Thanks for signing up for DividendStocks.com! It's the daily newsletter built for dividend and income investors. Before we can begin sending your daily updates, there’s one quick step left. Please confirm your subscription using the link below so our emails reach your inbox. Click Here to Confirm Your Subscription to DividendStocks.com Here’s a small glimpse of what you’ll get access to: Dividend Stock Ideas — Each newsletter features dividend stocks with high yields, sustainable payouts, and strong growth potential. Ex-Dividend Stocks — Want to capture upcoming dividend payouts? Find out which stocks are going ex-dividend this week. Market News and Events — Stay in the loop on the latest developments impacting popular dividend names like AT&T, Exxon Mobil, IBM, Procter & Gamble, and Verizon. Bonus: As a thank-you for confirming, you’ll also receive a free PDF copy of Automatic Income, our popular guide to building wealth through dividend investing. Let’s get your dividend journey started! Discover Top Income-Generating Stocks Here See you in your inbox soon,
The DividendStocks.com Team P.S. Don’t miss out click here to verify your subscription and secure your daily dividend insights and your free investing guide!
More Reading from MarketBeat Media Why Mastercard and Visa Are the Definition of Forever StocksWritten by Jordan Chussler. Date Posted: 3/14/2026. 
Key Points - The financials sector has lagged the S&P 500 this year, but two payment processing giants continue to deliver the kind of margins and earnings consistency that define long-term holdings.
- Despite recent sector-wide struggles, Visa and Mastercard function as a veritable duopoly, controlling over 90% of payments outside of China.
- Visa hasn't missed on earnings in 10 years, while Mastercard has secured 21 consecutive quarterly beats.
- Special Report: Elon Musk already made me a "wealthy man"
After finishing the past two years with an average annual gain of nearly 23%, the financials sector has struggled this year. With a year-to-date loss of around 9%, the cohort ranks last among the S&P 500's 11 sectors. But zooming out, the companies that call the sector home have proven to be key components of buy-and-hold investors' portfolios. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have collectively committed nearly 700 billion dollars to technology infrastructure this year alone. Bloomberg called it 'a boom without a parallel this century.' That capital doesn't stay with the giants - it flows through hundreds of smaller companies supplying chips, software, data, and infrastructure. Chris Rowe has identified the small-cap stocks he believes are positioned directly in its path. Watch the free presentation and see the specific stocks Chris identified With high-quality growth stocks increasingly difficult to identify, two legacy companies in the global payment processing and digital payments markets continue to post profit margins that qualify them as forever stocks. Why Digital Payment and Payment Processors Make for Good Forever Stocks These companies have historically enjoyed higher profit margins than many other industries, thanks to high-volume demand, ease of automation, and technology-driven business models that translate into low marginal costs per transaction. The industry is also poised for strong growth. According to industry analytics firm Grand View Research, the global payment processing solutions market, valued at nearly $48 billion in 2022, is projected to undergo a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.5% through 2030, reaching nearly $140 billion by the start of the next decade. Grand View also forecasts that the digital payment market, valued at more than $114 billion in 2024, will undergo a CAGR of 21.4% through 2030, reaching more than $361 billion. While that degree of growth coupled with attractive gross margins could suggest the space is crowded, two of the biggest names in the industry continue to operate in a veritable duopoly, controlling over 90% of credit card and digital payments processed outside of China. With roots dating back to the mid-1900s, these companies control the payment infrastructure, allowing them to dictate fees, limit competition, and maintain strikingly strong margins. Despite companies including Block (NYSE: XYZ), with its peer-to-peer payment service Cash App, and PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL), with its popular platform Venmo, looking to serve as disruptors, when it comes to forever stocks, none fit the bill better than the following two. Mastercard: The $450 Billion Market Cap Company Focusing on Tech Integration Since Michael Miebach took the reins at Mastercard (NYSE: MA) in 2021, management has focused on expanding its tech platforms, supporting cross-border commerce, and developing services that help clients reduce fraud, streamline payment flows, and leverage payments data for insights. In doing so, Mastercard achieved record revenue and net income in 2025. Revenue of nearly $33 billion represented a year-over-year (YOY) increase of more than 16%, while net income of nearly $15 billion was also good for a more than 16% YOY increase. That profitability was driven, in large part, by a 100% gross margin throughout 2025, made possible by tech integrations and minimal cost of goods sold; as a result, the company's quarterly gross profit consistently matched its quarterly net revenue. For investors, that has translated into rewarding earnings per share. The last time Mastercard missed on earnings was Q3 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the company has strung together 21 consecutive quarterly earnings beats. Most recently, the company reported Q4 2025 EPS of $4.76, marking a nearly 25% year-over-year increase from the same quarter a year earlier. Mastercard's earnings are expected to grow nearly 17% in the year ahead, from $15.91 to $18.61 per share. At the same time, the company has been embracing trends in the broader fintech industry. Mastercard has recently shifted from a traditional payment network to an AI-driven, software-focused enterprise that emphasizes enhanced security, simplified B2B transactions with virtual cards, and agentic AI tools. Icing the cake, Mastercard pays a dividend that, while not known for a substantial yield (currently 0.69%), has increased for 13 consecutive years. The payment processing firm maintains a sustainable dividend payout ratio of 21.07%, and its annualized five-year dividend growth rate stands at 13.70%. Visa: Evolving and Adapting Since 1958 Visa (NYSE: V) features a network-based model that enables partnering banks and other financial institutions to issue branded payment products, while the company focuses on infrastructure, standards, and technology integration. Like Mastercard, Visa is rapidly integrating fintech, emphasizing AI-driven solutions and blockchain-based settlement with the goal of transitioning from traditional card-based transactions to more flexible, digital-first experiences by 2026. That resulted in Visa also reporting record revenue and net income in 2025, with the former coming in at $40 billion—good for an 11% YOY increase—and the latter registering nearly $20 billion. While Mastercard's run of earnings beats is impressive, Visa has not missed an earnings estimate in the past 10 years. During that stretch, the company met analyst expectations twice while beating EPS expectations 38 times. Much of that can be attributed to the company's nearly 83% gross profit margin in 2025, which falls in line with its 10-year average. Like its counterpart, Visa also pays a modest dividend that currently yields 0.87%. Its dividend payout ratio is a healthy 25.14%, and its annualized five-year dividend growth rate stands at 14.48%. The company has increased its payout for 17 consecutive years. | 
