V - Visa Inc.

Calculating The Fair Value Of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by taking the foreast future cash...

Visa discloses FTC probe on debit transactions

Visa, Mastercard draw FTC inquiry over debit card transactions: Bloomberg Law

The regulator is looking into whether Visa, Mastercard and other large debit card issuers are blocking retailers from routing card transactions over alternative networks such as Pulse, NYCE and Star, the report said. The FTC has been reaching out to large merchants and their trade groups over the issue, the report added.

Visa, Mastercard draw FTC inquiry over debit card transactions - Bloomberg Law

The regulator is looking into whether Visa, Mastercard and other large debit card issuers are blocking retailers from routing card transactions over alternative networks such as Pulse, NYCE and Star, the report said. The FTC has been reaching out to large merchants and their trade groups over the issue, the report added.

Tencent Should Be Split Up

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- China’s most ubiquitous company is hiding one of its most valuable assets. That needs to change.Tencent Holdings Ltd., best known for the WeChat messenger that almost everyone in the country uses, has a growing fintech business. But it’s getting overshadowed by the games and social media divisions. By spinning it off into a new company, with a move to a separate listing, management could unlock as much as $230 billion in value. That would make the entity China’s fourth-largest listed company and the world’s sixth-biggest financial services firm.Such a move could help Tencent retake some of the limelight that it’s about to share with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. once that company lists in Hong Kong. Alibaba’s fintech unit, Ant Financial Services Group, already functions as a separate business with the e-commerce giant holding a 33% stake. At Tencent, fintech and business services accounted for 26% of revenue last quarter. The Shenzhen-based company is due to report third-quarter earnings late Wednesday.I estimate that revenue from Tencent’s fintech business grew in excess of 70% last year.(1)  The vast majority of that was payments. Yet Tencent also offers other products such as wealth management and has a 30% stake in WeBank, China’s first online-only bank, which was founded five years ago. Data on its fintech profits are hard to ascertain, yet information disclosed by Alibaba shows that Ant Financial was unprofitable last year, so Tencent could be in a similar boat. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The two rivals are startups in the classic sense, using fast revenue growth driven by marketing and incentives to gain ground fast. A major reason why both have lost money in recent years is due to low take rates, the commissions received from processing payments, because they’ve offered discounts to consumers and merchants. A turnaround could be near, Sanford C Bernstein senior analyst David Dai wrote in a recent series on China’s fintech sector. He estimates that a maturing market will ease cut-throat competition and allow both companies to take a greater share of the money that sloshes through their payments platforms.As a result, Tencent’s payment business (TenPay) alone could be worth $137 billion, compared to $127 billion for Ant’s AliPay, the Bernstein team figures. HSBC Holdings Plc uses two methodologies(2) to come up with an estimated value of around $128 billion. Throw in the other products, and Bernstein calculates a base-case valuation for Tencent’s fintech unit of $160 billion, going as high as $230 billion. This indicates that 40% to 58% of Tencent’s current market cap is locked up in this hitherto hidden division. Bernstein has a base case of $210 billion for Ant, reaching as high as $320 billion.Payments spinoffs have proven to be lucrative in the past. EBay Inc. proved it with PayPal Holdings Inc. in 2015, with the latter posting a 177% normalized return since then, outpacing the 145% rise in the S&P Data Processing sub-index which includes Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. PayPal also trounced both eBay (35%) and the S&P 500 (49%). Square Inc., another payments provider, has been one of the hottest stocks of the past decade, returning more than 590% since its initial public offering in 2015.A more recent example comes from India, where Walmart Inc. is reported to be spinning off payments business PhonePe from local e-commerce company Flipkart Group, which it acquired last year. That transaction could turn a $20.8 billion startup into two unicorns with a combined value of more than $30 billion. Tencent doesn’t need to rush to list this fintech unit. Appetite for mega IPOs is likely to be satiated by Alibaba’s Hong Kong listing and that of Saudi Aramco over the next few months. And there’s a long runway of big startups ready for their moment in the sun. By merely making it a separate entity, management can signal intent and allow investors to start re-rating Tencent’s stock accordingly.An offering may not even be necessary, since Tencent is already sitting on more cash than it needs. Instead, the company could distribute shares in Tencent Fintech to existing shareholders, and then directly list the stock. That’s similar to the approach advocated by activist investor Dan Loeb for a Sony Corp. split.Tencent is sitting on a bright light in this fintech unit. Time to let it shine.(Updates to include reference to third-quarter earnings schedule in third paragraph.)(1) The "others" category includes fintech, cloud, film & TV. Tencent noted that fintech is the major component and gave a figure for cloudbut not content.(2) HSBC Approach 1: valuation per user. Approach 2: Using Tencent operating margins applied to its payments business, then comparing to peers.To contact the author of this story: Tim Culpan at tculpan1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Patrick McDowell at pmcdowell10@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Tim Culpan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Mastercard Partners Tappy to Enable Payment Via Wearables

