Mastercard Inc Q3 FY2020 Earnings Call

Thank you, Casey, and good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2020 earnings call. We hope you are all safe and sound. With me today are Ajay Banga, our Chief Executive Officer; Michael Miebach, our President; and Sachin Mehra, our Chief Financial Officer. Following comments from Ajay, Michael and Sachin, the Operator will announce your opportunity to get into the queue for the Q&A session. It is only then that the queue will open for questions. You can access our earnings release, supplemental performance data and the slide deck that accompany this call in the Investor Relations section of our website, mastercard.com. Additionally, the release was furnished with the SEC earlier this morning. Our comments today regarding our financial results will be on a non-GAAP currency-neutral basis unless otherwise noted, but the release and the slide deck include reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to GAAP reported amounts. Finally, as set forth in more detail in our earnings release, I'd like to remind everyone that today's call will include forward-looking statements regarding Mastercard's future performance. Actual performance could differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Information about the factors that could affect future performance are summarized at the end of our earnings release and in our recent SEC filings. A replay of this call will be posted on our website. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Chief Executive Officer, Ajay Banga.

Thank you, Warren. Good morning, everybody. We are now a few quarters into the pandemic. And while individuals and businesses and society at large continue to face many challenges, we are also seeing some positive trends, both in terms of the trajectory of spending and the acceleration of digital payments that we are helping enable. For example, our SpendingPulse estimates for quarter three show U.S. retail sales up 1.8% versus a year ago, excluding auto and gas. We've also seen positive numbers in countries like the United Kingdom. Looking at the trends, volumes improved throughout the third quarter. In fact, if you exclude travel and entertainment, which has been particularly hard hit, our switched volume growth rates in September were similar to what we saw before the pandemic in Q4 of 2019. Using our four-phased framework, we have seen markets go through the containment and stabilization phases, and now we believe that most markets are in the normalization phase domestically, with some approaching growth. And so, consistent with this, we have seen our revenue going in the right direction this quarter as year-over-year currency-neutral growth was three percentage points better than last quarter, and the domestic spending trends so far in October continue to remain steady. Now, we have seen some improvement in domestic travels in the quarter, including spending in categories such as lodging and restaurants. Cross-border travel, however, remains constrained. And while we have seen some improvement in travel within the EU during the quarter, cross-border travel outside the EU has shown only limited recovery. We believe travel will improve and consumer confidence will recover as a result of improved testing and safety protocols being put in place, medical advances occurring, and as border restrictions are lifted, and there is increased international coordination of travel across borders. When cross-border travel does improve, we will be very well positioned to capitalize on that recovery. So, overall, we see signs of improvement. But, we’re not out of the woods yet, as we are seeing in places like Europe, restrictions being put back in place. As we said in the past, progress through the phases may not be linear. It's going to take some time. And it will be positively impacted by the broad availability of successful therapeutics and vaccines. During this time, we remain focused on the things we can control, continue to execute against our strategy, invest in our business for the longer term, and manage our expenses in a disciplined way. Our digital technologies help us drive the secular shift to electronic forms of payment that support our broad range of customers, banks, fintechs, neobanks, and merchants. We are growing our core payment capabilities in credit, debit, prepaid, and commercial with new and renewed deals. Our services, which are helping our customers and consumers adapt to the changing environment, are continuing to grow well, and they provide meaningful differentiation and revenue diversification. And our multi-rail capabilities are providing choice to customers and consumers by addressing a wide range of payment flows. So, with that, let me turn the call over to Michael.

