Mixed Performance For Payments Stocks

Payments stocks were rather evenly dispersed across winners and declining issues this past week, shortened as it was for Labor Day.

Square was the biggest gainer on the week, up 4 percent. The mobile payments firm announced plans last week to open up a physical branch in Utah, to be called Square Financial Services. The brick-and-mortar Square operation is slated to offer loans and also traditional deposit accounts to small businesses (SMBs).

Mastercard also saw its stock rise for the week, by 3.5 percent. The company had an investor day last week during which management said that, as noted by Barron’s, the firm’s total addressable market is four times larger than some observers estimate.  That assertion comes with the inclusion of peer-to-peer (P2P) payment and B2B payments, moving beyond traditional card transactions. The expanded markets come as Vocalink, acquired earlier in 2017, boosts presence across faster ACH payments.

MoneyGram shares were also up, to the tune of 3 percent, after the company said it was expanding its MoneyGram MobilePass service across the United States and to thousands of more locations, with transactions initiated across mobile devices and then finished in person at agent locations.

In terms of declining issues, Planet Payment shares were off 3 percent, with no company specific news out over the past week’s time frame. Alliance Data Systems shares were down, albeit by a smaller amount, less than 2 percent, with a similar dearth of headlines.