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Visa reported a profit that topped last year's earnings and outstripped Wall Street's forecasts, and the company's shares edged higher after selling off early in the late session.
The company also raised its dividend and authorized a share repurchase plan.
The credit card company said it earned 74 cents a share excluding one-time items in its fiscal fourth quarter, up from from 58 cents a share in the same period last year.
Revenue reached $1.88 billion in the most recent quarter. Last year, the company reported a topline of $1.709 billion.
Analysts who follow Visa expected the company to report a profit of 72 cents a share on sales of $1.778 billion, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Visa is partly insulated from the credit crisis because it processes transactions rather than lends funds. But the company has seen a slowdown in the growth of revenue and transaction volumes as consumers used their credit cards less.
The world's largest payment network increased its quarterly dividend by 19 percent and authorized a $1 billion share repurchase plan.
Net operating revenue rose 10 percent to $1.9 billion, while adjusted operating expenses rose 2 percent to $960 million.
Total processed transactions—which represent transactions processed by VisaNet—increased 9 percent to 10.3 billion, but payments volume fell 2 percent for the quarter ended June 30, which translates to revenue in the following quarter.
"It's a good set of numbers, and the outlook is pretty much in line," with Visa's previous estimates, said Robert Dodd, an analyst at Morgan, Keegan & Co.
The payment network reiterated net revenue growth at the lower end of the 11 percent to 15 percent range in its fiscal 2010 year, and annual diluted class A common stock earnings per share growth of more than 20 percent.
Visa forecast marketing expenses of less than $1 billion in 2010, and capital expenditures in the $200 million to $250 million range, up to one-third less than in 2009.
Visa's shares, which finished the regular New York Stock Exchange session up [V
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] more than 1.5 percent at $73.99, were up more than 1 percent in late trading. Get after-hours Visa quotes here.
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