Thanks, Ajay. Picking up where Ajay left off, we're positioning ourselves for the future by driving this accelerated shift towards electronic payments. According to our research, almost seven in ten people globally say the shift will likely be permanent. We believe that as the economies reopen, people will shop in stores again. But, e-commerce will remain elevated from pre-pandemic levels as behaviors have changed and payment preferences have shifted. Our research also shows that about 60% of consumers plan to use less cash, even after the pandemic subsides. As a result, merchants are becoming more digital and consumers and businesses are adapting to how they interact at the point of sale, both in-person and online. Regardless of how these trends play out, our solutions are available to support consumers, issuers, and merchants. The debt preferences and needs evolve, be it in-store or online. And we are partnering with digital enablers to bring our digital solutions to market at speed and at scale. Let me give you some examples. First, consumers. Consumers want choice. Whether they want to pay using contactless, card-on-file, QR, or via installments, we are enabling that choice. Contactless growth continues to be fueled by increasing consumer adoption. In the third quarter, contactless penetration represented 41% of in-person purchase transactions globally, up from 37% in the second quarter and 30% a year ago. At the same time, we are enabling a safe and simplified experience for consumers across digital channels with our tokenization capabilities. This foundational technology is growing rapidly, with the number of tokenized transactions doubling year-over-year in the third quarter, now accounting for 8% of our switched transactions. We're also enabling more consumers to participate in digital commerce. For example, Santander Chile has rolled out digital debit Mastercards to all of their Maestro card holders. This quarter alone, we won deals that will lead to about 10 million Maestro cards being migrated to Debit Mastercard in the near future. Second, let's talk about issuance. We have a set of digitally enabled products and solutions that drive this accelerated secular shift, including digital-first solutions tailored to fintechs and neobanks, and issuing plans with which we have an established leadership position. We're partnering with large global players like PayPal, as we make the PayPal business Debit Mastercard available to businesses in five new markets in Europe, in addition to its current availability in the U.S., the UK, and Germany. We've extended our deals with a neobank, one of the world's largest neobanks, and will maintain a leadership position with them in Brazil as one of the new markets as they expand their operations in Mexico and Colombia. Mastercard also helps fintechs build and scale their businesses. We've signed several deals with fast-growing neobanks around the world, like Nickel in France and Bnext in Spain. Third, we're focused on helping merchants as they shift to digital and develop omnichannel capabilities. For instance, we launched a POS capability in India with Worldline and Axis Bank that transforms smartphones into point-of-sale terminals with the ability to accept contactless QR and remote payments. In the buy now, pay later space, in addition to our previous partner announcements, we recently announced the partnership with TSYS to deliver installment capabilities to issuers. In addition, we're also piloting simplified shopping experiences using AI and computer vision, such as enhanced drive-thrus at White Castle and Sonic, and checkout-free pilots at Dunkin' and Circle K. And finally, we're partnering with digital enablers to bring our digital solutions to market. We just announced an expanded partnership with Marqeta, a digital processor, to introduce new products and launch additional card programs in new geographies. And talking about geographies, in Africa, we have partnered with Samsung, Airtel Africa, and Asante to enable access to digital financing for consumers, entrepreneurs, and merchants. In parallel, we're driving hard to grow our core products, leveraging these differentiated digital capabilities to set ourselves up well for the future. In the U.S., we are excited about our partnership with Chase to launch the new Freedom Flex Mastercard, offering card members cash back on everyday spend as well as our leading rewards benefits. We also expanded our relationship with Barclays Bank U.S., which will now include new products and services in addition to their consumer and small business credit portfolios. In Europe, we continue to strengthen our position. We signed a regional agreement with the Santander Group for their card business, securing a long-term partnership. We're also extending our relationship with ING, as they grow internationally. And we've agreed to a long-term renewal with Swedbank, our largest customer in the Nordics and Baltics, which will become an exclusive Mastercard customer. On the co-brand front, in the U.S., the Wayfair Mastercard with Citi has launched. And we will be the new exclusive network for the AARP Credit co-brand program. In Canada, we have extended our co-brand relationship with Walmart. And we're happy that Taobao just launched its Mastercard co-brand issued by Bank of China in Hong Kong and Macau. We're also focused on positioning ourselves for the return of travel. This includes partnerships with Emirates Skywards on their first co-brand credit card in the U.S. and a renewal of our exclusive co-brand agreement with Miles & More, the largest traveler loyalty program in Europe on their German portfolio. It also includes a focus on travel-oriented portfolios like WEX that you've heard us talk about over the last several quarters. We're also working hard to improve cross-border approval rates and optimize portfolios now with Cyber & Intelligence and Data & Analytics Services. Now, speaking of services, it is important to note that our services have played a critical role enabling the wins I just mentioned. For example, our renewal and extension with ING will include our data analytics and data insights services. Services are a material driver of our revenue growth and a source of diversification while we help our customers adapt quickly and securely as they navigate through the pandemic into a rapidly digitizing world. One way we're helping our customers is through our cyber services and the use of artificial intelligence, an area we have been investing in both organically and inorganically. We have developed a broad set of scalable AI capabilities, which have been integrated into our network, our products, and services. And here are some examples. Citibank is assessing our AI platform to determine enhanced capabilities to mitigate credit losses. And Itaú and Santander Mexico are using our AI to provide added security for consumers while ensuring good transactions are approved. And with that, let's turn to the account-to-account space, where we believe there are significant incremental flows to address. For the last several years, we've developed a set of assets to comprehensively address these opportunities at the infrastructure, applications, and services layers. We believe this combination allows us to best address the broad range of customer needs. At the infrastructure level, we continue to make good progress with our build-outs and have a strong position in all major geographic regions, including key markets like the U.S., the UK, Nordics, and Saudi Arabia. Building off our strong position in infrastructure, we're also making good progress in the application layer, utilizing our multi-rail capabilities. Starting on the consumer-to-merchant front, the Pay by Bank app in the UK, which extends our ability to compete for everyday spend along with our debit products, is growing both in consumer accounts and merchant acceptance. With Barclays set to launch with their 9 million mobile banking app customers before the end of the year, together with their customers already onboarded by HSBC, we will have around a third of the UK mobile banking customers enabled. We have streamlined our merchant onboarding process and currently have more than 700 merchants signed up, such as the WHSmith Group. At our distribution partners like Workday and others, we are well positioned to expand acceptance even further. In the bill pay space, several new partners will be supporting the Mastercard Bill Pay Exchange, including FIS, Wescom Credit Union, Payrailz, and MoCaFi on the consumer side and COBRA, PNC Bank, and CSG on the biller side. Bill Pay Exchange will now have access to approximately a third of bills paid annually in the U.S. and be able to reach about a quarter of active U.S. Bill Pay consumers. In the B2B space, we continue to develop the ecosystem around Mastercard Track Business Payment Service with Fiserv now live on the platform. We are also excited to announce an expansion of our longstanding strategic relationship with PayPal, who can now use Mastercard Send to power fund transfers to consumers and small businesses through all their brands, including Braintree, Zoom, Hyperwallet, and iZettle. And finally, we are continuing to make progress in the services layer, including consulting, fraud prevention, and a recent extension in the UK for our trace anti-money laundering services. In summary, we're managing our business through this normalization phase with agility, winning share, and have good deal momentum. We're driving the accelerated shift towards digital payments, and our clients see us differentiating ourselves with our services. We see domestic volumes rebound and are positioning ourselves well for the medium to long-term growth opportunity, including the return of travel through continued investment in our strategic priorities. With that, let me turn the call over to Sachin for an update on our financial results and operational metrics.

