Mastercard

Mastercard is a global payments technology company founded in 1966, when a group of American banks established the Interbank Card Association, which later became Mastercard. The company is headquartered in Purchase, New York, and has been publicly traded on the NYSE under the ticker MA since its 2006 IPO.

Mastercard operates a global payment network that connects card-issuing banks and financial institutions with merchants and cardholders, enabling real-time transaction authorization and settlement across hundreds of currencies and countries worldwide. Its direct customers are banks, fintech companies, and financial institutions that issue Mastercard-branded cards — not end consumers. Beyond the core network, Mastercard provides data analytics, fraud detection, and cybersecurity intelligence services through units such as Mastercard Cybersecurity and Brighterion, an AI company it acquired in 2017.

The card product lines include Mastercard Credit, Debit, and Prepaid, as well as the premium-tier Mastercard World and Mastercard World Elite products. In payment security, the company operates Mastercard Identity Check, built on the 3D Secure standard. In 2019, Mastercard acquired the corporate services division of Nets for $2.85 billion, and in 2020 it acquired Finicity for $825 million to expand open banking capabilities in the US market.

Mastercard's primary direct competitor is Visa — the two companies together account for the majority of global card payment volume. American Express competes in the premium segment, while UnionPay, the Chinese network, leads globally by number of cards issued but is concentrated primarily in China. Mastercard and Visa share a similar business model: neither carries direct credit risk but instead collects fees on transaction processing.

Mastercard operates an office in Tel Aviv. The Israeli team focuses primarily on technology development, cybersecurity, and data analytics. Mastercard has pursued acquisitions and partnerships to expand its AI and payment security capabilities globally, and its Israel hiring typically targets R&D, information security, and data science roles.