Mastercard Incorporated MA recently undertook a series of partnerships in a bid to solidify its presence across the Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EEMEA) region. The first move involves MA’s partnership with MTN Mobile Money (“U”) Limited to introduce the Virtual Card by MoMo, enabling MTN MoMo subscribers in Uganda to make secure online payments without a physical card or bank account. 

This initiative will allow card users to shop online, pay school fees, subscribe to streaming services and book travel experiences. With top-tier security, flexible top-ups and exclusive offers, the Mastercard-powered virtual card enhances digital transactions, empowering Ugandans to participate more actively in the digital economy.

The second collaboration involves Mastercard and one of the leading banking groups in the Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye region, Emirates NBD. Through this collaboration, Emirates NBD will integrate Mastercard Gateway into its Emirates NBD Pay platform, positioning the former as the first acquiring bank worldwide to incorporate Mastercard’s Brighterion AI technology. The move aims to enhance payment security and efficiency and pave the way for acclerated digital payment adoption across sectors like retail, hospitality and real estate. 

As part of the third tie-up, Mastercard joined forces with Sadad, a leading payment solutions provider in Qatar, to unveil a digital payment gateway backed by Mastercard Gateway. By integrating Mastercard’s technology, Sadad enables businesses to offer diverse payment options while enhancing security through tokenization, biometric authentication and 3D Secure. With access to more than 30 payment methods and a global network of 200+ acquirers, the partnership empowers local merchants to stay competitive and supports digital transformation efforts across Qatar. 

The fourth alliance is an extension of the partnership between Mastercard and Checkout.com. By utilizing Mastercard Move’s money transfer solutions, Checkout.com will empower its customers to seamlessly send funds directly to Mastercard cards with speed, convenience and security, thereby resulting in seamless disbursements and payouts for businesses and individuals in the UAE. The reach of Mastercard Move, the company's extensive suite of money transfer solutions, stretches across 180 countries and more than 150 currencies.

Benefits of Such Partnerships to Mastercard

For MA, all four tie-ups are expected to fetch a mutual benefit of an expanded customer base across the region. The virtual card rolled out as a result of Mastercard’s partnership with MTN is expected to attract new customers, attributable to the attractive benefits infused therein. Increased usage of the card, which carries the Mastercard brand, may boost the net revenues of the tech giant from its payment network by charging fees to customers based on the gross dollar volume of the cards. Payment network net revenues improved 10% year over year on a reported basis in 2024. 

The remaining three partnerships with Emirates NBD, Sadad and Checkout.com are likely to drive higher revenues through increased adoption of Mastercard’s value-added services and solutions. This revenue component reported 17% year-over-year growth during 2024.

MA’s Share Price Performance & Zacks Rank

Shares of Mastercard have gained 9.4% year to date compared with the industry’s 9.1% growth. MA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). 

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Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks in the Business Services space are AppLovin Corporation APP, Huron Consulting Group Inc. HURN and SPX Technologies, Inc. SPXC. While AppLovin sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Huron Consulting and SPX Technologies carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The bottom line of AppLovin outpaced estimates in each of the last four quarters, the average surprise being 23.45%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for APP’s 2025 earnings indicates an improvement of 51.7% from the 2024 figure. The consensus mark for revenues implies growth of 20.4% from the 2024 figure. The consensus mark for APP’s earnings has moved 11.5% north in the past 30 days. 

Huron Consulting’s earnings outpaced estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 21.54%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for HURN’s 2025 earnings indicates an improvement of 10.5% from the 2024 figure. The consensus mark for revenues implies growth of 8.9% from the 2024 figure. The consensus mark for HURN’s earnings has moved 3.5% north in the past seven days.

The bottom line of SPX Technologies outpaced estimates in each of the last four quarters, the average surprise being 8.00%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SPXC’s 2025 earnings indicates an improvement of 10.2% from the 2024 figure. The same for revenues implies growth of 8.7% from the 2024 number. The consensus mark for SPXC’s earnings has moved 0.5% north in the past seven days.

Shares of AppLovin and Huron Consulting have gained 5.5% and 20.1%, respectively, year to date. However, SPX Technologies stock has dipped 0.9% in the same time frame.

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Mastercard Incorporated (MA) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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