News about Visa

Visa shares hit an all-time high of $401, up about 12% over the past two weeks from $359 at the end of September and up 14% year to date. Key catalysts include approval from the People's Bank of China to set up a bankcard clearing institution in China and the move of Visa Direct's stablecoin to commercial deployment on Oct. 15. Baird and BMO Capital both raised their price targets. Visa reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Oct. 27 and has raised its dividend every year since 2009, last year by 14% to $0.67 per share. The author still considers the stock a buy ahead of earnings, citing a forward P/E of 24.

According to blockchain analytics firm Allium, stablecoin supply barely grew this year, reaching about $305 billion by end-September (up 0.4% year to date), while stablecoin payments hit $482 billion in the first nine months, up 45% from a year earlier. The number of payments rose 71% to over 1 billion, and stablecoin-linked card spending reached $3.9 billion, ten times the prior year's level, with purchases under $50 accounting for 84% of the increase in card transactions. This week, Mastercard launched its Global Money Platform with BVNK, Stripe partnered with Plasma on multi-currency cards, and Visa said Inyo Global became the first provider to use Visa Direct's stablecoin prefunding service commercially. Still, only $2.4 trillion, or 2.5%, of $97.9 trillion in raw stablecoin transfers was classified as end-user activity, and stablecoin cards accounted for just 0.03% of Visa's $4 trillion in second-quarter payment volume.