Visa's profit boosted by Europe unit, big card portfolio wins

By Nikhil Subba (Reuters) - Visa Inc on Thursday reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings and said it expects full-year profit at the high end of its forecast, as it benefits from the purchase of Visa Europe and big credit-card portfolio wins back home. Shares of Visa, the world's largest payments network operator, were up 2.5 percent at $93.45 in trading after the bell, after it also announced a $5 billion share buyback program. The company said total payments volume jumped 37.2 percent to $1.73 trillion in the second quarter ended March 31, on a constant dollar basis. San Francisco-based Visa, like rival MasterCard generates revenue by facilitating credit- and debit-card transactions. The growth in payments volume was helped by the addition to Visa's results of Visa Europe, a former subsidiary Visa bought in June last year in a deal worth as much as $23 billion. Visa Europe made up nearly a fifth of total payments volume. Payments volume in the United States, Visa's biggest market, increased 11.7 percent on a constant dollar basis, helped both by major portfolio contracts as well as a stronger economy. Warehouse club retailer Costco and USAA, one of the largest U.S. issuers of credit and debit cards, switched their card portfolios to Visa last year, in a competitive environment where large portfolios are hotly sought-after by payment networks. A healthier U.S. economy, which has seen strong jobs growth and rising incomes in the first quarter of 2017, bodes well for consumer spending — a key economic indicator for payments processors like Visa. The trends, while boosting quarterly profit and revenue, also helped Visa update its full-year forecast. The company now expects adjusted profit at the high end of its forecast for a mid-teens percentage point increase. Visa also said it expects full-year revenue at the high end of its forecast for a 16-18 percent increase. Net income fell to $430 million or 18 cents per Class A share in the second quarter, from $1.71 billion or 71 cents per Class A share, a year earlier, reflecting a $1.5 billion one-time charge related to Visa Europe. Excluding one-time items, Visa earned 86 cents per Class A share, beating analysts' average estimate of 79 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Net operating revenue rose 23.5 percent to $4.48 billion. Analysts on average had expected $4.29 billion. Visa's stock — a Dow component — had climbed 12.3 percent in the 12 months through Thursday. (Reporting by Nikhil Subba in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)