Thanks, Michael. So, turning to page 3, which shows our financial performance for the quarter on a currency-neutral basis and excluding the impact of gains and losses on the Company's equity investments. Net revenue was down 14%, reflecting the impacts of the pandemic and includes a 1 percentage point benefit from acquisitions. Operating expenses were down 5% year-over-year or down 8%, if you exclude the 3 percentage point impact of acquisitions. Operating income was down 20% and net income was down 26%, both of which include a 1 percentage point decrease from acquisitions. EPS was down 25% year-over-year to $1.60, which includes $0.03 of dilution related to our recent acquisitions, offset by a $0.03 contribution from share repurchases. During the quarter, we repurchased about $2.1 billion worth of stock and an additional $392 million through October 23, 2020. So, let's turn to page 4, where you can see the operational metrics for the third quarter. Worldwide gross dollar volume or GDV increased by 1% year-over-year on a local currency basis, reflecting the effects of the pandemic. U.S. GDV increased by 4% with debit growth of 20%, partially offset by a credit decline of 12%. Outside of the U.S., volume was flat. Cross-border volume was down 36% globally for the quarter. As we have previously mentioned, the pace of recovery in lower yielding intra-Europe volumes is stronger than other cross-border, which is higher yielding. Specifically, intra-Europe volume was down 23%, whereas other cross-border volume was down 49% as border restrictions were eased in Europe in advance of other locations. Turning to page 5. Switched transactions showed growth of 5% in the third quarter globally. We saw positive growth in switched transactions across most regions, aided in part by the continued adoption of contactless that Michael mentioned earlier. In addition, card growth was 5%. Globally, there are 2.7 billion Mastercard and Maestro-branded cards issued. Now, let's turn to page 6 for highlights on a few of the revenue line items, again described on a currency-neutral basis unless otherwise noted. The decrease in net revenue of 14% was primarily driven by a decline in cross-border volumes due to the effects of border restrictions and social distancing measures, partially offset by growth in GDV switched transactions and continued growth in services. As previously mentioned, acquisitions contributed approximately 1 percentage point to net revenue growth. As a reminder, the transaction with Nets did not close this quarter, as previously expected. Looking quickly at the individual revenue line items. Domestic assessments were up 5%, while worldwide GDV grew 1%. The 4 percentage point difference is primarily due to favorable mix. Cross-border volume fees decreased 48%, while cross-border volume decreased 36%. The 12 percentage point difference is due to adverse cross-border mix, mainly driven by a slower recovery in non-intra-Europe cross-border volumes that are high yielding compared to intra-Europe cross-border volumes. Transaction processing fees were up 1%, while switched transactions were up 5%. The 4 percentage point difference is primarily driven by the adverse cross-border mix I just mentioned. Other revenues were up 6%, including a 2 percentage point contribution from acquisitions. The remaining growth was driven by our Cyber & Intelligence and Data and Services solutions. Also, just as a reminder, growth in other revenues was impacted by a difficult year-ago comp. Finally, rebates and incentives were up 2%. Moving on to page 7. You can see that on a currency-neutral basis, total operating expenses decreased 5%. This includes a 3 percentage point increase related to acquisitions, which was lower than expected, primarily due to a delay in the closing of the transaction with Nets. Excluding acquisitions, expenses decreased 8%, which was also better than expectations, primarily related to actions taken to reduce advertising and marketing, travel, personnel costs, and professional fee-related expenses. Turning to page 8. Let's discuss what we've seen through the first three weeks of October. One point to note, while the week ending October 21st shows higher growth metrics relative to the prior week, this is being primarily driven by the timing of significant promotional activity by an e-commerce merchant and their competitors. Through the first three weeks of October, each of the metrics are in line with recent trends, adjusting for this e-commerce promotional activity. Commenting on the specific metrics, starting with switched volumes, we believe that most markets are in the normalization phase domestically, with some approaching growth. When you look at how people are spending, card-present growth rates remain steady, with strength in retail categories such as groceries, offset by some declines in travel and entertainment. Card-not-present growth rates remain healthy. Trends in switched transactions remain steady, benefiting from increased contactless penetration. In terms of cross-border, intra-Europe continues to outpace other cross-border volumes. As previously mentioned, intra-Europe yields are lower than those of other cross-border volumes. So now turning to page 9, I'd like to provide