Visa profit beats estimate as e-commerce volumes rebound

Visa Inc beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit on Thursday, as a surge in online spending helped drive a recovery in payment volumes from the coronavirus-induced slump.

The world's largest payment processor said total spending rose 5% on a constant dollar basis from a year earlier, after dropping 10% in the previous quarter, as customers staying at home due to the health crisis shopped more on the web.

"We saw sustained strength of debit and e-commerce volumes as well as resilient domestic spending in most countries," Chief Executive Officer Alfred Kelly Jr said.

Visa's shares were up 1.2% in extended trading as the company said the number of processed transactions rose 4% and that it approved a new $8 billion share buyback program.

But cross-border volume slumped 21% as the pandemic continued to hurt travel demand, with volumes excluding transactions within Europe crashing 33%.

The resurgence of infections in several countries led to border closures, which mainly impacted card-present spending, Visa said. A card-present transaction is one in which a customer physically swipes a card to make a payment.

Visa also did not provide a forecast for full-year 2021 due to the COVID-19 crisis.

However, its peers Mastercard Inc and American Express Co said earlier they expect a near-term uptick in business as easing lockdowns and improved vaccination efforts boost travel.

Visa reported a net income of 1.42 per Class A share for the first quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with analysts' estimates of $1.28 per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
The company's net revenue fell 6% to $5.69 billion.