Mastercard’s new chief financial officer, Ling Hai, got his start at the card network as a general manager overseeing the Greater China division from Beijing in 2010. Now, after being appointed CFO in June, he’s pushing for the card network’s growth in that country and elsewhere.
In 2010, Mastercard only had a presence in China catering to its international card clientele, but the card network gained approval to operate in the country’s domestic market as of late 2023.
Purchase, New York-based Mastercard’s business is growing in China, though it’s more of a “medium-term opportunity” in terms of expanding revenue, he said last week at an investor conference. It was the first time he presented at such a conference since becoming CFO.
“We're working really hard with all the Chinese banks across the board on driving different products, and it's not just credit products, but also debit,” Hai said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference Thursday in San Francisco.
“People think China is very saturated in terms of debit because the country has billions of debit cards already, but because we are a global player and we have better global acceptance than the domestic players, we're able to even issue additional new programs in the debit space,” he added.
He elaborated on such growth opportunities, saying there are plenty of regions around the world where the company can still expand, citing specifically Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa.
Hai, who replaced Sachin Mehra as CFO, is familiar with all of those regions because he has held roles that touched them over the course of his tenure at Mastercard, being based in London, Singapore and Beijing. Mehra, who also joined Mastercard in 2010, is sticking with the card network in a newly created chief business officer post, with purview over country operations around the world.
“In many markets, we continue to have this secular tailwind, which is cash conversion opportunities,” he said. “Even in a developed market like Japan, cash as a percent of retail handlers is still like close to 50%, so that gives us additional opportunity to convert cash into digital payments.”
With respect to cross-border payments, he sees new categories of opportunities emerging as well. Subscriptions, the funding of digital wallets and purchases of crypto are helping fuel the card network’s traditional international e-commerce demand, he said. That’s in addition to the traditional cross-border spending volume driven by a cardholder’s travel.
“All in all, I think the growth remains very strong in both travel, and cross-border non-travel,” he said.
Hai also sees more room for Mastercard to expand in other categories of payments, including business-to-business commercial flows, remittances and peer-to-peer payments. Stablecoins, the cryptocurrencies pegged to a more stable asset like fiat, will increasingly offer opportunities to make such payments.
“Stablecoins, I think, do address certain relevant use cases, such as B2B payments, [and] cross-border remittances,” Hai said.
Hai acknowledged that Mastercard operates in a “very competitive environment.” At the moment, though, the company has a leg up on its larger rival Visa, which has not yet gained a license from the Chinese government to operate domestically in China.
Mastercard is committed to investing in acquisitions to gain whatever edge it can in markets around the world or in important areas, such as cybersecurity. The card network bought the stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK last year for $1.8 billion and paid $2.65 billion to buy the cybersecurity data firm Recorded Future in 2024.
“If we see the right opportunities out there in the market, and we can make acquisitions to drive growth and speed to market or apply new capabilities, we're going to do that,” Hai said. “That's really important in my mind.”