Mastercard (MA) partners with Tappy Technologies to provide payment services via fashion accessories.

China mobile payment giants Alipay, WeChat open to international cards

China mobile payment giants Alipay and WeChat Pay have started allowing overseas users to link their accounts to international bank cards, in a move cheered by foreign payment firms like Visa and Mastercard. Tencent, the parent company of WeChat Pay, said on Wednesday it was opening up in a statement on one of its official websites, while Alibaba-backed Alipay announced the change on its official media service platform.

Alipay, WeChat Pay Open Apps to Foreigners Visiting China

(Bloomberg) -- Chinese payments giants Alipay and WeChat Pay, long a source of worry among competitors abroad, plan to open up their platforms to foreigners visiting the mainland as regulators ease restrictions.The apps, which dominate payments across the world’s second-largest economy and have even supplanted cash at some businesses, announced the plans in rapid succession after previously requiring users to have local accounts. Opening up to visitors may give an incremental boost to spending on the platforms -- but for overseas firms, it has big implications, potentially helping pave the way for future adoption abroad.“Although there will be some revenue coming from the foreigners using the card, the more interesting aspect is how seamless the cross-border Alipay and WeChat Pay experience is becoming,” said Zennon Kapron, founder and director of research consultant Kapronasia.Behind the scenes, China’s central bank recently told a number of payments firms they will soon be allowed to plug foreign cards into their apps for use in China, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. Previously, regulatory concerns about money laundering and cross-border cash flows had prevented that from happening. The central bank offered no immediate comment to an inquiry sent by fax.The move will provide relief to some of the more-than 30 million people who visit China annually and sometimes struggle to find alternate payment methods. Alipay and Tencent account for 94% of the country’s mobile-payment market.Already, Alipay and WeChat Pay’s logos are visible in stores and taxis in major cities around the world as the firms focus on helping Chinese travelers there. The expectation across the industry is that the apps will someday use that infrastructure to attract locals in those destinations.To be sure, the ability to work with credit cards is still pending. In its announcement, Ant Financial’s Alipay laid out a system that will work around current restrictions and can start immediately.Alipay said it’s letting travelers use a prepaid card service provided by the Bank of Shanghai. That means customers will have to periodically top off that account, which will be limited in amount.In contrast, Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat Pay intends to let people more directly connect their existing cards to its app. Visa described that plan in a statement of support early Wednesday in China, saying it will essentially enable its cards to work across China.“This is a great step forward, both for consumers traveling to China and the overall payments industry,” Visa said. “This partnership means that we’ll be working towards an environment where Visa cardholders will be able to use their Visa card in China at the millions of places where WeChat Pay is accepted, instead of having to rely on cash.”The companies didn’t provide a time frame.Tencent, acknowledging that it’s working under guidelines from regulators, said it has been discussing cooperation with U.S. card-network operators Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover as well as Japan’s JCB to support the linking of overseas credit cards to Wechat Pay.(Updates with researcher’s comment, regulatory guidance, statistics on market from third paragraph.)To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Lucille Liu in Beijing at xliu621@bloomberg.net;Heng Xie in Beijing at hxie34@bloomberg.net;Lulu Yilun Chen in Hong Kong at ychen447@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jun Luo at jluo6@bloomberg.net, David ScheerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Visa, AT&T, Coca-Cola, salesforce.com and Lowe's

The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Visa, AT&T, Coca-Cola, salesforce.com and Lowe's

Time to Buy Facebook (FB) Stock After Earnings Despite Political Worries?

