Payments Companies Gashed in Bloody Wall Street Rout

Publicly traded payments companies fared slightly worse than the major market indexes Monday in a continuation of a Wall Street selloff triggered by investor worries about China’s economic situation, overvaluation of securities, and the future of U.S. interest rates. Fifty companies tracked by Digital Transactions News fell 4.03% from Friday’s close, according to data from Yahoo! Finance, compared with the 3.94% drop by the S&P 500, the 3.82% decline by the Nasdaq Composite, and the 3.57% slippage in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

All but three of the card networks, transaction processors, merchant acquirers, prepaid card providers, wire-transfer services and other payments-related firms saw their shares fall in today’s bear market, described by many financial analysts as overdue. Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., the two biggest payments companies by market capitalization, fell 3.98% and 3.14%, respectively. No. 3 American Express Co. fell 3.09%, but PayPal Holdings Inc., spun off from eBay Inc. less than a month ago, got off comparatively lightly, falling only 1.46%. Discover Financial Services slipped 3.48%.

Among the worst percentage losses in the group was that suffered by Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Meta Financial Group Inc., a banking company with a big prepaid card operation. Meta’s share price fell 8.74% from Friday’s $46.91 close to $42.81. Other prepaid providers had mixed fortunes: Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. saw its share price fall 4.95% but Green Dot Corp. got by with a 2.36% decline.

Merchant acquirers and payment processors fell in the 4% to 5% range. Acquirers Global Payments Inc. and Heartland Payment Systems Inc. dropped 5.39% and 4.28%, respectively, while Vantiv Inc. fell 3.38%. Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) declined. 5.01%.

Wire-transfer providers The Western Union Company and MoneyGram International Inc. saw their share prices decline 5.07% and 4.72%, respectively.

Leading U.S.-based point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc. suffered a 3.86% decline, while ATM manufacturers NCR Corp. and Diebold Inc. sustained declines of 7.81% and 4.45%. ATM network owner and operator Cardtronics Inc.’s share price fell 2.61%.

The three payments gainers were a mix of two small-cap firms and a penny stock.