NetSpend Boosts Prepaid In Otherwise Static Week For Payments

Bolstered by a strong performance from NetSpend Holdings Inc., the prepaid industry was the long section of the payments industry to see a change in value larger than one percent this week, as the Wall Street largely stayed static.

Overall, the payments industry gained just 0.02 percent on the week as the network and remittance segments saw modest gains, and the acquirer/processors and POS equipment industries saw modest losses.

NetSpend saw its stock rise 15.36 percent to $12.69 after the company reported Q4 2012 earnings of $0.13 per share on the back of net income of $10.1 million: up from $0.11 per share and $9.6 million in income from the same period a year ago. With Green Dot also seeing a gain – albeit a negligible one of 0.07 percent – the prepaid industry saw overall growth of 7.87 percent.

Net 1 UEPS Technology was the second-biggest individual gainer on the week, growing 3.79 percent to $5.75 per share. Global Cash Holdings rounded out the top three individual gainers with a jump of 3.39 percent to $7.32. Ingenico was the only other company the see a gain larger than 2 percent, growing 2.94 percent to hit $47.95 per share.

The biggest loser of the week was USA Technologies, which dropped -13.64 percent to $2.09. The company has now lost over two percent of its value over the past month. VeriFone systems was the second-biggest loser, dropping -6.94 percent to $32.72 as the company continues what’s been a roller coaster ride of a stock performance over the past three months.

Visa was the loan network to see a gain over the past week, jumping just 0.33 percent to $157.99 per share. American Express and MasterCard saw drops of -0.18 percent and -0.26 percent, respectively, while Discover brought up the rear with a fall of -1.83 percent.