Prior to its initial public offering, Mastercard Worldwide was a cooperative owned by the more than 25,000 financial institutions that issue its branded cards.

[6] Bank of America deliberately kept this information secret and allowed then-widespread negative impressions to linger in order to ward off competition.

[13] This tiny logo proved to be entirely unsatisfactory for creating nationwide brand awareness in order to compete against the established leader, BankAmericard.

[18] In August 2010, Mastercard Worldwide, as it had been rebranded, expanded its e-commerce offering with the acquisition of DataCash, a UK-based payment processing and fraud/risk management provider.

[24] In August 2017, Mastercard acquired Brighterion, a company with a portfolio of intellectual property in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

On November 17, 2023, the Chinese government approved the local bank card clearing license for the joint venture established by Mastercard in China.

[35] Both Mastercard and Visa have paid approximately $3 billion in damages resulting from a class-action lawsuit filed in January 1996 for debit card swipe fee price fixing.

[35] In 1998, the Department of Justice sued Mastercard over rules prohibiting their issuing banks from doing business with American Express or Discover.

[41] On November 27, 2012, a federal judge entered an order granting preliminary approval to a proposed settlement to a class-action lawsuit[42] filed in 2005 by merchants and trade associations against Mastercard and Visa.

Opponents object to provisions that would bar future lawsuits and prevent merchants from opting out of significant portions of the proposed settlement.

In their complaint, the plaintiffs also alleged that the defendants unfairly interfere with merchants from encouraging customers to use less expensive forms of payment such as lower-cost cards, cash, and checks.

Johnathan Rubin, an attorney for the plaintiffs said, "Visa and Mastercard are the ringleaders, organizers, and enforcers of a conspiracy among U.S. banks to fix the price of ATM access fees in order to keep the competition at bay.

As of November 2006, New Zealand was considering similar actions, following a Commerce Commission lawsuit alleging price-fixing by Visa and Mastercard.

In April 2009, Mastercard reached a settlement with the European Union in an antitrust case, promising to reduce debit card swipe fees to 0.2 percent of purchases.

Mastercard was banned from charging fees on cross-border transactions conducted wholly within the EU via a ruling by the European Commission in 2007.

The Commission argues that Mastercard rules that prohibit merchants from enjoying better terms offered in other EU countries may be against antitrust law.

BEUC Director General Monique Goyens said, "So in the end, all consumers are hit by a scheme which ultimately rewards the card company and issuing bank.

[54] In February 2021, following an investigation by the British Payment Systems Regulator, Mastercard admitted liability for breaching competition rules in relation to pre-paid cards.

According to various state gaming laws, sports betting providers must use Internet geolocation to determine a customer's physical location prior to accepting a wager.

[61] In December 2010, Mastercard blocked all payments to whistleblowing platform WikiLeaks due to claims that they engage in illegal activity.

[62] In response, a group of online activists Anonymous organized a denial-of-service attack; as a result, the Mastercard website experienced downtime on December 8–9, 2010.

[63] On December 9, 2010, the servers of Mastercard underwent a massive attack[64] as part of an Operation Avenge Assange for closing down payments to WikiLeaks.

[70] Earlier on December 8, 2010, DataCell's CEO Andreas Fink had stated that "suspension of payments towards WikiLeaks is a violation of the agreements with their customers.

"[78] In 2018, Bloomberg News reported that Google had paid millions of dollars to Mastercard for its users' credit card data for advertising purposes.

[79][80] On July 14, 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) indefinitely barred Mastercard from issuing new debit or credit cards to domestic Indian customers starting July 22, 2021, for violating data localization and storage rules as set by RBI on April 6, 2018, under Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (PSS Act).

[96] On August 30, 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union, in combination with a coalition of other organizations, filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission requesting an investigation into the policy as an unfair business practice under Section 5 of the FTC Act.

Users can open the app, scan a QR code located on the back of the seat in front of them, and place orders for refreshments of their choice.

The company said its Mastercard Crypto Credential service would allow for transactions between countries that met requirements like so-called "travel rule" by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), using technology from CipherTrace.

In September 2022, Mastercard acquired the title sponsorship rights for all international and domestic home matches organized by the Board of Cricket Control in India.

The company invested $500M in India with offices in Pune and Vadodara to help Mastercard bring cashless transactions to the largest population in the world.