Bringing More Value
To Every Transaction
A look inside MasterCard
Global Technology and Operations
Anywhere. Any time. Every time.
Right now someone, somewhere in the world, is using a
MasterCard®-branded card. It is the preferred way to pay for millions
of people, and they count on us to be there for them every time.
And we are, thanks in large part to the expertise and innovation of MasterCard’s Global Technology and Operations team.
Millions of times a day, every day, we process transactions with the reliability that the world has come to expect of MasterCard.
Our processing strength is at the very heart of our promise to customers and their cardholders. MasterCard is committed to
using our processing expertise and flexibility to deliver customized
business value and business solutions to financial institutions.
Beyond the next transaction, we are here to build strong
partnerships. We invite you to take a closer look at how our investment in technology is bringing more value to
our customers every day. Welcome to MasterCard’s Global
Technology and Operations headquarters.
Warm regards,
W. Roy Dunbar
President, Global Technology and Operations
MasterCard International
A look inside MasterCard Global Technology and Operations
Delivering On Our Promise
The MasterCard Global Technology and Operations
center is MasterCard’s world processing headquarters.
MasterCard’s processing experts have been located in
St. Louis, Missouri for more than 30 years. Every day
cardholders use MasterCard-branded payment cards at millions of acceptance locations around the world.
We have processed trillions of dollars in transactions
over our network.
When you think about it, every transaction is a series of handshakes. The cardholder agrees to pay the financial
institution that issues the MasterCard card (the “issuer”).
The merchant agrees to provide the cardholder with
goods or services. The issuer agrees to pay the merchant’s
financial institution (the “acquirer”). The acquirer agrees
to pay the merchant.
At the center of it all, MasterCard agrees to make sure
every transaction goes smoothly, managing the software
and hardware that makes all of these handshakes possible.
This is the brand promise to our customers—the heart of what we do here—and what MasterCard is all about.
Our goal is to bring more value to every transaction,
making it a secure, reliable, and rewarding experience
for customers and cardholders alike.
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MasterCard International Incorporated
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Building the Future
MasterCard’s Global Technology and Operations are
housed in a 550,000 square-foot facility that features
an industry-leading data center. MasterCard has invested more than USD $136 million in the facility
to ensure that we will always be here for customers and their cardholders. The result is a facility that houses
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a fast, reliable and scaleable processing platform, 010111000101011000011001010111001010010010110000111010001010110000110010101110
as well as a suite of applications that deliver high levels
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of performance and intelligence.
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Beyond the milestones we’ve already achieved, we’re
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constantly improving: Our technologists continue to
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develop new and faster ways of accurately processing
data, creating a new generation of software applications
that will drive commerce in the 21st century. Investing
in and developing the technologies of tomorrow, we are
setting new standards daily.
Driving innovation is a global IT staff of thousands. Many of the world’s leading technologists in the
payments industry work here and have an unparalleled
depth of experience and expertise in every aspect of
payment processing. This facility is regularly named one of the Best Places to Work in IT by Computerworld,
and our staff and projects are often cited as exemplary.
Global Technology and Operations
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First it was barter, then currency. Today, information
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drives commerce, and the purpose of our Global
Technology and Operations center is to manage its flow
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among cardholders, merchants, and financial institutions.
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The heart of MasterCard’s processing is a sophisticated
platform of systems that offers speed and flexibility—
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and that helps banks around the world provide unique
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payment services for cardholders and merchants in
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thousands of markets. The systems offer unprecedented
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levels of security, while giving banks the ability
to customize and respond to local banking rules 101100000001010110
or changing consumer demands.
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MasterCard’s global processing operations are integrated
worldwide, so we can ensure that the same high levels 010010110000111010
of reliability and availability are delivered around the
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globe. In addition, this unified mass of IT expertise
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enables MasterCard to deliver superior innovation that
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helps banks get to market rapidly.
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Our customers tell us MasterCard’s sophisticated and
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flexible processing approach is leading the payments
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industry. With our new technology and operations center,
an entirely redeveloped and deployed core processing
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platform, and a global force of IT experts, MasterCard
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has the processing solutions that customers need and
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cardholders count on.
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High Reliability
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Our network operates virtually without disruption.
That level of reliability far exceeds many industries 101011000011001010
and is a testament to our commitment of always
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being available for our customers and cardholders.
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Global Technology and Operations 5
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Managing Information Flow
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Transaction Basics
Mission Control
Most MasterCard transactions move through three stages:
authorization, clearing, and settlement:
We have to be ready any time of day or night, every day, to
process transactions quickly and accurately. The Data Center
and Operations Command Center make it all possible.
Authorization
Here, highly-trained experts monitor the functioning and health of our computers, global telecommunications
network, credit and debit activity. Many of the most
qualified professionals in our industry carefully monitor
not only our own equipment worldwide, but also our
customers’ networks.
As we mentioned earlier, there are usually two financial
institutions involved in every transaction, the “issuer” and the “acquirer.” The issuer is the financial institution that
issues the card to the consumer. The acquirer is the financial
institution that processes transactions for the merchant.
Sometimes, the issuer and acquirer are the same financial
institution, and MasterCard’s payment switching services
aren’t required. But when they’re different, the acquirer
sends the transaction to us, so we can forward it to the issuer
for approval.
That step is critical: Because the issuer has a relationship with the cardholder, it is the appropriate institution to
approve the transaction. When the issuer sends us that
approval, we forward it to the acquirer, who notifies the
merchant that the purchase has been approved.
When a customer has a network problem, we detect
it immediately and contact the financial institution to develop a fast solution.