you additional color on the cross-border trends across card-present and card-not-present. You can see the trends that we laid out through the course of the quarter continue. The e-commerce promotional activity I referenced also impacted cross-border growth for the week ending October 21st. In total, if you look at the gray line, total cross-border continues in a similar band. If you look at the orange line, card-present spend has declined slightly, following an uptick in travel over the summer holiday season. Card-not-present growth, which is the yellow line on the chart, continues to be resilient and has held up well. The green line represents card-not-present excluding online travel-related spend and remains positive. We continue to see strong growth across retail categories, particularly in discretionary areas like clothing and home improvement as well as in nondiscretionary categories such as groceries. This line was particularly impacted by the e-commerce promotional activity. One final point regarding all metrics. Given the recent increase in COVID-19 cases, we are closely monitoring the impact on spending of additional mitigation measures that are being put in place, particularly in Europe. Turning to page 10. I wanted to share our thoughts on the upcoming quarter. As we previously established, given the ongoing uncertainty, we will not be providing a forward view for net revenues at this time. We do intend, however, to continue to provide periodic updates to our operating metrics to help you understand the trends we are seeing. First, I'd like to make a few comments on how I see our business shaping up in light of the pandemic. The story in non-travel and entertainment domestic volumes is quite encouraging. Specifically, as Ajay mentioned, we are seeing volume growth rates excluding travel and entertainment in September, similar to what we were seeing pre-COVID in Q4 2019. The impact of the pandemic on travel and, in particular, on non-intra-Europe cross-border travel, remains significant. While we believe that cross-border will ultimately recover, it will take time for people to build their confidence in the safety of travel, and we believe that is tied to the broad availability of vaccines and therapeutics, likely towards the latter part of next year. As a reminder, we will see improved growth rates due to lapping the effects of the pandemic before that, starting in late March next year. All of this being said, we have always been well-positioned in the cross-border travel space, and we continue to build on this position of strength through various initiatives with existing and new partners, as Michael commented on. This will enable us to capitalize on the recovery in cross-border when it does occur. With that as background, I'd like to make a couple of comments to help you with your modeling of revenues for the quarter. First, as you have seen, non-intra-Europe cross-border travel has seen minimal recovery since the onset of the pandemic. Given that these volumes are significantly higher yielding than intra-Europe cross-border, this has resulted in a slower recovery in our cross-border revenues. As a reminder, this negative mix impacts both our cross-border volume fees and transaction processing fees, as you have seen in Q3. This will continue to be a factor, so long as this mix persists. Secondly, we expect rebates and incentives as a percentage of gross revenues to increase by 2 to 3 percentage points sequentially, reflecting normal seasonal trends and increased deal activity, as Michael mentioned. Now let's turn to operating expenses. Consistent with our four-phased framework, we’re managing through the pandemic and given that we are in the normalization phase, we continue to carefully manage our priorities in order to preserve our ability to invest in our key long-term growth drivers, digital, cyber, data and analytics, B2B, and multi-rail solutions. For Q4, we expect operating expenses to be down low single digits versus a year ago on a currency-neutral basis, excluding acquisitions. This reflects our continued focus on expense management as well as sequentially higher advertising and marketing spend related to promotional campaigns. With respect to M&A, we are pleased with the progress we have made toward securing regulatory approval for the transaction with Nets and now expect that transaction to close in the first quarter of 2021. Based on this timing and the planned closing of the Finicity acquisition this quarter, we expect acquisitions to contribute 0.5 percentage points to revenue and approximately 4 to 5 percentage points to operating expenses in the fourth quarter. Other items to keep in mind for Q4. Foreign exchange is expected to be a 1 percentage point headwind to revenues and a 0 to 1 percentage point headwind to operating expenses. On the other income and expense line, we are at an expense run rate of approximately $100 million per quarter, given the prevailing interest rates. This excludes gains and losses on our equity investments, which are excluded from non-GAAP metrics. And finally, we expect a tax rate of approximately 20% for the quarter, based on the current geographic mix of our business. And with that, I will turn the call back over to Warren.

