(Reuters) -Visa beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit on Tuesday, as the world’s largest payment processor benefited from a steady rise in card payment volumes and announced a $30 billion share repurchase plan.
Payments volume — a gauge of overall consumer and business spending on Visa’s network — jumped 8% in the second quarter.
“Consumer spending remained resilient, even with macroeconomic uncertainty,” Visa’s CEO Ryan Mclnerney said in a statement.
U.S. consumer spending remained resilient in the reported quarter, helped by strong wage growth and low unemployment rates even though some customers cut back on discretionary spending on tariff-related inflationary expectations and growth worries.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to hit trading partners with steep tariffs came just as the quarter ended, and could hit consumer confidence and dent spending, analysts have said.
Visa strengthened its annual net revenue growth forecast on Tuesday to low double-digit from an earlier high single-digits to low double-digits expectation. The Street was expecting a 10% growth, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Shares of the company, which announced the $30 billion multi-year share repurchase authorization program, were up 1% in trading after the bell. Visa’s shares have climbed more than 8% so far this year, outperforming Mastercard’s 2.5% gain and American Express’ 10% decline.
Visa had $4.7 billion of remaining authorized funds for share repurchases, as of March 31.
The company posted an adjusted profit of $5.4 billion, or $2.76 per share, in the three months ended March 31. That compared with $5.1 billion, or $2.51 per share, a year earlier.
Analysts had expected an adjusted profit of $2.68 per share, according to estimates compiled by LSEG.
American Express, which generally caters to affluent customers, also beat estimates for profit earlier in the month. Mastercard is set to report its quarterly earnings later in the week.
(Reporting by Pritam Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
