MasterCard doubles year-before growth for 3d straight quarter.

For the third consecutive quarter, the growth of MasterCard accounts and cards in circulation has more than doubled over the previous year.

Worldwide credit and debit accounts for the third quarter were up 25.8% to 198.4 million, compared with a 13.2% increase during the same time period last year.

Cards in circulation worldwide grew 24.3% to 254.4 million, nearly double the year-ago growth rate of 12.6% that totaled 204.6 million cards.

In the United States, cards in circulation grew 19.9% to 131.8 million, and accounts grew 18.8% to 95.1 million.

Gross dollar volume worldwide grew 28% to $103.6 billion, and worldwide MasterCard credit and debit acceptance increased 9%, to 12.4 million locations.

In the United States, gross volume was up 25.6% to $44.7 billion.

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