MasterCard Profit Rises 70 Percent as Card Purchases Increase

MasterCard Inc., the second-biggest
U.S. credit-card company, said profit climbed 70 percent to a
record as consumers charged more purchases.

First-quarter net income rose to $214.9 million, or $1.57 a
share, compared with $126.7 million, or 94 cents per share, a
year earlier, the Purchase, New York-based company said today in
a statement. MasterCard was expected to earn $1.16 a share, based
on the average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

MasterCard shares have tripled since Chief Executive Officer
Robert Selander took the company public a year ago, capitalizing
on consumers' growing preference for credit and debit cards over
cash and checks. Earnings have also jumped at Visa International
Inc., the world's biggest credit-card company, which said last
year it will go public as well.

``We are bullish on the long-term prospects for
MasterCard,'' analyst Timothy Willi of A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc.,
which rates the stock ``hold,'' wrote in a note to clients this
week. ``Consumers, businesses and government are making cards
their preferred method of payment.''

Revenue rose 24 percent to $915.1 million, while expenses
climbed 8.2 percent to $601.2 million.

MasterCard credit- and debit-card spending increased 16
percent to $509 billion on a local-currency basis, and
transactions jumped 19 percent to 4.2 billion, the company said.

Cash and checks fell from 77 percent of U.S. consumer
payments in 1995 to 50 percent in 2005, while cards rose from
around 21 percent to 40 percent during that period, Willi at A.G.
Edwards wrote in an April 30 report to clients, citing data from
the Nilson Report in Oxnard, California. Nilson estimates that by
2010, card-based payments will account for around 56 percent of
consumer payments, while cash and checks will be down to around
29 percent.

``During the past 10 years, card-based payments have
aggressively displaced paper-based payments,'' Willi said.

Profit Margin

Shares of the company slid 9.7 percent on Feb. 9, the
biggest drop since MasterCard went public, after Selander
declined on a conference call with analysts to forecast continued
growth in profit margins. They rose $3.17 yesterday, or 2.8
percent, to $114.85 in composite trading on the New York Stock
Exchange.

A lawsuit accusing MasterCard of anticompetitive behavior,
brought by rival card networks American Express Co. and Discover
Financial Services, ``could put downward pressure on shares,'' as
could the expected initial public stock offering of Visa
International, according to analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The lawsuit is scheduled for trial in federal court next
year.

MasterCard in April 2006 began charging card issuers for all
foreign transactions using U.S.-issued cards. It used to assess a
fee only if it converted the related currency to U.S. dollars.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Joseph N. DiStefano in New York at
.