Rising consumer spending has pushed up MasterCard’s profits
MasterCard has reported expectation busting second-quarter profit of $983m as customers increasingly use plastic over cash at the till.
Profits came in at 89 cents per share, with earnings – adjusted for non-recurring costs – were 96 cents per share. The average earnings estimate of 17 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for 90 cents per share.
Processed transactions were up 14 per cent to 13.7bn.
The second largest US payments processor posted revenue of $2.69bn in the period, also topping Wall Street forecasts.
Read more: Banks told to sell stakes in £6 trillion UK payment systems
MasterCard shares climbed by 1.4 per cent following the earnings release, though are flat on the last 12 months.
[charts-share-price id="421"]
Ajay Banga, MasterCard president and chief executive said:
We carried solid momentum into the second quarter, delivering 14 percent revenue growth for the first half of the year, after adjusting for currency.
With last week’s VocaLink announcement, we will expand our capabilities beyond core card-based solutions into a broader set of transactions and payments. The collective technology and experience will provide consumers, businesses and governments more choice and value in how they pay and are paid.
Despite the continued move towards spending on cards, MasterCard is experimenting with what could be the the future of payments.
Projects include a robot named Pepper that can take customers’ orders at Pizza Hut and a refrigerator that can order groceries.
Read more: Setting bank data free is just the start for consumer choice
Last week MasterCard acquired a majority stake in Vocalink, the system which governs trillions of payments in the UK, in a £700m deal giving the biggest UK banks a windfall with the possibility of a further £169m if targets are met.
The deal comes after the UK regulator urged banks to sell their stake in Vocalink.