Visa bids for fintech firm

Article Excerpt

VISA INC. $223 is a buy. The company (New York symbol V; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 2.1 billion; Market cap: $468.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 15.3; Dividend yield: 0.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.visa.com) operates the world’s largest electronic-payments network. It processes credit, debit, prepaid and commercial transactions in over 200 countries. Visa is reportedly offering $1.4 billion for Pismo, a Brazilian firm that operates a cloud-based banking and payments platform for banks. The purchase would help the company stay ahead of smaller firms with potentially disruptive fintech (the combination of financial services and technology services). New services are also helping Visa compete with fintech start-ups. For example, it recently launched Visa Installments, which lets banks offer Visa cardholders the option of dividing their purchase into smaller payments during or after checkout (online or in physical stores). Buy-now-pay-later services like this are increasingly popular with younger consumers. The stock trades at 26.3 times the $8.47 a share that Visa will likely earn in the…