Mastercard Inc (MA): Is Visa Inc (V) Winning the Battle?

Competition

In comparison, Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) has been focusing on growth being offered by emerging markets. Myanmar is one such destination where MasterCard thinks mobile payments offer tremendous growth. For Myanmar, mobile payments mean less capital involvement as they don’t have to go through the brick and mortar of having ATMs and branch banking. Besides, the country is targeting the younger generation, so mobile payments make sense. Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) also has the first mover’s advantage in Myanmar as it became the first payments network to give license to Co-Operative Bank.

Besides, it announced the roll-out of 13 million MasterCard branded national identity smart cards in Nigeria. The cards would be embedded with electronic payments capabilities. This will be Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA)’s largest roll-out within the African continent, providing MasterCard with additional revenue.

Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) is another payments industry player, which is expected to outperform regardless of the direction of the payment markets. The company’s April operating data demonstrates that losses have continued to improve, while loans have witnessed strong growth.

Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) struck a deal last month with PayPal. This will enable PayPal users to make payments using a mobile number and a PIN code at around 2 million retail outlets handling Discover cards. This deal will cause ease and convince to PayPal’s users, while bringing additional revenue for Discover.

Foolish takeaway

While the entire industry is riding the secular change in the way customers are making payments, Visa Inc (NYSE:V) is best positioned to perform better than most of its peers. Its significant investment plans to grow its market share, coupled with a global growth strategy and a striving for innovative solutions are the key factors that will create value for its customers and investors in the coming future.

Adnan Khan has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) and Visa. The Motley Fool owns shares of MasterCard.

The article Is Visa Winning the Battle? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Adnan is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network — entries represent the personal opinion of the blogger and are not formally edited.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.