Whois & Analysis for mastercardbusiness.com

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.

A debit card (also known as a bank card or check card) is a plastic payment card that can be used instead of cash when making purchases.

It is similar to a credit card, but unlike a credit card, the money comes directly from the user's bank account when performing a transaction.

A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services, based on the cardholder's promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts so paid plus other agreed charges.

The card issuer (usually a bank) creates a revolving account and grants a line of credit to the cardholder, from which the cardholder can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance.

A stored-value card is a payments card with a monetary value stored on the card itself, not in an external account maintained by a financial institution.

Stored-value cards differ from debit cards, where money is on deposit with the issuer, and credit cards which are subject to credit limits set by the issuer.

Another difference between stored-value cards and debit and credit cards is that debit and credit cards are usually issued in the name of individual account holders, while stored-value cards may be anonymous, as in the case of gift cards.

Stored-value cards are prepaid money cards and may be disposed when the value is used, or the card value may be topped up, as in the case of telephone calling cards or when used as a fare card.