Remittance, POS Equipment Industries Rise As Prepaid, Networks Fall

The payments industry as a whole gained 0.15 percent this week amid inconsistent stock market performances from its various subsections.

The remittance industry rebounded from a down week to see a 2.91 percent gain. Western Union grew 3.09 percent to reach an even $13.00 a share, while MoneyGram International jumped 0.92 percent to hit $12.12.

Led by the week’s biggest gainer, VeriFone Systems, the POS Equipment/Software industry had the second-strongest performance of any payments subset, gaining 2.59 percent. VeriFone reached a share price of $32.56 for a 7.14 percent gain, while industry-mate NCR Corporation gained 3.59 percent to reach 24.79 a share. To round out the industry, USA Technologies had a neutral week, while Ingenico fell -1.43 percent and MICROS Systems fell -3.91 percent.

The biggest loser of the week was Net 1 UEPS, which lost a whopping 33.85 percent of its value on Tuesday, after news that it’s being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department for possible violations of the Foreign Corruption Protections Act. The South African country’s value now sits at $5.14.

The prepaid industry saw the biggest decline on the week, falling -2.06 percent after performing well the week prior. Green Dot managed to turn in another successful week, gaining 1.69 percent to hit 12.64 a share. That could not make up for the -4.64 percent loss experienced by NetSpend Holdings, though, as the company fell to a share price of $11.11.

The networks industry saw a -0.29 percent loss, as only American Express saw a positive week. Visa and Discover both saw modest losses, while MasterCard saw the biggest drop, falling -2.58 percent to $476.09.