Visa

With many millions of cards in issue, Visa has already benefitted from the shift away from cash towards electronic payments. The increased penetration of smartphones, including in emerging economies, is also a growth driver.

To ensure it makes the most of these opportunities and to protect users from ever-present cyber security threats, Visa has invested heavily in its technological platform. It also has outstanding brand recognition – pretty much everybody has heard of Visa.

Since the company floated in 2008, management has consistently delivered on its strategy of sales growth at very good profit margins. Visa has a cast iron balance sheet with low debt and good cash flow generation, enabling it to invest in the business and in well-chosen acquisitions.

The board is committed to delivering excellent returns to shareholders through good financial performance, share price growth, dividends and share buy-backs.  

Cyberattacks threaten the security of both Visa’s own data and that of its customers.

Potential risks include monetary penalties, civil and criminal charges, and reputational harm. Additionally, technology disruptions causing service 'downtime' could undermine customer trust as well as result in losses on a global basis from a very localised incident.

Despite efforts to reduce carbon emissions, VISA’s energy consumption remains high. The company operates several data centres, which together account for over half of its total electricity consumption. Although the company has made some progress in improving the energy efficiency of its data centres, they remain energy intensive.

The large amounts of water and electricity required to keep the data centres cool raises environmental concerns, particularly in regions with high levels of water-stress.