Jim Reed, Vice President of MasterCards Public Sector is largely considered to be responsible for the "tipping point" that resulted in the continuing changes to card company policies for governments. MasterCard's Public Sector Group announced in November 2007 that they were going to allow convenience fees to be assessed in any government department or operation and also in any channel of payment (in office, over the phone, in the mail, online).

It is widely estimated that the potential credit and debit card transaction market in local and state governments exceeds $500 billion in transactions annually and MasterCard currently captures less than $2 billion of these transactions annually.

MasterCard realized that the only way they were going to have a chance at capturing these transactions was to allow towns cities and counties to assess the transaction fees back to their citizens that choose to use their card for payment.

Like Visa, MasterCard requires registration in their program. MasterCard also strongly recommends the convenience fee be conducted as a separate transaction as "Best Practice".