Thank you, Sachin. Casey, we're now ready for the Q&A session.

Great. Thank you. And your first question comes from Craig Maurer with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. So, synthesizing everything you're saying and piecing together what you said on cross-border, it sounds like, effectively, we should be modeling an extended period here of depressed yields perhaps, through the start of 2022. Is that how you're thinking about things?

Hey Craig, it's Sachin. So, let me take that one. I think the key point to focus on is this. When considering cross-border travel, you should differentiate between intra-Europe and non-intra-Europe travel. Additionally, it's important to consider personal travel in relation to business travel. Our expectation regarding the evolution of these factors is linked to the availability of vaccines and therapeutics. We believe personal travel will rebound faster than business travel. For Mastercard, personal travel constitutes a significant part of our overall cross-border transactions. Therefore, as travel begins to recover, we anticipate that personal travel, which represents a significant portion of our total cross-border, will return more quickly than business travel. This will be connected to the progression of the COVID vaccine and therapeutic developments. That's how I would think about it.

Okay. Considering the other commentary you had, refresh our memory in terms of the yield dynamic in card-not-present/e-com versus card-present, considering it seems that obviously the direction is favoring e-com at this point.

Look, I mean, here is what I tell you, in terms of the opportunity for yields on card-present versus card-not-present is the way you should think about it, generally, at the baseline, the yields are pretty consistent. Clearly, when you have card-not-present transactions, you have the opportunity to leverage the strong capabilities we at Mastercard have from a services standpoint, such as our fraud and analytics capabilities, which when layered on and are more relevant in the card-not-present environment, cause for the yields to be higher in card-not-present over card-present.

Your next question comes from the line of Ramsey El-Assal from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Yes. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. You mentioned during the call that tokenization is being highlighted for the first time with these metrics. Looking into them, the number of tokenized transactions has doubled compared to last year and now makes up 8% of the total. Can you provide more details on the developments in tokenization? Specifically, how is the implementation of Strong Customer Authentication in Europe affecting the rollout of tokenization? Also, what tools are you using to facilitate this rollout? For instance, will there be a liability shift similar to what occurred with EMV, and how do you expect this to progress over the next couple of years, given the significant shift towards e-commerce? Thank you.

Hey Lisa, it's Ajay. And I'm going to kick it off, and I'm going to let Michael. He is the European expert. First, tokenization to us is building the foundation for safe, secure and frictionless online contactless kind of commerce. But, think of tokenization as being extendable also to card-present transactions eventually. So that wherever card data exchanges hands in any form, the actual data that exchanges hands is not the data that can be reused without unlocking cryptocurrency. That's the objective. Then also, therefore, provides us with a terrific rail to see more transactions than we used to in the past, which by the way is one of the reasons why our transaction percentage, as we see, is growing up from over the last decade from 40-something percent to 55-plus percent today. And that enables our data and services business to power itself on a higher level of growth. That's the logic of tokenization. That's the investment in it.

Despite the fact that Ajay isn't European, I think he told the European story. The only thing I would add is, as we did the foundational work over the last two, three years around tokenization, particularly the merchant tokenization, our MPRM product, we've made the implementation so much easier. We're talking about a very light lift for merchants, which is driving some of this acceleration here.

And by the way, Lisa, this is useful for merchants, as Michael said. It's useful for fintech. It's useful for banks. It's useful from a point of view of governments, because it adds security in the system. This is a good thing. And it's standardized across the industry, which makes it get to scale.

Your next question comes from the line of Darrin Peller with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

When we look at the other revenue line, it appears to be slightly higher than we anticipated. Could you provide more details on what contributed to that increase and the investments you're making in that area? I understand this category encompasses many of your newer services. What can we expect in terms of opportunities for further growth investments in the next year or two? Thank you.

Sure. In the other revenue category, a significant portion of our services revenue is included. There are various other revenue items tied to our acquisitions in the services sector that also fall under this category. Essentially, the other revenue line contains multiple elements. It's important to note that our services capabilities and the revenue generated from them remain in high demand and are experiencing solid growth. This demand from our customers is crucial. The growth we observed in other revenue during Q3 was 6% excluding acquisitions, with the growth from acquisitions at about 4%. We faced a challenging year-over-year comparison because last year, this revenue line grew by 30% excluding acquisitions. The prior growth was significantly driven by robust demand for our consulting capabilities in the third quarter. Moving forward, I would suggest viewing services and other revenue as segments that will continue to outpace our core growth. They are in strong demand, which includes both organically developed services and those acquired, like Ethoca and RiskRecon. Given the current trend toward increased digitalization, these services are even more sought after.

The only thing I'll add to that is that the services in other revenue represent a variety of different businesses. It's not just one thing. There are data analytics, loyalty, and cybersecurity, which can lead to some variability across quarters. When we started out 10 years ago, that segment accounted for 4% to 5% of our revenue. It is currently running—Sachin, at what level?

So, it's north of 25%...

Somewhere between 25% and 30% of our revenue, depending on the quarter. So, you can imagine the focus that Michael and team are putting into it, you should expect to see more activity in that space in data analytics, in AI, in cybersecurity. You should expect Michael to be continually driving new differentiation there.