The result: Cardholders can make the purchases they want. They don’t have to give it a second thought, and neither do the financial institutions. We’re working behind the
scenes, 24/7, to make sure of it.
Our part of all of this happens in an instant (in fact, about
120 milliseconds), and we do it as many as 40 million times*
in a single day.
Clearing
The next step is to “clear” the transaction, capturing all of the pertinent data and sending it to the issuer for posting
to the account. This data includes the name of the merchant,
purchase amount, date, and other transaction details.
Settlement
The final step is to “settle” funds between the issuing and acquiring institutions, meaning we transfer funds
to ensure that merchants get paid in a timely way. Daily, 001110100010101100001100101011100101001001011000011101000101011000011001010111
we transfer the equivalent of billions of dollars—
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exchanging 160 forms of currency—among thousands
of financial institutions worldwide.
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* The busiest time for us occurs during the last few weeks of the year around the
holidays, building up to Christmas. Other particularly busy times in the U.S. include
Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
Global Technology and Operations
7
Always On
Always Ready
The Data Center generates enough power to support a city of 30,000 people and can operate indefinitely
on back-up generators. We are staffed around the clock
and protected inside a specially-built facility impervious
to extreme weather conditions, including fire, flood,
tornadoes, and earthquakes (in fact, the buildings are
designed to meet the California earthquake code—
more than adequate for Missouri).
MasterCard is at the forefront of disaster recovery and
business continuity in the financial services industry. We call
it “operational resiliency”— our best-practices approach for
being a reliable partner regardless of the challenge.
The catalyst for our confidence is a vast network that includes:
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743 miles of conduit
412 miles of wire
100 miles of copper cable
160 miles of optic fibers
2.8 miles of cable tray underneath raised floors
360 data cabinets
652+ terabytes of storage
Beyond addressing the traditional needs for disaster
recovery planning (such as power outages and software
problems), we’re managing the new concerns of the 21st
century, including terrorist attacks, military conflicts, and
global epidemics. We’re also embracing new government
regulations that require institutions such as ours to have
strong business continuity plans that encompass the
breadth of our value chain. We collaborate closely with
customers, key service providers, and others to help
ensure that our network is always available.
To protect critical assets in every situation, we invest
heavily in redundant equipment, software, and processing
sites. In fact, we have redundant sites around the world
that are, at any given time, ready to meet data recovery
and capacity needs.
And the need for greater capacity—while maintaining
service quality—continues to grow. Customer expectations
have never been higher, demanding access to information
and transaction capability around the world, around the
clock. We can handle more than 4.1 billion instructions
per second, and our back-up facility can process 835
million instructions per second more.
To continue meeting customer demand, we combine
reliability, availability and recovery into a single strategy,
and a simple promise: to always be here for our customers
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and cardholders, ready to process the next transaction.
No matter what.
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Many of our security personnel are state-licensed firefighters
or emergency medical technicians. Plus, we work closely with
local police, firefighters, and ambulance services to protect
our facilities and staff.
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MasterCard International Incorporated
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As you might imagine, the security of transaction
Always Secure
information is one of our top priorities. We use
sophisticated physical security protocols, supported
by state-of-the-art building systems, to protect data.
So we’ll always be here for you.
Network Bandwidth On Demand—
An Industry First
To help ensure the security, efficiency and speed of our
operations, MasterCard created the first virtual private
network in our industry, which provides the backbone
for Banknet®, our global telecommunications network.
Managed in partnership with AT&T, Banknet is a very
efficient network, because it constantly adjusts to
variations in volume demand.
Today, Banknet network connects tens of thousands of
financial institutions with millions of acceptance locations
in hundreds of countries around the globe.
Each authorization transaction moves across Banknet
network in an average of just 120 milliseconds, and
we’re constantly working on new ways to reduce that
time even more. Saving milliseconds may not sound
important, until you multiply that savings by millions
of transactions each day. Since Banknet was upgraded to a virtual private network, it has saved customers more than 1,000 years in processing time.
MEETING DEMAND
We have the capacity to process as
many as 140 million transactions every hour worldwide—and have built a network that grows with demand.
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Flexibility. Innovation.
Value.
When MasterCard processes a transaction,
it delivers value for all participants in the payments
world—cardholders, merchants, and financial
institutions alike. We deploy tools that identify and
help mitigate fraud, which continues to decline.
We build in expansive loyalty programs that deliver
rewards for card usage. We protect the flow of
transactions with security, which makes electronic
commerce possible. We manage a data warehouse
that delivers intelligence to our customers and helps
them differentiate their card portfolios.
In short, MasterCard has built a platform that can
accommodate new and emerging ways to pay:
mobile phones...prepaid cards...contactless payments
and much more. As consumer preferences change,
MasterCard’s network is ready.
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Leading The Way
A powerful brand supported by advanced technology,
MasterCard’s Global Technology and Operations sets
a new benchmark for the payment industry. We will
continue to create new and better ways to strengthen
the trust that our customers and cardholders place
in us—and to bring ever greater value to every
transaction, every day.
Global Technology and Operations
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About MasterCard International
MasterCard International is a leading global payment
solutions company that provides a broad variety of
innovative services to support customer programs,
including credit, deposit access, electronic cash, businessto-business, and related payment needs.
MasterCard International Incorporated manages a family
of globally-accepted payment card brands, including
MasterCard®, Maestro®, and Cirrus®. We serve financial
institutions, consumers, and businesses in more than 210
countries and territories worldwide.
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For more information about how we’re evolving payment card processing for the 21st century, visit us at:
www.mastercardinternational.com
©2006
TBR-OPS-0406