Tag - Finance

Like most things that go the way of the Internet, so, too, goes commerce. Forrester Research estimates that U.S. e-commerce revenues were at $259.1 billion last year, and are growing at nearly 60% annually. This bodes well for CyberSource Corporation (Nasdaq:CYBS) and CAM Commerce Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq:CADA), two companies benefiting from the move to online commerce from in-person banking.

CyberSource provides electronic payment and risk-management tools for businesses processing orders over the Internet. Approximately 228,000 customers use CyberSource tools, including half the companies in the Dow Industrial Average.

The company offers CyberSource Advanced service for merchants who want to accept online payments via credit cards, corporate procurement cards, electronic checks and the Bill Me Later service. CyberSource Essentials allows merchants to process credit card payments via websites and also processes telephone, fax and mail order payments using a Web-based virtual terminal. The company’s enterprise software processing platform, CyberSource Payment Manager, can authorize and settle payments originating from multiple sales channels. The company’s tools for risk management include Managed Risk Service, which offers professional analysis, risk modeling and monitoring, and Advanced Fraud Screen, a risk-scoring tool for assessing fraud risk, authenticating payers, verifying delivery addresses, making tax payments and ensuring export regulatory compliance.

CyberSource has strategic alliances with most of the leading online payment processors including AmeriNet, Checkfree, FDC/Telecheck, 14 Commerce, PayPal and Visa USA.

With online fraud running rampant, demand for fraud-screening services is rising. Visa and MasterCard are now even requiring merchants to comply with a comprehensive list of payment card security standards to limit the threat of identity theft. Faced with these . . .

Remember what a dividend is? It’s an old-fashioned way of creating shareholder value by giving shareholders money.

Dividends have gone out of fashion with the focus on high-tech growth stocks. Investors are looking for capital gains on their investment, not dividend yield. But there is a way to make high-growth tech stocks pay dividends right away – with an investment in Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc. (Nasdaq: HTGC).

Hercules has a current dividend yield of 9.9%, one of the highest among Nasdaq stocks. The specialty finance company has carved out a niche in “venture debt” – it makes loans of $1 million to $30 million to private technology and life sciences companies that are backed by venture capital or private equity firms.

Hercules has paid a dividend every quarter since it went public in June 2005 – it just declared its eighth consecutive quarterly dividend, $0.30, for the second quarter, ended June 30. The reason: it has to pay dividends, because it is organized as a business development company (BDC), making it a registered investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940, the same act that governs mutual funds. To maintain this status, which exempts it from paying corporate income tax, the company must distribute 90% of its net taxable income as dividends.

Of course, you have to have income to pay dividends. Though its track record is still short, Hercules has made its high-risk loans with minimal losses – of the $700 million loan commitments made since its founding in 2003, the gross loss has been $5 million and the net loss, after bankruptcy workouts, has been $1 million. One of the reasons for this strong record is that Hercules has forged relationships with more than a hundred top venture capital and private equity firms to provide it with a high-quality deal flow.