Visa posts jump in quarterly profit, increases dividend

By KEN SWEET
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Visa Inc. said its fiscal fourth quarter profits rose by an adjusted 16% from a year earlier, helped once again by higher usage of its global namesake payment network.

The San Francisco-based company said it earned a profit of $3.94 billion, or $1.86 a share. Excluding one-time charges, which included Visa writing down some of its investments due to the drop in the stock market this year, the company earned $4.09 billion, or $1.93 a share. That’s better than the $1.87 per share that analysts were forecasting, according to FactSet.

Visa processed $2.929 trillion in payments on its network in the July to September quarter, up 10.5% on a constant-dollar basis. Since the pandemic, there’s been a global move to use electronic payments for more routine purchases, such as groceries. That behavioral change has directly benefited Visa’s bottom line, since it takes a small fee for every transaction run on its network.

The payments increase has come despite the surge in inflation across the world. Visa said that its has seen no change in consumer purchasing behavior yet.

“As we look ahead, while some short-term uncertainty exists, we remain confident in Visa’s long-term growth trajectory across consumer payments, new flows and value added services,” Visa CEO Al Kelly said in a statement.

For the full fiscal year, Visa said it earned $16 billion on an adjusted basis on revenue of $29.3 billion. That’s up 24% from a year earlier.

Visa’s board of directors also approved an increase to the company’s quarterly dividend to 45 cents per share. The board also approved a new $12 billion stock buyback program, replacing its previous program.

Visa’s stock was up about 2% in after-hours trading.