Profit from the shift to plastic

Article Excerpt

The number of debit and credit card transactions continue to rise as more and more consumers make payments with plastic instead of cash. Widening interest in online shopping has also helped spur demand for electronic payment processing . We feel the best way for conservative investors to profit from these trends is with high-quality credit card issuers like Visa and American Express. They own some of the best-known brands in the industry. That continues to aid their global expansion, just as their strong financial positions continue to support their network upgrades. VISA INC. $111 (New York symbol V; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 2.4 billion; Market cap: $266.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 14.2; Dividend yield: 0.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.visa.com) operates the world’s largest electronic payments network. It can process 65,000 transactions per second. Visa gets most of its revenue from the fees it charges the card issuers and merchants that use its network. Those fees are based on…