2 impressive ASX shares to buy in May 2021

These 2 ASX shares are impressive considerations to look at, including payments business EML Payments Ltd (ASX:EML).

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There are a handful of really impressive ASX shares that might be strong performers over the coming years.

Businesses that are globally growing and increasing margins could be very attractive ASX shares.

Here are two companies that are doing plenty of good things to ensure long-term success:

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EML Payments Ltd (ASX: EML)

EML is one of the most impressive (fintech) ASX shares around. It's a multinational leader when it comes to assisting clients with their payments needs. EML offers a number of different services including shopping centre cards, gift cards, gaming payouts, disbursements, rewards and incentives.

The ASX share is one of the companies leading the race to offer a single API-based platform that offers all dominant account to account payment types including direct debits, open banking, credit transfers, virtual account products, international bank account numbers (IBANs), single euro payments area (SEPA), faster payments service (FPS) and instant payments to its partners.

It's able to offer all of that partly due to its acquisition of Sentenial, which has one of the few open banking products in the marketplace. Sentenial has a highly scalable platform which EML plans to export globally. With this acquisition, EML is expecting to process more than $90 billion annually for clients.

Sentenial has four of the top seven banks in the UK as customers, including some of the largest merchant acquirers in Europe.

EML has generated a lot of growth, thanks to both organic growth and acquisitions. In the FY21 half-year result, it reported gross debt volume growth of 54% to $10.2 billion, revenue growth of 61% to $95.3 million and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) growth of 42% to $28.1 million.

The ASX share is expecting FY21 EBITDA to be in a range of $50 million to $54 million.

City Chic Collective Ltd (ASX: CCX)

City Chic might be one of the most promising retail ASX shares around. It's generating global revenue growth and it's also benefiting from profit margin improvements.

The company has grown quite a lot over the last year. It now has over 800,000 active customers with more than $200 million of global sales. Over 70% of that is from online, with 42 million global online traffic visits. The northern hemisphere is getting close to half of overall sales.

It has a number of different brands for different markets including City Chic, CCX, Avenue, Evans, Hips & Curves and Fox & Royal.

City Chic has a number of initiatives to grow globally. It wants to expand its market share in the USA by doing things like cross-selling the City Chic product to the Avenue customer base.

The ASX share is targeting a conservative value option for the Australian and New Zealand market, with a website targeted for the first half of FY22.

City Chic is also looking at a market entry into the European market, where it sees a $45 billion market opportunity. It's currently trialing in Europe through the wholesale channel.

The company is seeing "strong" positive comparable sales growth and strong customer base growth in the second half of FY21 to date. On top of that, the gross profit margin for all channels has now fully recovered since the higher levels of discounting during the early to middle part of 2020 because of COVID-19.

Pleasingly, shipping and logistics costs have reduced since the second quarter of FY21, but remain elevated compared to pre-COVID levels.

City Chic is currently rated as a buy by the brokers at Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) with a price target of $5.20 because the recovery has been stronger than expected. According to Macquarie, the City Chic share price is valued at 33x FY22's estimated earnings.

Tristan Harrison has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia's parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. owns shares of and recommends EML Payments. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of and has recommended Macquarie Group Limited. The Motley Fool Australia has recommended EML Payments. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Bruce Jackson.

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