Yahoo Finance Mastercard (MA) to Ease Digital Payments in Nigeria With Tie-Up
Mastercard Incorporated MA recently collaborated with Nigeria-based First City Monument Bank (FCMB) and technology company Netplus to introduce a Tap-on-Phone payment service, Soft Point-of-Sale (POS), throughout the country. Per the terms of the partnership, the role of the acquirer bank will be performed by FCMB, while Netplus will act as the payment service provider.
Shares of Mastercard gained 1.8% on May 17.
With the Mastercard Tap-on-Phone service, the Near Field Communication capabilities of merchants’ smart gadgets are activated and subsequently these can play the role of payment acceptance devices. This, in turn, enables the smart gadgets to establish connection with the contactless payment card of a customer, who merely needs to place the card on the merchant’s device for seamless payments. Thereafter, both the parties in a transaction benefit from higher processing speed and reduced waiting times.
Apart from infusing ease and affordability, the newly launched payment solution also takes care of security threats that often comes hand in hand with digital transactions. Before transaction processing takes place, customers need to feed a unique four-digit PIN for authentication and authorization purposes.
The contactless payment solution is likely to act as a blessing in disguise for Nigeria’s merchants since it not only saves time but also provides relief from exorbitant costs to establish a separate hardware POS device. Also, the cost-effective nature of the service makes its adoption easier for businesses of all sizes.
While the trend to go digital is here to stay, the rollout of contactless payment solutions, such as Tap on Phone across several countries is likely to enable Mastercard occupy a significant share of the global digital payments market. This time, the focus is on solidifying foothold in the digital payments market of Nigeria and its neighboring regions.
FCMB and Netplus will complement MA’s endeavor since the companies share the mutual aim of developing cutting-edge, cost-effective and hassle-free payment solutions.
MA is focused on increasing digitization in several African nations as the continent continues to witness a flourishing digital economy. This is primarily attributable to increased Internet usage, a rapidly-growing young population and higher usage of smartphones.
MA has also launched Tap-on-Phone services across the United States, Qatar, Egypt and Pakistan, to name a few.
Shares of Mastercard have gained 16.5% in a year compared with the industry’s increase of 5.9%. MA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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Stocks to Consider
Some better-ranked stocks in the Business Services space are Inspired Entertainment, Inc. INSE, Barrett Business Services, Inc. BBSI and DocuSign, Inc. DOCU. While Inspired Entertainment sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Barrett Business Services and DocuSign carry a Zacks Rank of 2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The bottom line of Inspired Entertainment outpaced estimates in three of the last four quarters and missed the mark once, the average being 27.99%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for INSE’s 2023 earnings suggests an improvement of 42.9% from the year-ago reported figure. The same for revenues suggests growth of 20.4% from the year-ago reported number. The consensus mark for INSE’s 2023 earnings has moved 8.9% north in the past seven days.
Barrett Business Services’ earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average being 74.03%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for BBSI’s 2023 earnings suggests an improvement of 7.5% from the year-ago reported figure. The same for revenues suggests growth of 6.1% from the prior-year reading. The consensus mark for BBSI’s 2023 earnings has moved 0.4% north in the past 30 days.
The bottom line of DocuSign outpaced estimates in three of the last four quarters and missed the mark once, the average being 12.26%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for DOCU’s 2023 earnings suggests an improvement of 15.3% from the year-ago reported figure. The same for revenues suggests growth of 7.3% from the year-ago actuals. The consensus mark for DOCU’s 202 earnings has moved 0.9% north in the past 60 days.
Shares of Inspired Entertainment and Barrett Business Services have gained 33.8% and 13.8%, respectively, in a year. However, DocuSign stock has declined 33.3% in the same time frame.
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Mastercard Incorporated (MA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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