Remittances, Acquirers Slump In Down Week For Payments

The payments industry suffered nearly universal losses on the stock market this week, as especially poor performances from the remittance and acquirer industries led to an overall loss of -1.29 percent.

Plagued by losses to both MoneyGram International and Western Union, the remittance industry saw the biggest drop on the week, falling -4.88 percent. MoneyGram dropped -5.58 percent as our fifth-worst performer on the week, hitting a share price of $17.09. Western Union saw similar results, dropping -4.79 percent to hit $14.32.

The acquirer/processor subset had an uninspiring week as well, falling -3.74 percent. Global Payments Inc. had the second-worst week of any performance of any company in our index, falling -10.51 percent after reporting modest earnings for the fiscal period ending February 28, 2013. The company’s value now sits at $44.44 per share. ACI Worldwide finished just one spot better than Global Payments, losing -8.04 percent to fall to $44.93.

Fellow acquirers TSYS, Fiserv and Heartland Payments each saw losses between -3.00 and -4.00 percent, while FIS had the “best” week of any company in the industry subset, losing just -1.44 percent.

Euronet Worldwide had the strongest week of any company on our index, finishing with a modest gain of 0.76 percent to hit $26.54. NetSpend Holdings was the only other company to finish in the black, growing 0.50 percent to hit $15.97.

Bottomline Technologies had the worst overall week on our index, dropping -11.72 percent to hit $25.17. The company has lost nearly 5 percent of its value to this point in 2013.