Mastercard Incorporated MA recently collaborated with Vodafone Fiji to launch M-PAiSA Mastercard, providing thousands of Fijians access to its digital payments network. Fijians can have greater control of their money and transact seamlessly with M-PAiSA Mastercard. This partnership will bring financial inclusion by giving unbanked people access to a digital platform for transacting.
This move bodes well for Mastercard as it aims to expand its services to new geographic locations and serve people with little or no access to baking services. This alliance will boost MA’s transaction processing revenues in the future. M-PAiSA is the leading fintech platform in Africa, providing mobile money service to millions of people without bank accounts due to long and complicated procedures and digital illiteracy. It has more than 580,000 registered customers, of which 57.8% use the service actively every month.
With this partnership, Fijians can use the new debit card without having a traditional bank account. Fijians can use their digital card at any merchant location accepting Mastercard in their home country and internationally. With M-PAiSA expecting to process FJ$3 billion transactions in 2023, the region represents an attractive market opportunity for Mastercard. The application process for the card is very simple, requiring users to upload their documents through the M-PAiSA application.
With the world moving toward digital payments and online shopping, this partnership is set to transform the ecosystem of payments in Fiji. This move will also benefit women-led businesses in Fiji as they can accept payments through Mastercard and increase their income. From a macro perspective, this should aid the country’s GDP as payment barriers will be removed.
Mastercard’s mission to motivate the widespread uptake of digital payment solutions due to their ease and affordability is materializing amid this partnership. This, in turn, will make way for more individuals and businesses to come under the ambit of a booming worldwide digital economy.
Zacks Rank and Price Performance
Mastercard currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Shares of Mastercard have gained 23.3% in a year compared with the industry’s 12.2% growth.
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Stocks to Consider
Some better-ranked stocks from the same space are DLocal Limited DLO, Visa V and WEX WEX. Each of these companies presently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for DLO’s 2023 and 2024 earnings per share (EPS) indicates a year-over-year increase of 54.1% and 40.4%, respectively. The consensus estimate has moved north by 5.6% and 2.6%, respectively, for 2023 and 2024 in the past 60 days. Year to date, DLO shares have lost 13.2%.
Visa delivered an average four-quarter earnings surprise of 8%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for V’s 2023 and 2024 EPS indicates a year-over-year increase of 14.5% and 12.8%, respectively. Year to date, Visa’s shares have gained 16.5%.
WEX delivered an average four-quarter earnings surprise of 5.4%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for WEX’s 2023 EPS indicates a year-over-year increase of 3.8% on 5.8% higher revenues. Year to date, WEX shares have gained 16.5%.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
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