Facebook (FB) shares have jumped 11% in the past month and the social company recently topped quarterly estimates amid ongoing political scrutiny. The question is should investors buy Facebook stock right now?

Top Research Reports for Visa, AT&T & Coca-Cola

Top Research Reports for Visa, AT&T; & Coca-Cola

U.S. Hiring Resilient With 128,000 Gain, Validating Fed Pause

(Bloomberg) -- Explore what’s moving the global economy in the new season of the Stephanomics podcast. Subscribe via Pocket Cast or iTunes.U.S. hiring was unexpectedly resilient in October and prior months saw sharp upward revisions, validating the Federal Reserve’s signal of a pause from interest-rate cuts and indicating consumers will extend the record-long expansion despite weak business investment and trade tensions.Stocks rose to fresh records and Treasuries fell after the strong report.Payrolls increased 128,000 after an upwardly revised 180,000 advance the prior month, according to a Labor Department report Friday that exceeded the median 85,000 estimate in Bloomberg’s survey. That includes a General Motors Co. strike-driven 41,600 decline in automaker payrolls and 20,000 temporary census workers leaving their jobs.The jobless rate edged up to 3.6% from a half-century low, as black unemployment fell to a new record low of 5.4% Average hourly earnings climbed 3% from a year earlier, matching projections after an upward revision the prior month, though the 0.2% monthly gain was slightly below estimates.Click here for Bloomberg’s TOPLive blog on the jobs report.The report supports Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s assessment this week that the U.S. economic outlook remains solid and the job market “strong” -- allowing the central bank to take a breather after a third straight interest-rate cut -- despite a persistent trade war with China and an increasingly dim global situation. With businesses pulling back on fixed investment, solid gains in hiring and wages will help drive growth and support President Donald Trump’s bid for re-election in 2020.“Overall the labor market is holding up very, very nicely,” Michael Brown, principal U.S. economist at Visa USA Inc., said by phone. “There’s no signs here the consumer is losing any momentum.”Fed policy makers are “probably on hold for a while,” Brown said. “Today’s report certainly supports the Fed view that they have provided accommodation and they’ll take a little victory lap.”Revisions added 95,000 jobs for the prior two months, bringing the three-month average to 176,000, though gains remain below 2018 levels.Minutes after the report, Trump tweeted that it was a “blowout” number and even more impressive when accounting for revisions and the GM strike. The president touted an “adjusted” employment gain of 303,000, which economic adviser Larry Kudlow said adds back in 60,000 jobs related to the strike on top of the revisions and census jobs.What Our Economists Say“The labor data continue to corroborate a moderation in the pace of economic activity in the latter half of the year, but the resilience in the pace of hiring signals that growth is cooling, not collapsing.”-- Carl Riccadonna, Yelena Shulyatyeva and Eliza WingerClick here for the full reaction note.A note of caution came separately Friday in the Institute for Supply Management’s factory purchasing managers index. That gauge trailed estimates for October and signaled the sector contracted for a third straight month, with the weakest production level since the last recession.The jobs data come on the heels of reports this week including third-quarter gross domestic product. The economy grew at a 1.9% annualized pace as consumer spending grew 2.9% -- a step down from gangbusters growth in the prior period but exceeding last year’s average. Stocks also hit a record high, even as the figures showed business investment fell for a second straight period and the most since 2015.“This was certainly a very solid labor market report,” Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “We have ongoing growth in the economy, we have inflation near our objective so the economy is in a very good place.”Manufacturers subtracted 36,000 jobs, the biggest drop since 2009, though it would likely have been a gain without the effects of the strike. Still, even excluding the impact of the walkout, the sector has become increasingly fragile amid slowing global growth, a strong dollar and an ongoing trade war with China.The strike may also have hit wages in October. Average hourly earnings rose 0.2% from the prior month, below estimates, following little change the prior month. Annual wage gains have cooled since hitting a peak of 3.4% early in the year. Hours worked were unchanged at 34.4 per week.The job gains were led by leisure and hospitality, education and health services and professional and business services. Construction and finance also posted gains. Even retail jobs rose, registering back-to-back gains for the first time in more than a year following seven straight declines.The participation rate, or share of working-age people in the labor force, increased to 63.3%, the highest since 2013, as more Americans were pulled from the sidelines and into the workforce.The U-6, or underemployment rate, ticked up to 7% from the lowest since 2000; some analysts see this figure as a more accurate reflection of the true labor market as it includes part-time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and those who aren’t actively looking.(Updates with Fed vice chairman’s comment, ISM index, Kudlow comment.)\--With assistance from Jordan Yadoo, Sophie Caronello, Katia Dmitrieva and William Edwards.To contact the reporter on this story: Reade Pickert in Washington at epickert@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Scott Lanman at slanman@bloomberg.net, Vince GolleFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Global Payments (GPN) Beats on Q3 Earnings, Ups 2019 View

