Visa Inc. climbed in extended trading after raising its revenue forecast for the year and announcing it will buy back $5 billion of stock.
Revenue for the 2017 fiscal year will be at the high end of the 16 percent to 18 percent range that the payments network provided earlier, San Francisco-based Visa said Thursday in a statement. Revenue in the fiscal second quarter ended March 31 jumped 23 percent to $4.5 billion on gains from its recently acquired European business.
“Robust growth in payments volume, cross-border volume and processed transactions drove better-than-expected results,” Chief Executive Officer Al Kelly said in the statement. “Looking ahead, we are continuing our efforts across the globe to electronify commerce and digitize economies.”
Visa has been investing in digital payment technologies and establishing more relationships with retailers to spur the global shift away from cash and checks to electronic payments. The company completed its $20 billion purchase of Visa Europe in June to gain a stronger foothold in that market after the two firms spent eight years as separate entities.
Visa shares rose 2.8 percent to $93.68 at 4:22 p.m. in New York. The stock climbed 17 percent this year through the end of regular trading, outpacing the 12 percent advance of the 69-company S&P 500 Information Technology Index.
Net income fell 75 percent $430 million, or 18 cents a share, from $1.71 billion, or 71 cents, a year earlier, Visa said Thursday in a statement. Excluding costs related to reorganization of Visa Europe, profit was 86 cents a share, beating the 79-cent average estimate of 32 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Operating expenses rose 40 percent $1.67 billion, the company said, primarily driven by increases in charitable donations to the newly created Visa Foundation.
The firm lowered its forecast for full-year, earnings-per-share growth rate to “high single-digits” from the “low 30s” it previously expected.
Global credit- and debit-card spending, including Visa Europe and adjusted for currency fluctuations, increased 37 percent to $1.73 trillion from a year earlier, the company said. Cross-border volume, a measure of customer spending abroad, increased 132 percent.
