MasterCard Is Ranked Number One on Bloomberg Businessweek`s Top 50

According to the Nilson Report, a journal dedicated to surveying and analyzing the payment systems industry, 48% of consumer purchases in the United Stated in 2010 were made using credit cards and that statistic could swell to 59% by the year 2015.

Globally, the shift to plastic is occurring at an even faster rate, which is good news for big payment processor MasterCard who benefits from a greater percentage of purchase volume outside of the U.S. than its rival Visa - 64% and 47%, respectively.

The chief executive officer of MaterCard, Ajay Banga, is hoping to increasingly persuade consumers worldwide to forgo using cash in favor of their MasterCard. Currently, 15% of retail transactions across the globe are made via a debit card, credit card or by another electronic means. Banga has his sights set on increasing that percentage, and has opted to declare a war on cash.

"The war on cash was really a rallying cry for everyone to focus on the 85 percent," said Banga According to Business Week.

MasterCard went public back in 2006. By 2011 it was ranked number four on the Standard & Poor`s 500 stock index of best performers. Because analysts have revealed their expectations to see a 17% increase in the company’s earnings-per-share during 2012, it now sits at number 1 on the most recently-released Bloomberg Businessweek list of the 50 top-performing companies. Visa was not eligible for the BBW50 because it only started trading in 2008 - companies must be publicly traded for five years before being considered.

In 2010, Visa processed some 39% of credit card purchases in the United States by volume while MasterCard handled 23%, as estimated by the Nilson Report.

MasterCard has brokered deals with Google get in on procession a portion of their smartphone-generated Google Wallet payment transactions and is currently involved with Intel in attempting to make online shopping even more secure for consumers.

"Ajay Banga has really energized the company. They’ve become an aggressive challenger to Visa," says David Togut, an analyst at investment bank Evercore Partners, according to Business Week.

Banga and MasterCard will have to keep on making those high-calibur deals in order to overtake Visa.

"We are really a technology company," says Banga as reported by Business Week.

Lauren Palmer

Lauren Palmer is a freelance writer who is a regular contributor to a variety of online and print publications. Although she has much to say about many subjects, she specializes in topics pertaining to personal finance. She holds a bachelor’s degree from NYU in journalism.