MasterCard Reviews

Former Employee – worked at MasterCard

Pros – When I thought about joining MasterCard, I had reservations. It appeared to be a good place to go if you had decided you wanted to coast along, and do a minimal amount of work. But my interview, and my subsequent job experience proved otherwise.

MasterCard is full of bright people, who are energetic and know the industry. With rare exception, I was impressed by the people I met, their backgrounds and the competency they brought to the tasks at hand.

For people who are interested in the payments space, it's a great place to work.

Cons – On the other hand, I would say that MasterCard is unnecessarily bureaucratic for an organization of its size. Because of the incentive system and other factors, there's a lot of turf battles, less than needed coordination, and inefficiencies. However, there is a concerted effort (and there has been for many years) to change that.

The IPO appeared to also change how the business was run--more risk adversion, more of a short term focus, more attention to boosting the daily stock price.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop being so risk adverse and allowing HR and Legal to run the business. Create better coordination by revising the incentive structure and individual objectives.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MasterCard

Pros – Salary is higher than market. Employee retirement plan is good -- company contribution is high. Global company offers interesting perspective. US-centricity can be challenging sometimes, but overall is a good experience and offers a good networking opportunity.

Cons – Management in Canada is completely incompetent and dysfunctional, driven by petty personal feuds and turf wars than by business needs. Open, cubicle-based office is environment is unproductive and demeaning/demotivating, especially to those more advanced in their careers.

Advice to Senior Management – Clean house in Canada and start over.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MasterCard

Pros – The pay is very good

Cons – The culture can be improved upon.

Advice to Senior Management – Not a lot of promotions

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MasterCard

Pros – There is MCU, MasterCard University, where you can learn about processing and the payments industry. There are some competent and committed people with whom to work. The facilities are OK, with the big gym and decent dining hall.

Cons – The benefits are not that great, especially the medican and dental.
There is a group of folks at MasterCard who have been there for 10 years or more. That is an elitist club. They do very little work and put the onus of all the real work onto the new employees. These employees don't get the pension (like the ol' timers still get), don't get the recognition, and get very little thanks and praise. In the IPS group, especially, much of the real work is done by outsourcing it to onshore and offshore contractors.

Advice to Senior Management – Get some fresh management in there. Try to break up the elitist club of the folks who have been at MC for a long time. Get rid of Lotus Notes for goodness sake, and replace it with Microsoft Outlook.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at MasterCard

Pros – MasterCard offers a good place to balance work and home life. If you like to work 9-5 with very little stress, this the company to work for.

Cons – MasterCard likes to clean house every quarter and never announces it in the media. They do not like to re-hire former employees. Access to major highways is a bonus.

Advice to Senior Management – Senior Management shoud spend more time intercating with employees. Bring in new managers that have not worked in the old "payments assocation" business model.

Current Employee – been working at MasterCard

Pros – MasterCard does pay well in comparison to other companies and there are a great number of bright people.

Cons – MasterCard has become way too risk averse. they won't fire people who should be let go, they take forever to make a decision and move forward with initiatives and there are too many cross functional work streams that aren't truly empowered to get anything done.

Advice to Senior Management – Upper management should do a better job of knowing who's who within the company. who is well respected, who is a "go to" on each team etc. Too many people are concerned with managing up only.

Current Employee – been working at MasterCard

Pros – Truly global company with many opportunities to work with and in other countries. Good pay for the job.

Cons – Executive Management are essentially people who grew up in the old association and therefore have no idea how to be leaders in a "real" company. And no context to know what they don't know

Advice to Senior Management – The unbelievable luck we've had to be in an industry growing 20% for years is just that...luck. Now that this growth is slowing, we need bold change to continue to grow. Be bold in picking new businesses to enter, and getting rid of senior management who can't see this.

Current Employee – been working at MasterCard

Pros – - Matches 6% on 401K (as of 2009)
- Various products and groups which allow for career development
- Tuition reimbursement
- On-site amenities (hair, nail, dry cleaning, cafeteria, etc.)
- Nice location; easy to get to (right off of 684)
- Reasonable pay and benefits

Cons – - Bad communication from upper management continues to plague the company. Hard to relax when rumors of impending layoffs are constantly swirling.
- Has some bad managers, but seems to be cleaning house.
- Unfortunately, getting rid of really good, competent people while cleaning house.

Advice to Senior Management – - Be careful in simply meeting financial targets when laying off. You have lost some major assets to the company by targeting a headcount number instead of focusing on the low-performers and more expendable groups.
- Worry about cutting too close to the bone. Starting to walk a tightrope between efficiency and overextending the staff and burning them out.
- Customer service, customer service, customer service. Support those maintaining the business, as well as those generating revenue.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at MasterCard

Pros – Nice offices and nice packages

Cons – Suffering from the IPO process

Advice to Senior Management – Don't forget your employees - Don't only please the sharholders

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at MasterCard

Pros – flexible, considerate work place for students that has to work to finance their learning period and rent, fair enough salary

Cons – not too many opportunities to evolve in the company, very strict regulations, no parking space in the surrounding area of

Advice to Senior Management – listen more to all employees have to be more considerate and cooperative with the working students in the company or