Your next question comes from the line of Bob Napoli from William Blair. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Just a question on the M&A side. It seems like there is a lot more regulatory scrutiny of acquisitions by large tech companies, including Visa and Mastercard. You sound very optimistic about closing Finicity and Nets; obviously, these are receiving significant oversight. Are you experiencing a heavier regulatory review of acquisitions? And does that impact your M&A strategy at all?

Hey Bob, Michael here. So, we're actively engaging on the two that you mentioned. That's Nets and that's Fincity. As Sachin pointed out earlier, we are confident that Nets will close into the first quarter. We're very happy that we get the intrinsic approval from the EU Commission there. We're working through the remedy. So, that is a process that's well understood and on track for us. So, a high level of confidence there. When it comes to Finicity, we continue to be quite optimistic as we work this through and it will close in the fourth quarter. Now, the level of oversight and engagement around antitrust topics, we're obviously aware of that. And we're following a news as everybody else does. Now, when we look at Finicity where the confidence that I've just talked about there really relates to why we like Finicity. We like Finicity because they have really strong data management practices. We like them because they have a light of day set of relationships with banks and with fintechs on both sides, so very transparent business model. We like them particularly because of the approach that they took to create a world of open banking that really favors the consumer to use their data with their consent and only with their consent. They created the financial data exchange around it, which is now the emerging standard globally on how to do open banking in a proper way. So, we feel really quite good about that. Other acquisitions, as they come, we'll continue to work within the respective regulatory environment. So, not any change to our M&A strategy.

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Kupferberg with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

I just wanted to ask two things. First, just the delta between switched transaction growth and transaction processing revenue growth, I think there was about a four-point spread there? And then, just a number of issuers have talked about improved U.S. credit volumes in September and October. Wondering if you guys saw that as well as you deconstruct the domestic volume numbers. Thanks.

Hi Jason, it's Sachin. On transaction processing fees and the delta between transaction processing fees and the growth in switched transactions, it is primarily being driven by the adverse cross-border mix. As you know, there is a component of our cross-border revenues which come in transaction processing fees. And when the proportionate share of intra-Europe versus non-intra-Europe is tilting towards in favor of intra-Europe transactions, it has the adverse impact, which is what you're seeing come through there. And in Q3, that's exactly what's driving that delta. On your second question on performance of credit, we do have actually seen an improvement in credit performance quarter-over-quarter, much in line with what you're learning from the issuer side. In fact, I would say, across all regions, there has been good improvement in our volume metrics. And the reality is, as we are starting to see strength come through relative to the second quarter in terms of domestic volumes and transactions, that's manifesting itself in the debit improvements we've seen as well as on the credit side. So, it's very consistent with what we're hearing from the issuance.

Your next question comes from the line of Tien-tsin Huang with JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

I know there are many questions about yields, and I recognize that geography plays a role in cross-border transactions. Craig inquired about the differences between card-present and card-not-present transactions. Generally, are there any comments or observations regarding product mix and its impact on yields, as well as client mix, particularly if spending is shifting towards larger merchants and marketplaces?

Hi. Tien-tsin. So, the color, which in addition to the commentary which we've just shared around yields in general as well as the mix shift which is taking place between intra-Europe cross-border and non-intra-Europe cross-border is, travel, by and large happens to be more credit-oriented. And recovery of travel ties closely to how the metrics show up on credit as well. And so, the only point I can make is that as we start to see travel come back, which we very well expect to come back, and like I said, personal travel probably before business travel. I think, from a product standpoint, what you can expect to see is that the credit volumes start to come back in a more meaningful manner just because that's the more prominent product to use there. The other piece is certainly prepaid as well in the travel business. As you know, we've got a bunch of prepaid products which are very focused on travel-oriented business. And that too we'll start to see that come through once travel comes back.

Your next question comes from the line of James Faucette with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Great. Thanks. Just a quick question for me on taxes. They came in a little bit higher than we had modeled. Is that attributable, once again, to geographic mix, and we should expect to see that normalize as overall trends and volumes normalize? And I guess, just a quick question there. And then, looking a little bit longer and at new products, can you talk a little bit about how we should think about the Buy-Now-Pay-Later roadmap and the MCI platform? I know that earlier this quarter, you announced an agreement with Global Payments, TSYS. How should we think about the economics of that platform developing and impacting Mastercard's business overall?

James, regarding the tax rate, it's influenced by a change in the geographical distribution of our earnings. I've previously shared our tax outlook for Q4, which reflects this current mix. In the long run, I anticipate that as things return to normal, we should see a similar adjustment in our tax rate as the mix stabilizes back to pre-COVID patterns.

