PAR Technology (NYSE:PAR) versus Visa (NYSE:V) Head to Head Review

Visa (NYSE:V) and PAR Technology (NYSE:PAR) are both business services companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, profitability, valuation, analyst recommendations, dividends, earnings and institutional ownership.

Risk & Volatility

Visa has a beta of 0.9, indicating that its stock price is 10% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, PAR Technology has a beta of 1.65, indicating that its stock price is 65% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

82.2% of Visa shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Visa shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.7% of PAR Technology shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Visa and PAR Technology”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Visa	$35.93 billion	17.73	$19.74 billion	$10.24	33.94
PAR Technology	$349.98 million	4.13	-$4.99 million	($2.25)	-15.82

Visa has higher revenue and earnings than PAR Technology. PAR Technology is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Visa, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Visa and PAR Technology’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Visa	52.16%	58.93%	23.38%
PAR Technology	-20.64%	-3.16%	-1.90%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for Visa and PAR Technology, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Visa	0	5	19	4	2.96
PAR Technology	1	2	7	0	2.60

Visa presently has a consensus target price of $392.75, suggesting a potential upside of 13.02%. PAR Technology has a consensus target price of $74.57, suggesting a potential upside of 109.50%. Given PAR Technology’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe PAR Technology is more favorable than Visa.

Summary

Visa beats PAR Technology on 12 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Visa

Visa Inc. operates as a payment technology company in the United States and internationally. The company operates VisaNet, a transaction processing network that enables authorization, clearing, and settlement of payment transactions. It also offers credit, debit, and prepaid card products; tap to pay, tokenization, and click to pay services; Visa Direct, a solution that facilitates the delivery of funds to eligible cards, deposit accounts, and digital wallets; Visa B2B Connect, a multilateral business-to-business cross-border payments network; Visa Cross-Border Solution, a cross-border consumer payments solution; and Visa DPS that provides a range of value-added services, including fraud mitigation, dispute management, data analytics, campaign management, a suite of digital solutions, and contact center services. The company also provides acceptance solutions, which include Cybersource that provides modular and value-added services for connecting merchants to payment processing; risk and identity solutions, such as Visa Advanced Authorization, Visa Secure, Visa Risk and Decision Manager, Visa Consumer Authentication Service, and payment-decisioning solutions for fraud prevention; and Visa Consulting and Analytics, a payment consulting advisory services. It provides its services under the Visa, Visa Electron, Interlink, V PAY, and PLUS brand names. The company serves merchants, financial institutions, and government entities. Visa Inc. was founded in 1958 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

About PAR Technology

PAR Technology Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides omnichannel cloud-based hardware and software solutions to the restaurant and retail industries worldwide. The Restaurant/Retail segment offers PUNCHH, an enterprise-grade customer loyalty and engagement solution; MENU, an eCommerce platform for restaurant brands; BRINK POS, an open cloud, point-of-sale solution; PAR PAYMENT SERVICES, a merchant services business that enables electronic payment and processing services for businesses; and DATA CENTRAL, a back-office solution that leverages business intelligence and automation technologies. This segment also offers Point-of-Sale Hardware; wireless headsets for drive-thru order-taking; and kitchen display systems, payment devices, cash drawers, printers, and other peripherals. In addition, this segment provides services, such as hardware repair, installation and implementation, training, and on-site and technical support services. The Government segment provides intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance solutions; mission systems operations and maintenance, and commercial software products; systems engineering support and software-based solutions; satellite and teleport facility operation and maintenance, engineering, and installation services comprising inside and outside plant services, and maintenance of infrastructure and information systems; satellite ground system support comprising operations and maintenance, sustainment, upgrades, communications security management, anomaly response/resolution, process improvement, emergency response, and disaster recovery services; and information technology infrastructure library services to the United States Department of Defense, intelligence community (IC), and other federal agencies. This segment also offers various IC support services, systems integration, situational awareness solutions, and mission readiness support services. The company was founded in 1968 and is based in New Hartford, New York.