Visa beats profit estimates as spending volumes recover

"Cross-border travel is the slowest sector to return, but there are some green shoots," Kelly Jr said. Visa's net revenue fell 2% to $5.73 billion in the second quarter ended March 31, just higher than analysts' expectations of $5.61 billion, according to the IBES estimate from Refinitiv.

Visa Inc beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit on Tuesday as its customers shopped more online, helping the world's biggest payment processor counter a hit to cross-border volumes from a slowdown in travel and entertainment.

Payment companies are slowly seeing an uptick in volumes from the coronavirus-induced slump as massive government stimulus and the rapid rollout of vaccines fuel an economic recovery, unleashing pent-up demand for both goods and services. Visa said total payment volumes rose 11% on a constant dollar basis from a year earlier, after rising 5% in the previous quarter. The number of processed transactions rose 8% from the previous year.

"The COVID-19 pandemic certainly has turned the world upside down in the last year, but we believe we are starting to see the beginning of the end and the recovery is well underway...," Chief Executive Officer Alfred Kelly Jr said. Kelly Jr said Visa had seen a return to positive growth for credit and card present transactions, and debit and ecommerce growth stayed at very healthy levels in the quarter.

Still, pandemic restrictions and a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in several parts of the world have forced people and businesses to put travel on hold, sending cross-border volumes at Visa down 11% in the quarter. Volumes excluding transactions within Europe fell 21%. "Cross-border travel is the slowest sector to return, but there are some green shoots," Kelly Jr said.

Visa's net revenue fell 2% to $5.73 billion in the second quarter ended March 31, just higher than analysts' expectations of $5.61 billion, according to the IBES estimate from Refinitiv. Visa reported net income of $1.38 per Class A share, compared with analysts' estimates of $1.27 per share.