Fintech, payments & financial infrastructure

Claim

Ten names screened against the Visa template: asset-light, high-margin, toll-booth economics on a transaction or data flow.

The structural finding is that this field has no bad businesses at the top end — exchanges, card networks and ratings agencies all have genuine monopoly-adjacent moats. Which makes it a pure price discipline field: the screen isn't looking for quality, it's waiting for quality to go on sale.

Notable calls

• MA rejected in favour of V — "V is cheaper and essentially the same business." Clean call in a field where the temptation is to own both.
• CME rejected on price alone — "outstanding quality but only 7% off highs."
• VRSK flagged — 49% off 52wk high is extreme for a monopoly-grade data business, and it was on the eliminated list rather than the shortlist. Worth revisiting.
• NDAQ — SaaS transformation interesting, Adenza dilution a headwind.

Held/covered: FISV, PYPL, SPGI, TRI, INTU, PCTY, GWRE. Own reports for V, BR, GPN, PYPL, FISV, PAYC.

🚩 Loose end

VRSK at −49% was noticed and then dropped without follow-up. For a data monopoly that drawdown is unusual, and nothing in the repo explains it. Either there's a real problem worth knowing about or there was a mispricing worth taking.

What would falsify this

The quality premise itself — a card network or exchange losing pricing power to a regulatory or technological entrant. Watch interchange regulation and any exchange disintermediation.

History

• 2026-03-21 — Visa-like screen, 10 names.
• 2026-03-27 — adjacent-value pass added GPN, ADP, CPAY, EFX.