of its payment system.  In addition, the Court carefully analyzed Mastercard’s interchange rates for the entire period of the claim and found that those rates were significantly below the lawful level of interchange that could have been charged to the retailers for those benefits.

Mastercard views this decision as a confirmation of the legitimacy and importance of interchange in our payment system and a recognition that its value based interchange rates were lawful and compliant with competition law.

We remain committed to our retail partners and will continue to focus on helping grow their businesses and encouraging the adoption of ever more convenient, safe and secure payments.

Original author: James Thorpe