Mastercard’s European payment volume grew a healthy 14% in the second quarter with ATV ticking up slightly. CEO Michael Miebach said that “spending trends are positive, although the risks related to both the supply of natural gas and higher interest rates remain headwinds.”
Miebach, like his counterpart from Visa, also highlighted the long-term potential of Mastercard’s push into Openbanking in Europe.
Mastercard announced a series of impressive cross-selling product wins with European financial institutions as the card brand strengthens its position in payment-related services.
- Paysafe will offer Mastercard Send (allowing easy pay-outs to Mastercards) to its merchant customers in the UK and the EU.
- Postepay is using Mastercard’s Identity Check payment authentication service in Italy and claims double digit improvements in approval rates
- Dwolla, Synctera and i2c have signed up as openbanking partners
On the product front, Mastercard continues to promote the much delayed Click to Pay. Other than to say that it is now enabled in 20 markets, no other information was forthcoming. Similarly, we’re in the dark about how much BNPL volume is running through Mastercard Instalments.
One new acquisition was announced in the quarter. Mastercard purchased Dynamic Yield from McDonalds which had, itself, only bought the company in 2019. Total cost is $325m including $219m goodwill. Dynamic Yield is a SaaS platform that offers “individualized product recommendations, offers and content based on a range of factors, including past purchases, page views, time of day, current store traffic and trending products.”
As a footnote, the decline in Maestro may have slowed or even stopped. The number of cards issued edged up 1% in Q2.