Yes. In the Buy-Now-Pay-Later space, this area is very active. We've engaged in a range of partnerships over the last couple of quarters, including Jifiti, Divido, our investment in Pine Labs, our acquisition of Vyze, and now TSYS. We approach the market in different regional ways, and we shouldn’t forget Afterpay. Each region has different models for entering the market. Regarding the economics questions you asked, the market dynamics vary. Overall, our involvement in Buy-Now-Pay-Later doesn’t focus on the credit aspect, but rather on connecting merchants and lenders. You should consider this as a fee-driven model. We don’t see any credit impact on our profit and loss statement, but it’s a solid transaction business that is directly linked to payments, putting us in an optimal position to benefit from it.

Your next question comes from the line of Bryan Keane with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

I was going to kind of ask a follow-up on that. And I understand credit's being impacted by travel. Just trying to think post pandemic, is it possible that we see credit continuing to lag versus norms because of these new models, new lines of credit like BNPL and maybe the growth in debit, the outsized growth continues, just trying to think about some of the changes post pandemic and how you guys think about that. Thanks.

Well, let me start on that. First of all, picking up on Sachin's earlier comment, credit and travel, there's a high degree of correlation. As travel comes back, you'll see that reflected in credit. I think, generally, the point about us providing choice in payments to consumers is the key point. So, we'll see credit, we'll see debit, QR push payments. That's why we have a multi-rail strategy to benefit from all that, regardless of what the mix is. But, I do expect credit to come back, while we saw a significant growth in debit on the shorter term. So, that would be my outlook on the short-term future.

Think about whether you say credit or a credit product or credit on a Buy-Now-Pay-Later product, it's still credit. It's pay later. They're either paying now, paying later, or paying in advance. Paying in advance is prepaid, paying now is debit or pay by account, which is again our multi-rail approach, or credit, which is credit cards or Buy-Now-Pay-Later. We are not going to funnel consumers into one place or the other. Our job is to offer choice to our partners, merchants, fintechs, and banks, and then let them choose the right approach for their consumer base. Our approach is that there is a need for some degree of a pay later product. Whether it's on one rail or the other are just two options that we would offer both of.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Donat with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

I wanted to follow up on your comments regarding the spending trends in October and the impact of a major e-commerce merchant. Do you think this could be leading to a shift in traditional holiday spending, or is that not a significant factor? Additionally, could you please share how much travel typically influences the increase in spending activity from the third to the fourth quarter?

All right, Chris, it's Michael here. So, let me start with that. So, when we look ahead from this October week into the rest of the year and the holiday spending season, I think we can already tell this is going to be a holiday spending season that's a little bit different in terms of when and how and where consumers spend. In fact, it is our view that it has actually started. So, it started earlier than what we've seen in previous years, really with that particular e-com merchant promotion. So, as we look ahead, our SpendingPulse is actually forecasting, if you take out automotive and gas, a growth in U.S. retail sales of 2.4% throughout this holiday spending season. And the categories, we talked about them earlier, where we see some of that spend will go predominantly, continued trend of home furnishing, anything that happens around the kind of diameter of your home. Athleisure, clothing, and electronics, that's what we expect to outperform. What will help all this is some of the shift to omnichannel on the merchant side, so we'll see the continued rise of digital. But, at the same time, wherever possible, in light of social distancing measures, we also look out for shopping local trends in your community, in your city. So, both of that will play out. But, that's our view on next months to come.

Your next question comes from Sanjay Sakhrani with KBW. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Michael, I know you mentioned the results of surveys you conducted on the usage of electronic payments. But, I'm curious if you have a view as to whether or not consumers are likely to travel more in 2021 versus 2020, all else equal. I know, there's a lapping effect. But, do you think that you could see a better magnitude of improvement in cross-border, all else equal, as people are getting vaccinated? And then, second question is just on the non-travel cross-border spending volume growth. Do you think you could still grow 20-plus percent in 2021 and beyond? Thanks.

Hey Sanjay. I wish I knew exactly what would happen. However, we believe that personal travel, especially domestic travel, is bouncing back more quickly. People want to see their families and there’s significant pent-up demand after being cooped up for so long. I recently booked a holiday, and I know others are doing the same. So, while this may be a somewhat uninformed perspective, as Sachin mentioned earlier, our travel exposure mostly leans towards domestic travel first, followed by business travel, which we expect to increase. It won't be an immediate switch next year; rather, recovery will gradually develop as travel corridors and testing protocols for airlines and airports improve. There will be several steps leading us back to travel, starting with personal travel. Now, regarding the second part of your question, I'll turn it over to Sachin.

