The Invisible Global Currency Thats 24 Times Bigger Than Bitcoin – Forbes

dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images

How many credit cards do you have? If youre like the average American, you carry four in your wallet.

Chances are your credit cards are from different banks. But if you dumped out your wallet on the table and laid all your cards side by side, youd notice something odd.

While all the cards are from different banksand they all have their own special privileges, prestigious names, and color schemesmost have one thing in common:

Visaor MasterCardstamped on the bottom right.

Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) Created a Global Currency

It hardly matters what bank you use. At the end of the day, your card likely needs Visa or Mastercards payment network to function.

Over 80 million stores accept Visa or Mastercard. With one of their cards in your wallet, you can buy stuff anywhere in the world.

Visa and Mastercard have effectively created a universally accepted moneya global currency. $13trillionflowed through their networks last year. Thats 24X more than Bitcoin processed in 2019, according to CCN.

They make money by taking a small cut of each transaction, like a tollbooth on a highway. Both Visa and Mastercard are minting record profits, and their stocks have handed investors tremendous gains:

Visa and Mastercard

Heres why this is important for you.

Banks Stranglehold on Money Is Weakening

For many decades, weve had to deal with banks to move money. If you wanted to cash your paycheck, wire money, or get a credit card, you often had to talk to a banker.

These days, you can do all these things without ever stepping foot inside a bank. You can even get a mortgage without ever talking to a human banker!

Sending money no longer means writing a check and waiting three days for it to clear. Now you can send and receive money instantly withPayPals (PYPL)Venmo.

Roughly 50 million Americans use Venmo every month. You can even pay your taxes with PayPal.

Have you ever usedSquares (SQ)little white box that swipes credit cards? It plugs into your smartphone to turn it into a cash register. Over two million small businesses use it to accept cards instead of cash.

And getting a credit card no longer requires filling out piles of paperwork and answering a bankers questions. Smartphone giantApple (AAPL)made a splash when it debuted its shiny new titanium credit card last August.

These disruptors will end banks as we know them. Nobody cares if banks have fancy lobbies with marble floors these days. Most Americans just want a fast and convenient way to manage their money.

I havent stepped foot in a bank in years. And foot traffic into branches has fallen close to 50% in the past decade.

Many folks assume old money companies like Visa and Mastercard are in trouble too. These folks are wrong.

Visa and Mastercard Are Untouchable Stocks

What few people realize isall the "money disruptors I just mentioned are plugged into Visa and Mastercards networks.

Apple designed its titanium card to resemble its sleek products. But did you know it runs on Mastercards network? And credit cards from PayPal, Square, and Stripe all have Visa or Mastercard logos.

These disruptors arent ripping out the pipes of our financial system and trying to cut out Visa and Mastercard. Instead, theyre partnering with them, sending even more money flowing through their networks.

Remember, each time you pay with a card, Visa and Mastercard collect a small fee. In fact, even when you pay with your phone, these giants make money.

Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Amazon Pay, are simply apps built on Visa and Mastercard networks!

Nobody Can Touch These Untouchable Stocks

How we move money around and pay for things has changed for good. Yet these changes have only cemented Visa and Mastercards dominance.

Theyve built payment networks nobody can match. More than 30,000 banks use their credit cards. There are 3.4 billion Visa cards alone in circulation!

And now partnerships with PayPal, Square, and others are injecting a new wave of growth into Visa and Mastercard. Visas sales shot up 11.5% last year to a record $22 billion. And Mastercards revenue jumped 20% to $14.5 billion.

They Are Two of the Most Consistently Impressive Businesses Ive Ever Analyzed

Visas profit margins are 5X better than the average US stock. It turns 52 cents on every dollar into pure profit. Mastercards profit margins are 3X better than the average S&P 500 company. If youre investing for the long haul, you could do a lot worse than owning these two undisruptible tollbooth stocks.

Get my report"The Great Disruptors:3 Breakthrough Stocks Set to Double Your Money".These stocks will hand you 100% gains as they disrupt whole industries.Get your free copy here.

Go here to see the original:
The Invisible Global Currency Thats 24 Times Bigger Than Bitcoin - Forbes