Visa, MasterCard Higher on Light News

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Visa (V Quote) and MasterCard (MA Quote) shares each made substantial gains Wednesday as higher than average shares traded hands on light news.

Visa's stock climbed 3.8% to $70.86 Wednesday, as more than 12 million shares changed hands, more than double the San Francisco-based payments network's average daily volume. MasterCard's stock rose 5.1% to $210.90, again on frothy trading volume. Shares of Discover Financial Services (DFS Quote) and American Express (AXP Quote), two smaller competitors, each rose 1.4% on Wednesday.

The two larger electronic payment networks have been relatively shielded from the worst of the financial crisis vs. other financial firms. Both companies earn fees for charging banks to issue cards on their networks. They also garner fees for each transaction swiped as well as a percentage of total purchase volume per bank. Neither company holds credit card loans on their balance sheet.

On the one hand, investors could have been preparing for a hearing scheduled for Thursday morning by the House Committee on Financial Services to receive testimony on the Credit Card Interchange Fees Act of 2009, H.R. 2382, and the Expedited CARD Reform for consumers Act of 2009, H.R. 3639. The hearing would potentially move forward legislation to make interchange fees -- a controversial subject in the payments industry -- less of a hassle and more transparent for merchants.

Visa and MasterCard set the pricing of interchange fees for their bank customers. There has been much controversy surrounding alleged interchange abuses, including a host of lawsuits against the firms regarding the overcharging of interchange fees.