MasterCard has emerged as the fastest growing credit card network in the USA. As of September 30th, the New York-based card association had 268.5 million domestic cards-in-force, a 20% increase since September 30, 2000. MasterCard's domestic credit card portfolio is growing at annual rate of 20.8%, while MasterCard’s U.S. off-line (signature) debit card segment is growing 19.9% annually. VISA has not released third quarter data, however at mid-year, VISA's U.S. card portfolio was growing less than 5%, with nearly all the increase coming from off-line (signature) debit cards. As of September 30th, American Express cards were growing 5.5% annually. As of November 30th, Discover's cardbase was growing 2.5% annually. As report in the December 17th issue of CardFlash (www.cardflash.com), MasterCard's domestic gross dollar volume for the quarter rose 15.2% for credit cards to $106.0 billion, while U.S. off-line (signature) debit card gross dollar volume soared by 22.7% to $19.0 billion. For complete details on MasterCard's U.S. 3Q/01 data, visit CardData (www.carddata.com), and for details on MasterCard's third quarter international figures visit The RAM Report (a target=_top href="http://www.ramreport.com">www.ramreport.com).