(4 May 2009 – USA) One year on from its public listing, the world’s largest credit card network, Visa, has reported a second quarter profit jump of 71 percent to US$536 million.Visa’s net income for its fiscal second quarter ended March 31 was US$536 million, an impressive increase of 71 percent from US$314 million a year earlier, despite the tough global financial environment.
The credit card giant increased revenue to US$1.6 billion for the end of March quarter, up 13 percent from March one year ago, when Visa went public.
At US$804 million and US$544 million respectively, service and data processing revenues made up the bulk of Visa’s revenues, though the big mover was revenue from International transactions, which are driven by cross border payments volumes, which grew 18 percent over the prior year to US$446 million.
Total volume for the quarter was steady at US$1.1 trillion, including payments volume which reduced by 1 percent over the prior year to US$675 billion.
Visa reported that cards carrying the Visa brands rose 8 percent worldwide over the prior year to over 1.7 billion, while total transactions increased by 9 percent over the prior year to 14.9 billion for this second quarter.
Total processed transactions for the three months to March 31, 2009, totalled 9.4 billion, a 6 percent increase over the prior year.
The resiliency in the company’s business reflects the strength of its credit, debit, and prepaid products worldwide, which continue to benefit from the ongoing secular shift from cash and cheque to electronic forms of payments, Joseph Saunders, chairman and chief executive officer of Visa said.