Visa Inc, the world's biggest payments network, has reported a fiscal first-quarter profit that bettered analysts' projections on increasing card transactions by consumers.
Net income for the three months ended 31 December was up 26 per cent to $1.29 billion, or $1.93 a share, from $1.03 billion, or $1.49, a year earlier, according to the California-based company's statement yesterday.
''Results include significant continued investments in our core business, accelerating international expansion and the deployment of next-generation payment solutions,'' chief executive officer Charlie Scharf, who took over from Joseph W Saunders in November, said in the statement.
The company had set a goal of over 50 per cent revenue collections from outside the US by 2015, which according to analysts would be helped by a global consumer shift to electronic payments, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.
Spending on Visa debit and credit cards in the Asia-Pacific region, the firm's second-biggest market after the US, was up around 13 per cent, according to the company. Purchases were up 37 per cent in Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa, even as spending in Central and South America and the Caribbean increased around 22 per cent.Purchases across the region are expected to generate 42 per cent, or $9.03 trillion, in worldwide card spending at merchant establishments in 2016, up from 36 per cent at the end of 2011, according to The Nilson Report, an industry newsletter.
Quarterly profit at the company beat estimates for the ninth consecutive quarter thanks to growth in credit, debit and transactions at the world's largest payments network.
Visa and rival MasterCard Inc have been working to popularise card and online payments in parts of the world dominated by cash transactions.
Visa's purchase volumes grew 9 per cent to $1.1 trillion in the first quarter, the fastest rate of growth in nine months even as transactions on the company's Cybersource online payments network shot 28 per cent, the quickest pace in five quarters.
Visa also has expansion plans in the emerging markets and would provide payment services under a biometric identification programme being implemented by the Indian government.
According to the company, with increasing electronic payment operations and rolling out its digital wallet service, V.me, it would continue to invest in new services.
Scharf said on a post-earnings conference call that the work on mobile payments continued both organically and with the acquisition of Fundamo. He added, it was a critical access point to its network and continued in that it was absolutely critical for the company.
Visa acquired South Africa's Fundamo, a mobile payments company with a significant presence in emerging markets for around $100 million in 2011.
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