Mastercard Inc. (MA) will raise its quarterly dividend by 10.0 percent to 44 cents per share next year. This follows a dividend hike of 21.2 percent to $0.40 per share announced last year for the first quarter of 2020. This will mark the 8th consecutive year of dividend increases by the payments company.

The next cash dividend will be paid on February 9, 2021 to holders of record of its Class A common stock and Class B common stock as of January 8, 2021. The new annualized dividend of $1.76 per share yields 0.5% at a stock price of $327 for Mastercard.

In the press release dated December 8, 2020, Mastercard also announced that The Board of Directors approved a new share repurchase program, authorizing the company to repurchase up to $6 billion of its Class A common stock. The new share repurchase program will become effective at the completion of the company’s previously announced $8 billion program. The company has approximately $3.8 billion remaining under the current program authorization.

Mastercard will now pay an annual dividend of $1.76 billion to its shareholders. This year's dividend hike just announced is the smallest by the company since it began raising its dividend annually nine years ago. Even with this smaller 2020 dividend hike included the average annual dividend growth rate still is 18.3 percent based on the last five years.

Mastercard is a technology company in the global payments industry that connects consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments, digital partners, businesses and other organizations worldwide, enabling them to use electronic forms of payment instead of cash and checks. The company provides a wide variety of integrated products and services that support payment products that customers can offer to their account holders. The company's brands include MasterCard, Maestro and Cirrus. Mastercard has paid a dividend every year since 2006.