MasterCardMA once again reported blowout earnings last week, bolstering predictions of a smooth ride for the much-anticipated IPO for its rival Visa.

Observers say Visa could go public sometime in the second half of the year, despite some market chatter that the offering date could be put on hold or that the pricing could be lower than observers initially hoped for, due to the general malaise in market conditions and concerns about the stalling consumer.

But while consumers seem to be struggling with payments on everything from cars to mortgages these days, it's clear that their use of plastic has not diminished -- and likely won't.

"For investors, this is the perfect time to be considering purchasing this stock," says David Menlow, president of IPO Financial Network, based in Milburn, N.J. "I'm not concerned the talks of consumer problems is going to be a detriment to the market. If you look at [consumers'] tendency to live on their credit cards when times get rough that may in fact be an offset to some degree. I don't believe that people are going to want to miss another MasterCard."

Visa plans to list the stock under the symbol "V" on the New York Stock Exchange. While the company declined to comment for this story and few details have been made public so far regarding the initial public offering, Visa expects to raise up to $10 billion, according to the preliminary registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The IPO's expected success has helped attract an impressive list of underwriters, including J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs in the lead and Banc of America Securities, Citigroup, HSBC, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Wachovia also taking part in the action.

San Francisco-based Visa operates the world's largest retail electronic payments network. Visa-branded cards that are accepted in more than 170 countries around the world, according to its annual report filed in December. The company plans to hold a special shareholder meeting this week. It is proposing that shareholders approve an increase in total authorized capital by 360 million shares in preparation for its IPO.

Because credit was tossed around so freely over the past few years, many homeowners refinanced existing mortgages or took out home equity loans to pay off escalating credit card bills. Now that banks and mortgage lenders are tightening credit standards as a result of the credit crunch, consumers are finding it harder to pay other bills as well.

But Visa and its biggest rival, MasterCard, are largely immune to the troubles.

"What makes MasterCard and Visa somewhat strong is that they are extremely diversified in terms of international presences ... They don't have their eggs on one national basket," says Red Gillen, a senior analyst with Celent, a financial research and consulting firm.

"People like the convenience of the cards," Gillen adds. "Transactions are moving downstream a little bit. People are using [cards] for $5 transactions. What the major payment card brands are trying to do is to go deeper into transaction sizes to get smaller ticket payments -- where cash is still used today -- and convert that into cards."

More importantly though, neither company keeps consumer debt on their balance sheets, as opposed to rival American ExpressAXP, which was forced to set aside a large provision for loan losses last quarter as consumers began having trouble paying not only their home loans but their credit card bills and auto loans.

Visa and its member banks agreed in November to settle a long-running legal dispute with American Express by consenting to pay up to $2.25 billion to the New York card and travel services giant. Amex had alleged Visa, MasterCard and member banks -- including U.S. BancorpUSB, Wells FargoWFC, Washington MutualWM, JPMorgan ChaseJPM and Capital OneCOF -- blocked it from entering the bank-issued credit card business in the U.S.