Global Payments (GPN) Q3 results reflect increase in revenues on growth across all segments, partly offset by rise in expenses.

Mastercard (MA) Q3 Earnings & Revenues Beat on Volume Growth

Mastercard's (MA) results reflect higher switched transactions, increase in cross-border volume and gross dollar volume.

Visa study: Web retailers are looking across borders for growth

The vast majority of big and small web retail companies are increasingly looking abroad for growth opportunities, data from Visa shows.

Stock Market News for Oct 28, 2019

Strong quarterly earnings by Visa, Verizon and Intel helped the benchmarks end in the green on Friday.

Thank These Five Stocks as S&P 500 Reaches New Record

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- If someone woke from a coma and saw that the S&P 500 Index was up 21% for the year and reaching a new record high on Monday, the immediate reaction would most likely be that everything is great. But that’s far from true.The list of reasons stocks should be down is much longer than the one for why they should be up. The economy has slowed, and a majority of chief financial officers anticipate a recession within a year. Earnings have stopped growing, and estimates are being cut. Stock valuations are high. The U.S.-China trade war has not been resolved. Congress has started an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve is easing monetary policy, but that’s only because the outlook has deteriorated.So why are equities roaring ahead? The answer comes down to a handful of stocks: Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and Oracle Corp. Those five companies account for half of the S&P 500 tech sector, which has surged 30.2% for the year. Exclude that sector and the S&P 500 would be up only about 14%, according to DataTrek Research. That’s still good but nothing special when compared with the returns in the rest of the world, with the MSCI All-Country World Index excluding the U.S. having gained 12%.Therein lies the hidden risk embedded in the market, which is that any missteps by any of these highfliers could spell doom for equities more broadly. It also underscores just how lacking in breadth this latest leg up has been. For one, the percentage of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange closing above their 200-day moving averages has dropped to 53% from 59% in mid-September.Not only that, but the spread between the share of S&P 500 members closing at 52-week highs and the share at 52-week lows has been in a general downtrend since June.To be sure, it’s not unusual that a handful of stocks have led the broader market higher. Before this year, it was the FAANG group of stocks: Facebook Inc., Apple, Amazon.com Inc., Netflix Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc. and a few others. A few years ago, AQR Capital Management’s co-founder and chief investment officer, Clifford Asness, published a paper examining the impact of individual stocks on the S&P 500 from 1994 to 2014. What he found was that while the S&P 500 rose 9.3% a year, the top 10 stocks accounted for 4.1 percentage points of that gain on average.Then there’s the awkward fact that smaller stocks that make up the vast majority of the market are down about 11% from their records reached in August 2018 based on the S&P Small Cap 600 and Russell 2000 indexes.This stock market has delivered plenty of surprises, and betting against it has been a losing proposition. In January, when the S&P 500 was trading at about 2,600, the median estimate of about 25 Wall Street strategist surveyed by Bloomberg was for it to end the year at 2,913. It surpassed that level in April and ended Friday at 3,203. But those same strategists are more cautious, predicting the benchmark to drop to 3,000 by the end of the year.Of course, they could raise their forecasts, but that would be awkward given the trend in profits and the slowing economy. Third-quarter earnings are tracking at a 3% decline from a year earlier, and forecasts for the fourth quarter have been cut to a gain of 1.2% from the 5.4% increase that was forecast at the end of July, according to Cantor Fitzgerald. The S&P 500’s price-to-earnings ratio, at just shy of 20 times, is the highest since last October, just as the benchmark was beginning a tumble that led to a 14% drop in the final three months of the year.All that suggests investors need to look beyond the headlines about yet another record.To contact the author of this story: Robert Burgess at bburgess@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Niemi at dniemi1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Robert Burgess is an editor for Bloomberg Opinion. He is the former global executive editor in charge of financial markets for Bloomberg News. As managing editor, he led the company’s news coverage of credit markets during the global financial crisis.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Online banking failures 'unacceptable', say MPs