Yes. I'd like to add a comment on what Michael mentioned. Regarding personal travel, it's helpful to observe the current situation in domestic travel. We're starting to see a resurgence in domestic travel, with personal travel picking up more quickly. Business travel is also beginning to return, albeit at a slower pace on the domestic front. If we consider the patterns for cross-border travel, especially long-haul journeys, we anticipate that the eagerness for personal travel will rebound sooner than for business travel, which will also eventually return. This will be closely linked to the progress with vaccines and therapeutics. It's crucial for us to monitor this, as consumer confidence will significantly influence how willing people are to board planes for extended flights. Regarding non-travel cross-border issues, we're witnessing ongoing secular trends. The digitization of payment flows is increasing, and we're enhancing our capabilities to support these trends. We don't expect significant differences in the way e-commerce and cross-border activities will evolve in the long run. More merchants are adopting omnichannel strategies, which is vital. In the past, smaller merchants often focused solely on physical point-of-sale acceptance, but they are now transitioning to omnichannel environments. We are actively working to support this shift through various initiatives like card-on-file and tokenization. We aim to seize these secular trends, and we anticipate that the non-travel card-not-present component will continue to experience robust growth moving forward.

Your next question comes from the line of Ramsey El-Assal from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

I wanted to ask you about Central Bank backed digital currencies. And it seems like that's becoming a much more real option that's being explored by central banks. Can you give us your thoughts about the sort of the opportunities or challenges for Mastercard when it comes to central banks kind of getting directly involved in addition on digital coins? And then, just a quick bolt-on there. Any update on Click to Pay? And apologies if you already addressed it, but just any update there in terms of how it's progressing in the context of the environment we’re trying to close in? Thanks.

Sure, here’s the rewritten Earnings Call remark: Michael here. Let me address the second part of your question first. We are making significant progress with Click to Pay in terms of consumer rollout and adding merchants, targeting 10,000 merchants in the U.S. Regarding the consumer rollout, we've previously discussed push provisioning with major banks, particularly Citi, and this is growing at double-digit rates, which is very encouraging. An interesting data point is that about a third of transactions are from returning users, indicating that consumers are beginning to build a habit around this service. We are currently planning international expansion with our EMVCo partners, and I can mention three countries set to be included next year: Australia, Canada, and Brazil. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) have become a major topic, especially in the context of COVID, as many governments are interested in modernizing their payment systems. Before the pandemic, various governments were already exploring CBDCs, and the crisis has prompted even more to consider this as a tool. We are engaging in meaningful discussions with a wide array of governments worldwide to determine the best approach for their needs. Prominent examples include Sweden's Riksbank, which is considering CBDCs for a cashless future, the Bahamas looking at the costs of cash, and South Africa focusing on financial inclusion. Each government has different motivations, and we are working with them to understand these better. We believe that the framework for a central bank digital currency is crucial, especially in terms of resilience in financial infrastructure, while the private sector can drive innovation on top of that foundation. We have invested in cryptocurrency assets for years and lead in crypto-related patents, positioning us well in this space. Our experience in consulting with governments enhances our relevance. One important aspect of intellectual property is that once a CBDC is established, how consumers utilize it will matter significantly. Therefore, linking it to an acceptance network is critical, and we hold patents in that area to ensure these transactions integrate smoothly into our network, allowing us to provide value. So, this is a significant topic for us, and we are supportive of any initiatives that make sense while actively engaging with governments around the globe.

Thanks, Michael. I see we're getting close to the top of the hour. Just to wrap up, if you have any comments?

Well, I do have comments because it's not one call, that is a very special call here. And I'll tell you why. First of all, thanks for your questions. And before I hand it back to Ajay, I do want to acknowledge that Ajay will be taking on his new role as the Executive Chairman at the start of the next year. So, it will actually be his last earnings call as CEO. So, I want to thank Ajay for his tremendous leadership all throughout. He's making gestures right now. You should see him. I know he has built close relationships with many of you, and I look forward to doing direct and continue to provide you straightforward information about Mastercard, about our business and what we do. On a personal note to you, Ajay, I'd like to thank you for all your help during the transition period, and I look forward to continuing to work with you in our new roles. Ajay, over to you.

Thank you, Michael. And I actually was counting back during this call. And this is my 44th earnings call. And I hope you, Michael, have a similar run. I do want to thank all of you who’ve been so supportive of our Company during my time over the last decade and for taking the long-term view and for trusting us to make the right investment choices to drive growth for this Company over that long term. You've seen the results. We've grown our suite of core products. We've developed world-class digital capabilities that have resulted in significant share growth over time with banks, with fintechs, with merchants. We've developed a risk set of services that both support those core payment products; they also help to diversify our revenues. And we are a true multi-rail payments provider. We have positioned ourselves for growth in new payment flows like B2B as well as in areas beyond payments such as open banking and digital identity. From 2009 to 2019, revenues have grown over three times from $5.1 billion to $16.9 billion. Adjusted net income has grown almost five times from $1.5 billion to $7.9 billion. And the share price has reflected this performance, this morning's performance notwithstanding. Michael has an awesome company with a wide area of assets and capabilities in an industry with secular tailwinds. Yes, we have to continue to execute while investing for the next decade. And I have no doubt, challenges will lie ahead like the pandemic that is still with us, economic and societal challenges, as well as nationalistic tendencies. But, I also have no doubt whatsoever, in Michael's skills as a leader and in the quality of the wonderful people in this Company, as we look ahead. Thank you. Have a great day.

And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.