MasterCard vs. Visa: The Fight for Mobile Payments

by Frank C. Schultz, Panyisa Samatadol
31 May 2010

The MasterCard vs. Visa case study allows students to put themselves in the shoes of Visa CEO, Joseph Saunders as Visa acquires CyberSource in 2010. Saunders at Visa and other CEOs at companies like MasterCard are facing new technologies such as mobile payments that might disrupt the ways they have been doing business for decades. The case study also presents background on Visa and MasterCard, as well as an overview of the mobile payments industry and players. Students are given an overview of the landscape and are asked to think about some of the key industry, competitive, strategic, and leadership issues that Saunders faces. The case study provides students with an opportunity to see the real-time challenges that a CEO might face and the decisions he or she would need to make with limited information.