Visa profit rises, beats expectations as cross-border transactions jump

By Paige Smith 

Visa Inc., the world’s biggest payments network, posted a fiscal fourth-quarter profit that beat Wall Street expectations as cross-border transactions increased. 

Adjusted net income rose 13% to $5.4 billion, or $2.71 a share, the San Francisco-based company said Tuesday in a statement. That topped the $2.58 average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. 

 

Net revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 rose 12% from a year earlier to $9.6 billion. Cross-border volumes climbed 13%.

 

The results were “driven by relatively stable growth in payments volume, cross-border volume and processed transactions, plus strong momentum across new flows and value-added services,” Chief Executive Officer Ryan McInerney said in the statement. “We see tremendous opportunity ahead to grow our business.”

 

Visa forecast high single-digit net revenue growth for the fiscal first quarter and high single-digit to low double-digit growth for the full fiscal year. The company also said it expects low double-digit earnings per share growth in the current quarter and full-year EPS growth at the high end of low double-digits.

 

Shares of Visa rose 1.8% to $286.97 in extended trading at 6:36 p.m. in New York. The stock had gained 8.3% this year through the close of regular trading, trailing the 24% advance for the 72-company S&P 500 Financials Index.

 

Job Cuts 

Visa plans to dismiss about 1,400 employees and contractors by year-end as part of an effort to streamline its international business, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. About 1,000 of the cuts will be tech positions, while most of the others will affect workers in merchant sales and global digital partnerships, according to the report. The firm has more than 31,000 employees, McInerney said in a conference call.

 

“We expect to grow the number of employees at Visa this year, next year, and for the foreseeable future,” a Visa spokesperson said in a separate emailed statement, without confirming the number of job cuts. “However, we continuously evolve our operating model to better serve clients and accelerate innovation and growth, which can lead to the elimination of some roles.”

 

The US Department of Justice sued Visa last month, accusing the company of monopolizing the US debit card market in the Biden administration’s first major antitrust case in the financial-services industry. On Tuesday’s conference call, McInerney described the lawsuit “meritless” and lacking understanding of the US payments ecosystem.

 

Earlier this year, a federal judge rejected a $30 billion settlement that Visa and rival Mastercard Inc. had reached with US merchants in an attempt to resolve two decades of litigation over credit-card swipe fees.

 

Read More: Visa Sued by US in Antitrust Case Over Debit Card Markets

 

Visa also disclosed that it recently signed a virtual card-issuing deal with JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Europe, which McInerney called an opportunity to build on the firm’s strength in North Americ