MasterCard’s premium card leadership and drive towards serving the premium consumer segment are in keeping with the emergence of the Filipino mass affluent. This group enjoys increasing spending capability and exercises it on sophisticated leisure products and services.

According to the book Succeeding Like Success: The Affluent Consumers of Asia by Dr. Yuwa HedrickWong, economic advisor to MasterCard Worldwide in Asia-Pacific, the Filipino mass affluent market is estimated to have a spending power of $ 6.6 billion in 2015.

"As the preferred payment brand of choice for customer financial institutions as well as consumers, MasterCard is committed to providing the most innovative payment solutions and platforms. We truly understand the unique needs and aspirations of the affluent consumers and are thrilled to support Philippine banks in coming up with tailor-made programs for this segment. Furthermore, we complement these card solutions with a suite of programs that really make MasterCard premium cards a key to memorable lifestyle experiences for our cardholders," said Poch Villa-Real, vice president and senior country manager, MasterCard International Philippines, Inc.

In the past four years, leading banks in the Philippines have already introduced 10 premium cards in collaboration with MasterCard.

MasterCard’s growing portfolio of platinum cards includes Allied Bank Premium MasterCard, BDO Platinum MasterCard, HSBC Premier MasterCard, Metrobank Platinum MasterCard (in Peso and Dollar), Security Bank Platinum MasterCard and RCBC Bankard Black MasterCard (in Peso and Dollar).

Additionally, there are segment-focused and co-branded platinum cards such as AIM Alumni-Security Bank MasterCard Card, a platinum card targetted exclusively at AIM Alumni, BDO Titanium MasterCard (in Peso and Dollar), the first platinum travel related card, RCBC Bankard Diamond MasterCard, the first platinum ladies’ card and SMART Infinity-BDO Platinum MasterCard Card, the first telecommunications co-brand platinum card.