A Treasury select committee inquiry found rising rates of outages, even as customers become increasingly reliant on online banking.

Analysts Call Visa Results Better Than Feared, Like PayPal’s

(Bloomberg) -- Shares of Visa Inc. rose 0.8% in early Friday trading after the company reported earnings and issued forecasts that topped expectations. Analysts used the same phrase -- “better than feared” -- to describe Visa’s results as they’d used to characterize a report by fellow payments company PayPal Holdings Inc. on Thursday.Visa stock rose the most since Feb. 1 on Thursday to close 2.8% higher, while PayPal closed up 8.6% at the highest since Sept. 23. Visa and Mastercard Inc. have outperformed so far this year, with Visa rallying 34% and Mastercard gaining 43%. That compares with a 26% gain for PayPal, and a 20% rise in the S&P 500.Here’s a sample of the latest commentary:Morgan Stanley, James FaucetteVisa makes “compounding earnings growth look easy,” Faucette wrote in a note, as it delivered “another quarter of strong double digitrevenue/earnings growth, with 2020 guidance implying more of the same.”Faucette said that investors are “likely to be positively surprised by slightly better cross border and international growth.” He’s “encouraged by progress in longer-term opportunities.” Maintained overweight rating, lifted price target to $207 as valuation was rolled forward to 2021.MoffettNathanson, Lisa Ellis“Visa’s results were about as in line as they could be, which for Visa means really good,” Ellis wrote. She flagged fiscal 2019 revenue growth of 11% and earnings per share growth of 18%, along with forecasts pointing to “more of the same” in 2020.She added that Visa’s “core volume metrics were in-line, if still a bit sluggish.” And most of the call was spent, as usual, she said, on “strategic topics, with a particular focus on Visa’s new offerings.” Rates Visa buy, with a target price of $210.Bernstein, Harshita Rawat“We remain bullish and view Visa (and Mastercard) as a ‘clean’ secular growth story in payments,” Rawat wrote. “Despite investor concerns, macro appears largely stable, and Visa (and Mastercard’s) earnings are somewhat resilient even in a downturn,” while there’s probably upside from compounding earnings-per-share growth.In the quarter, results were largely in line with expectations when adjusted for non-operational items, including accounting, taxes and interest expense, Rawat said. Revenue was also in line when adjusted for accounting, as “modest weakness” in services and other revenue was offset by lower incentives, stronger international transactions, and data processing revenue.Visa’s 2020 forecast was “modestly ahead of buy-side expectations,” she added, noting that the outlook was a key investor focus going into the results as “many investors were cautious on macro and lapping of a strong pricing year.” Rates outperform, price target $200.Jefferies, Trevor WilliamsVisa’s earning-per-share beat was driven by “top-line upside and a lower tax rate,” Williams wrote. Initial 2020 guidance was in-line with Jefferies expectations, and may have been “better than some feared.”“We continue to like the near-term set-up with a 10%-plus discount to Mastercard despite EPS growth converging, full pricing impact in the first half of 2020, FX headwinds easing, and believe Visa Direct can drive upside,” he saidg(Updates share trading in first and second paragraphs.)To contact the reporter on this story: Felice Maranz in New York at fmaranz@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Steven FrommFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Visa (V) Q4 Earnings and Revenues Beat Estimates, Up Y/Y

Visa (V) fiscal Q4 earnings benefit from growth in payments volume, cross-border volume and processed transactions.