From the beginning Mastercard was a credit card company, but in 1979, it had become an international integrated payment services company. Since then Mastercard has provided a full range of payment products and services.
In 1981, MasterCard was the first to classify the market. It issues the Gold Mastercard in the United States to target customers with higher spending power, and it also issues Mastercard Travelers Checks. In 1985, the MasterCard commercial card was issued. In 1986, as a strengthening measure for MasterCard Gold Card, the MasterCard Service Help System was developed. In 1988, MasterCard launched MasterDebit, a debit card processed offline, now called MasterMoney. In the same year, Mastercard acquired Cirrus Systems. This company owns the largest automated teller machine (ATM) network in the United States and Canada. The following year, the world's largest ATM network was formed. Mastercard focused on adding value to its products in the 1990s. In 1990, it developed the Mastervalues ??POS discount program, which was quickly promoted in Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean after its successful implementation in the United States.
In the 1980s, bank cards with marriage relationships began to appear and became increasingly popular. In 1990, Mastercard launched its first co-branded card. The following year, special rules were adopted to approve the application process for co-branded cards, establishing Mastercard's dominance in this field. In 1993, 300 co-branded card applications were processed in the United States alone, and 40 million co-branded cards and bank cards with marriage relationships were issued. Co-branded cards have become an important force in the bank card market around the world. MasterCard extended its reach into online POS transfer business in 1990. It partnered with European Card International, European Check International and the US regional electronic funds transfer network to launch the world's first global online POS transfer program, named Maestro. In addition, in order to promote and operate the Maestro system in the United States, aestro U.S.A. was established. In 1992, Eurocard and Eurocheck International merged to form Europay International. Later, Mastercard and Europay formed Maestro International to manage Maestro's overseas business. By the end of 1993, Maestro had issued 1.1 billion cards. So far, Maestro card still maintains the momentum of rapid growth.
In order to enable member banks to obtain the highest efficiency and highest profits, Mastercard established Mastercard University in 1991. Initially, the university offered courses and instruction only to U.S. member banks and MasterCard employees. By 1993, the university offered a wider range of courses to all regions, and the content of each course was customized to meet the client's special considerations and could be added or deleted according to the client's needs.
In 1993, the MasterCard Purchase Card was launched to target the nearly $400 billion corporate purchasing power market in the United States. In the same year, MasterBanking, a Mastercard banking service, was launched in the United States. It is a 24-hour remote banking service and electronic money payment service.
In February 1997, Mastercard purchased 51% of Mondex International's shares. Mondex technology is a chip card based platform. This business initiative will accelerate the development of Mondex stored value cards and other smart card products and promote their promotion worldwide. At the same time, it also creates conditions for the formation of a globally unified standard chip-based payment product in the future.
How the Mastercard logo has evolved
As the Mastercard organization continues to grow, the design of its card products continues to reflect these changes. At first, in order to distinguish ICA members from special merchants, the "i" symbol was printed on the card. The issuing bank's logo is clearly visible on the card to highlight each bank.
Later, in 1969, the Master Charge symbol was introduced, which was a separate image logo. In 1970, the Master Charge logo took up the entire card frame. After nearly 10 years of unprecedented development, Master Charge evolved into MasterCard in 1979. As the MasterCard trademark became stronger, the association decided that from then on card issuers would only be allowed to occupy 25% of the card surface to identify their banks. But in 1984, MasterCard allowed the card issuer to occupy 60% of the card surface to mark its own bank; by 1987, the ratio increased to 80%; in 1990, it increased to 85%. The now familiar red and yellow logos also began to be introduced. MasterCard
The new logo symbolizes a new era for MasterCard. Its smaller size reflects the fact that MasterCard has gained enough recognition to free up more space to identify the card-issuing member banks. MasterCard created similar Cirrus and Maestro logos in 1992. Strengthens the association between various Mastercard products in the minds of customers.
In 1996, a new and revised Mastercard logo was introduced. The changes were: increasing the size of the letters with shadows, reducing the interlocking lines between the two spheres, and reducing the background. Change to dark blue. These changes increase the visibility and recognition of the logo and improve the overall strength of the trademark image. Starting in early 1997, the new MasterCard logo appeared on tens of thousands of member banks, tens of millions of merchants and billions of MasterCard cards. Along with the development of the economy and the improvement of people's living standards, it will increasingly penetrate into the hearts of consumers around the world.