The world’s largest electronic payments network has announced plans to increase its dividend in 2017 as it focuses on new technology and services to fuel its growth.

VISA INC. (New York symbol V; www.visa.com) operates the world’s largest electronic payments network, through which it processes credit, debit, prepaid and commercial transactions. The company’s systems can handle over 65,000 transactions per second.

Visa gets most of its revenue from fees it charges the card issuers and merchants who use its network. These are based on transaction volumes and other factors. In addition, it’s the banks—and not Visa—that are responsible for evaluating customer creditworthiness and collecting payments.

There are now over 3.1 billion Visa cards in use worldwide. That’s almost twice the 1.6 billion MasterCard accounts now outstanding.

As part of the reorganization to become a public company in 2008, Visa set up its European operations (Visa Europe) as an independent firm owned by over 3,700 European banks. This business uses Visa’s brand and payment networks under a licensing deal, and accounts for about half of Europe’s card market.

In June 2016, the company acquired Visa Europe. Altogether, it will pay $13.9 billion in cash, $6.1 billion in preferred shares, and roughly $1 billion over the next three years. Combining overlapping operations should let Visa cut its annual costs by around $500 million.

Thanks partly to this purchase, the company’s revenue jumped 44.7%, from $10.4 billion in fiscal 2012 to $15.1 billion in 2016 (fiscal years end September 30).

Overall earnings jumped 63.3%, from $4.2 billion in 2011 to $6.9 billion in 2016. Visa is an aggressive buyer of its own shares. That’s why its earnings per share soared 83.2%, from $1.55 to $2.84 (all per-share amounts adjusted for a 4-for-1 stock split in March 2015).

Visa was debt-free before the Visa Europe purchase, but had to borrow the cash it needed to fund the deal. As a result, its long-term debt rose to $15.9 billion (as of September 30, 2016). That’s a low 9% of its market cap. In addition, the company held cash of $5.6 billion, or $2.43 a share.

Growth Stocks: Visa Checkout is one of several new services</h3>

Visa’s sound balance sheet has also helped it develop new services aimed at the growing number of consumers who buy goods and services over the Internet.

These include Visa Checkout, which makes online transactions faster and more secure. Shoppers only have to register their Visa card once on Visa Checkout. Then they can use the same username and password at the websites of over 300,000 merchants in 21 countries.

Making this information easier to enter encourages users to visit these websites more often—and spend more when they do.

The company recently opened up the Visa Checkout platform to other online payment systems such as those offered by Apple and Google. That should help encourage more consumers to use the system.

Visa Direct is another new technology the company has high hopes for. This “push payment” system makes it easier and faster for users to transfer funds, typically by sending money from their bank accounts to a recipient’s Visa credit or debit card. Over 3 billion Visa cards can now receive push payments.

The company is also developing a push payment platform for developing countries.

Called mVisa, this system lets users pay for goods and services using their mobile phones. As well, there’s no need for merchants to install extra equipment. That should enhance mVisa’s appeal among small businesses such as taxi firms.

The company has already launched this service in India, Kenya and Rwanda, and plans to add more countries in 2017.

In response to increasing concern over the security of online and mobile payments, Visa has developed a new technology called tokenization. This system uses encrypted “tokens” instead of credit card numbers and other account information. This helps protect clients’ sensitive information from online intruders.

To further improve the security of its networks, Visa recently agreed to acquire CardinalCommerce. This private firm specializes in technology that helps merchants prevent fraudulent transactions before customers place online or mobile orders. The company has not yet said how much it will pay for this firm, but should complete the purchase in early 2017.

Visa gets just under half of its revenue from outside of the U.S., and the high U.S. dollar has hurt the contribution from its overseas businesses.

Even so, the addition of Visa Europe should increase its earnings per share in fiscal 2017 by 15.5%, to $3.28. The stock trades at 23.8 times that forecast. That’s high, but it’s still acceptable in light of Visa’s high market share, strong global growth prospects and well-known brand.

The company also recently raised its quarterly dividend by 17.9%, to $0.165 a share from $0.14. The new annual rate of $0.66 yields 0.8%.

Recommendation in Wall Street Stock Forecaster: BUY

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