MasterCard's India-origin chief Ajay Banga today said India's growing young population offers exciting business opportunities and asserted the company will bring faster and easier e-payment solutions to the country.

A well known banker and a Citigroup veteran, Banga took over as CEO of global electronic payment services provider MasterCard on July 1. Prior to his new role, Banga was its President and COO.

"There are exciting opportunities for MasterCard to leverage across emerging markets including India. The inherent strength of India is its demographics," Banga told PTI in an e-mail interview.

"We will continue to offer innovative payment solutions ... we are constantly developing and bringing to India solutions that provide our customers quick, easy and convenient ways to pay." he said.

Out of a billion people in the country, about 51 per cent are below the age of 25 years while 66 per cent are below the age of 35 years.

Banga pointed out that this demographic dividend makes India a very attractive market for MasterCard. "This essentially means that a large part of India will now be part of the 'Earnings Category' and therefore a huge opportunity for usage of efficient means of payment," he added.

According to him, India would continue to see migration from cheques/cash to more efficient forms of payments.

A Delhi University product, Banga had also worked with Citigroup for nearly 13 years.

Banga said that his priorities would be to drive growth in its core businesses - credit, debit, prepaid and processing - apart from diversifying its revenue streams. Another priority would be building new products and solutions focusing on eCommerce and information services, he noted.

MasterCard, which has been operating in India for more than 27 years, is focusing on innovation that includes contactless payments, mobile payments, and mobile person-to-person money transfer.

In India, MasterCard has partnered with Citi for trial use of mobile phones to make purchases in Bangalore and the initiative covered 3,000-5,000 mobile users and 500 merchants.

When asked about the Unique Identification Card project, Banga said, "it is an ambitious programme designed to bring millions of Indians into the banking system. As a leading payments company, it's great news for us."

At Present, MasterCard garners 55 per cent of its total revenues from outside the US market. MasterCard processes over 22 billion transactions in a year. It had a profit of USD 1.5 billion on revenues of USD 5.1 billion in 2009.