Investment opportunities in online payment systems
The sale of products online requires an efficient and powerful payment infrastructure. Credit card providers are an integral part of the online sales process and have an important role to play in securing transactions. There are only very few providers with the technology to provide online payment facilities. Since their business prospects are directly linked to sales volumes, they should continue to prosper in the future.
| Company | Ticker | Sector | Upside Potential | Sharpe (FY01) |
| Visa | V | Consumer Finance | 15 % | 5.35 |
| Investment case: Visa runs a centralized credit card clearing system. The company is uniquely positioned to benefit from secular growth trends in payments. This includes not only day-to-day spending in the consumer discretionary segment, but also growth in international commercial and private travel activity and smaller investment transactions. | ||||
| Company | Ticker | Sector | Upside Potential | Sharpe (FY01) |
| Mastercard | MA | Consumer Finance | 17 % | 5.35 |
| Investment case: MA is a global payment solution enabler. The company benefits from a constant annual sales increase of about 5%. Additionally, structural shifts to electronic and mobile payment applications should benefit the company further. Innovation is key in this sector and Mastercard has the supremacy to implement change. | ||||
| Company | Ticker | Sector | Upside Potential | Sharpe (FY01) |
| Ingenico | ING | Computer Hardware | 2 % | 3.96 |
| Investment case: Ingenico provides merchants with a complete payment solution (i.e. software and hardware). In the past, the company allocated significant resources to its proprietary hardware business solution with the aim of securing future market share in the POS market, especially through mobile applications. Ingenico’s current strength lies in the fact that its solutions support the entire transaction processing chain. This is of high market value to its customers and results in deeper and more loyal relationships with its customer base. Present development focus is on the integration of mobile operation systems (iOS, Android, etc.) into their ecosystem. The roll-out of these developments would make Ingenico the partner of choice for merchants considering applications with cloud/mobile facilities. | ||||