European pre-paid business of MasterCard to have a new manager

Matthew Lanford was recently appointed as a Senior Business Leader, Europe Prepaid Product Development, at MasterCard. The appointment as announced by the company is effective immediately. Lanford will be responsible for innovation, product development, go-to-market strategy and commercialization of the MasterCard portfolio of prepaid products, reporting to Laura Kelly, Senior Vice President, Global Debit and Prepaid Product Solutions, MasterCard Worldwide.

Earlier at MasterCard Lanford managed commercial prepaid strategy and suite of prepaid healthcare solutions, including the development and implementation of innovative initiatives such as real-time substantiation of healthcare purchases on MasterCard prepaid healthcare cards. Before his coming to the card network Lanford held a position of a director at Citigroup Corporate investment Bank Global Transaction Services. Additionally he was also responsible for product development for Citishare, Citigroup's global ATM and PIN POS debit transaction processing business.

"Europe represents a significant opportunity for the MasterCard prepaid business. Our recent work with PSE Consulting confirmed that the spend opportunity in Europe is substantial - and still in its relative infancy - projected to total $120 billion by 2015. With his knowledge and experience, Matt is well positioned to capitalize on this opportunity and bring fresh insights and strategic leadership to the region," noted Laura Kelly.