Thanks, it''s Moshe Katri. How should we think about a top line growth for 2010, kind of factoring some of the recent trends related to credit and debit? And then, assuming that we''re headed to a very gradual recovery in consumer spending in 2010, will MasterCard have to increase sales and marketing expenses and in this context maybe you can comment on your current priorities in sales and marketing and will these priorities have to actually get modified next year? Thanks.
Robert Selander
Well, Moshe, we''re in the midst of working our way through the budget process at this point in time. From a good news perspective, when we''re working our way through this last year, every week we were realigning our assumptions to the down side, as we saw the fourth quarter deteriorate quite rapidly, in fact, late third quarter of last year.
So, it''s a little bit premature to begin to comment. Clearly, we feel better about the environment now. We''re beginning to see some of those positive trends that we''ve already mentioned to you. To the extent that we''re underestimating the rate of economic recovery, I would view that as wonderful news, but as I indicated in my earlier comments, we''re still expecting it to be a less robust recovery than we might like and we''re managing our business that way.
Moshe Katri - Cowen & Co.
And how should we think about top line growth? That''s my first question about top line growth for 2010 kind of factoring some of the recent trends and that we''ve seen in credit and debit?
Robert Selander
Yes, at this point in time, the best we can say to you is that over the three-year period, we''ve already indicated that there''s not an ability to deliver that 12% in 2009 and we don''t believe we''ll be able to get to an average of 12% over the three-year period of ''09, ''10 and ''11. You can do the math as well as I can. Getting to that level would require quite significant growth rates in 2010 and 2011, which we don''t envision at this point in time.
Moshe Katri - Cowen & Co.
Thanks for the color.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Tim Willi with Wells Fargo. Please proceed.
Tim Willi - Wells Fargo Securities
Thank you and good morning. My first question was around U.S. debit. If I''ve got my numbers correctly, transaction volume there showed nice pickup relative to the prior third quarters and year-over-year was still going up, against a pretty decent comp. I was just curious, was there anything within particular customers, your larger ones or something you saw that really resulted in that pickup in the purchase transactions to about a 15% growth rate whereas before it had been sort of in that 9% to 10%?
Martina Hund-Mejean
No. I think kind of we are seeing is really across the board in terms of the pickup on the U.S. debit growth rates, so I don''t think that we can point to any specific customer or issuance.
Tim Willi - Wells Fargo Securities
Okay. And then, my second question and last one was around just on the topic of marketing. To what degree have, you know, you''ve talked about redeployment of dollars and I''m just trying to get a feel for to what degree that redeployment in spending is driven by customers and how they''re communicating to you their intent to do marketing and programming and the support that you give them and as you think about even into ''10 to what degree your marketing dollars might be dictated by larger customers trying to get more aggressive with their growth programs versus ''09? Just any color you would have around that dynamic?
Martina Hund-Mejean
Generally, only a small slice of our total advertising and marketing spend is specifically done in connection with customer programs. Albeit, having said that, obviously we do know what our customers are planning to do from a program point of view and from a country point of view going forward and we try to line up our spend, especially our media spend, in order to be focused on those kind of areas.
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