Mastercard introduces World Legend tier; targets Asia Pacific launch in H1 2026

You’re probably already familiar with Mastercard’s four-tiered system, which groups its cards into Standard, Platinum, World, and World Elite.

Mastercard has now announced plans to launch World Legend, an additional tier beyond World Elite. It will also introduce The Mastercard Collection, a new suite of benefits for World, World Elite and World Legend Mastercard cardholders.

Details are sparse at the moment, but we do know that Mastercard plans to bring the World Legend tier to Asia Pacific (and likely Singapore) in the first half of 2026.

Mastercard launches World Legend tier

World Legend Mastercard is a brand new tier that will sit at the top of the Mastercard hierarchy.

Expanding its World portfolio for higher-spending cardholders, Mastercard is launching the World Legend Mastercard – its most prestigious consumer card to date.

Designed for individuals who want access to exceptional and exclusive experiences that bring them closer to their passions, World Legend is available to banks globally today and will debut to cardholders in the U.S. in Q3 2025, followed by a broader international rollout.

-Mastercard

Unfortunately, details are in short supply. It’s not yet clear what standout features the World Legend tier will offer to set it apart from World Elite, or how strictly Mastercard will enforce benefit consistency across issuers (more on that below).

What Mastercard has shared with me is that World Legend will be coming to Asia Pacific in the first half of 2026, with Singapore almost certain to be one of the launch markets.

If I had to speculate, my guess is that the Citi Prestige, DCS Imperium and StanChart Beyond Card will remain as World Elite. The cards most likely to get upgraded to World Legend are the Citi ULTIMA and HSBC Prive, as the annual fees and qualification requirements are well beyond the rest of the World Elite pack.

Review: Citi ULTIMA Card

HSBC Prive Card: What does the second most expensive card in Singapore offer?

The Mastercard Collection

Mastercard has also launched The Mastercard Collection, a new suite of travel, dining and entertainment benefits for World, World Elite and World Legend cardholders. 

Imagine a cardholder traveling from Dubai to London. With her Mastercard credit card, she and her family can access an airport Fast Track security lane and access an airport lounge, book dinner reservations with preferential seating at a Michelin-star restaurant in London and catch a popular West End show with front-row seats. This cardholder and her family’s experience is elevated with The Mastercard Collection and the Mastercard World product portfolio.

Back home in Dubai, they continue to benefit from Mastercard’s elevated portfolio, booking dinner reservations at a hot new restaurant to celebrate her son’s birthday, followed by backstage access for her family at a concert. 

-Mastercard

In more concrete terms, here’s what cardholders can expect.

Annoyingly, The Mastercard Collection website does not provide a list of locations where this benefit is available, even after registering an account. However, Mastercard has shared that Fast Track lanes are currently available in key tourist destinations such as Bangkok, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City and Shanghai.

It’s not clear how these will work, but a similar concept already exists in Italy, where cardholders can generate a QR code to gain access to the Mastercard Reserved Fast Track area. 

I’m not quite sure what to make of the dining and entertainment benefits. Frankly, they feel like perks which already exist, just repackaged under a different name to bulk up the press release. In any case, Mastercard already has a solid dining programme to begin with, with perks like One Dines Free and Held Tables at more than 1,000 restaurants worldwide. 

Further Asia Pacific-specific updates will be revealed in due course.

Will World Legend benefits be consistently offered?

Mastercard allows card issuers to pick and choose which network benefits, if any, they wish to offer. While I’m sure that’s popular with banks, it creates a lot of fragmentation and inconsistency for customers.

For example, Flexiroam packages are supposedly available to World Mastercard customers, but in Singapore it’s only offered by the OCBC 90°N Mastercard (Amaze used to offer this perk previously, but removed it in October 2023). If you ask me, this defeats the purpose of having different tiers — why sign up for a World Mastercard if I don’t know what World Mastercard perks I’ll enjoy? 

For what it’s worth, this seems to be a bigger problem in the United States and the UK, where World Elite Cards can be issued with scarcely any World Elite benefits (basically the bank gets to enjoy the higher interchange, without having to incur the cost of providing benefits). In Singapore at least, World Elite benefits are pretty consistently offered across cards.

It remains to be seen whether Mastercard will allow card issuers to adopt a similar a la carte approach with the World Legend.

Conclusion

Mastercard has announced World Legend, the fifth and highest tier in its card hierarchy. This will debut in the United States later this year, and in Asia Pacific (with Singapore a highly likely candidate) in 2026.

It has also launched The Mastercard Collection for World, World Elite and World Legend customers, though it remains to be seen how many of these perks are new versus repackaged.

It’ll be interesting to see which Mastercards in Singapore are deemed worthy of the Legend tier, though some further differentiation would certainly be helpful since it’s effectively a two-tier system in Singapore (even the most basic of debit cards now carries the World badge).

Which Mastercards do you think will get the World Legend tier?