Credit crisis or not, card cos to succeed

The first Diners Club credit card was unveiled back in February 1950. The Diners Club card, used mainly for travel and entertainment purposes, became the first credit card for widespread use and eventually changed the way consumers make purchases. Sixty years later, what is the state and the future of the credit card industry?
Despite the ‘credit crisis’ of 2008, not much has been said about credit card companies and their role as capital providers to individuals and households. Banks were the culprits, but also the victims of the largest drop in stock market indices in decades. Yet, the stock price performance of credit card companies which are publicly traded (Amex, Mastercard and Visa) has been impressive.
Since April 2008, with the S&P 500 index losing almost 33% on a cumulative basis, all three companies have out-performed the market.
The market performance of credit card companies is not surprising. While the reduction of interest rates due to the recession has allowed financial institutions to lower their borrowing costs and therefore emerge almost harmless from the crisis, individual consumers and households seem to have not enjoyed such a favourable environment. Indeed, Visa’s net operating income in FY09 was $2 billion, up 13% from the previous year.
A credit card company is only a network of processing services, by which issuers and acquirers transfer payment from the cardholder to the merchant. In the process, merchants pay fees for the payment processing, and cardholders pay interest on their credit card balances. This is a very profitable business model, but it would be a mistake to assume that credit card companies issue credit cards. Nor do they determine the rates they charge to customers, or the fees that merchants pay to acquirers.
Visa, Mastercard and AMEX make money from fees that issuers and acquirers pay. Such a profit generating system translates into an atypical balance sheet structure. Mastercard, for instance, is a $6.4 billion company (at the end of 2008), of which $4.3 billion are cash and other liquid assets, $700 million are intangibles, and $500 million are deferred income taxes. On the liabilities side, the company has virtually no debt, and it is financed mostly by current liabilities, and $2 billion in equity. Visa is even impressive, with $20 billion in intangibles out of a total size of $32 billion, of which $8 billion are liquid assets.
Who wouldn’t want to invest in companies like these? They are swimming in cash, are extremely profitable and can sail through a financial crisis by transferring their interest rate risk to customers, issuers and acquirers. Since its IPO in 2005, the cumulative return on Mastercard stock has been more than 500%, which is equivalent to a 38% annual return.
But, unfortunately if there is something that credit card products do not need, it is investors. They are rich, do not need to finance heavy capital investments. It turns out, however, that Mastercard did go public, as did Visa, in 2008. Their reasons were non-financial. Mastercard had a severe problem of image.
Mastercard solved its problems by going public, earning a great reputation through its after-market performance and by putting most of the money raised in the IPO in a foundation. Visa had to create an escrow account that would cover litigation (some $3 billion) started against the company by Discover and Amex, among others. Their public offerings were among the most successful of the recent years.
What would happen though if, as some commentators say, the next financial crisis is a personal credit crisis? First of all, such a crisis seems now further away than ever. With low-interest rates and social pressure, a household credit crisis would be the last event that any government could now afford.
Additionally, I hope this article clarifies that it would not be the credit card companies that would suffer the most — they are cash shielded, do not get directly impacted by the default of the final customer and are owned by banks, which are by far healthier than two years ago. There is little reason to doubt that the first credit card launched 60 years ago will not continue to thrive and be a part of our every day lives for the decades ahead