It may not be the market's best-performing stock over the course of the past 10 years. But there's no denying (NYSE: V) shares have soundly rewarded patient shareholders. A $10,000 investment in Visa made in 2013 would be worth nearly $54,000 today. Factoring in reinvested dividends would bump that total up to $58,020, which nearly doubles the performance of the S 500 over that time.

The thing is, while most stocks struggle to maintain above-average gains for years and years on end, this one just might do so. The reasons Visa shares have done so well during the past decade are still largely intact: the company's superior offerings and a growing preference for card-based payments rather than cash.

Contrary to a common belief, Visa isn't the underlying lender to customers using its plastic to make purchases. It's strictly a middleman, allowing banks and other lenders to issue credit cards while at the same time allowing merchants to accept card-based payments. It handles nearly 270 billion transactions per year, facilitating more than $14 trillion worth of business between more than 100 million merchants and the holders of more than 4 billion Visa cards. That makes it the world's largest credit payment network.

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Source Fool.com