Strong financial results reported by MasterCard & Visa

Net income for the quarter was $1.6 billion for Visa, an increase of 11% over the prior year, and $801 million for MasterCard, an increase of 17%. Visa’s net operating revenue in the fiscal first quarter of 2015 was $3.4 billion, an increase of 7% nominally or 9% on a constant dollar basis over the prior year. MasterCard’s net revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $2.4 billion, a 14% increase versus the same period in 2013 as-reported and 17% increase adjusted for currency.

Visa Inc.
Net income for the first quarter 2015 was $1.6 billion, an increase of 11% over the prior year, or $2.53 per share, an increase of 15% over the prior year, according to the press release. Net operating revenue in the fiscal first quarter of 2015 was $3.4 billion, an increase of 7% nominally or 9% on a constant dollar basis over the prior year, driven by solid growth in service revenues, data processing revenues and international transaction revenues. The strengthening of the U.S. dollar impacted net operating revenues by approximately 2 percentage points of negative growth during the quarter.

Fiscal First Quarter 2015 Financial Highlights:
. Payments volume growth, on a constant dollar basis, for the three months ended September 30, 2014, on which fiscal first quarter service revenue is recognized, was 11% over the prior year at $1.2 trillion.
. Payments volume growth, on a constant dollar basis, for the three months ended December 31, 2014, was 11% over the prior year at $1.2 trillion.
. Cross-border volume growth, on a constant dollar basis, was 8% for the three months ended December 31, 2014.
. Total processed transactions, which represent transactions processed by VisaNet, for the three months ended December 31, 2014, were 17.6 billion, a 10% increase over the prior year.
. Fiscal first quarter 2015 service revenues were $1.5 billion, an increase of 8% over the prior year, and are recognized based on payments volume in the prior quarter.

Data processing revenues rose 9% over the prior year to $1.4 billion. International transaction revenues grew 9% over the prior year to $970 million. Other revenues, which include the Visa Europe licensing fee, were $204 million, an increase of 14% over the prior year. Client incentives, which are a contra revenue item, were $713 million and represent 17.4% of gross revenues.

Total operating expenses were $1.1 billion for the quarter, a 6% increase over the prior year.
The effective tax rate was 30.6% for the quarter ended December 31, 2014.
Cash, cash equivalents, and available-for-sale investment securities were $7.5 billion at December 31, 2014.

MasterCard
Net revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $2.4 billion, a 14% increase versus the same period in 2013 as-reported and 17% increase adjusted for currency, according to the press release. Net revenue growth was driven by the impact of the following:
. An increase in cross-border volumes of 19%;
. A 13% increase in gross dollar volume, on a local currency basis, to $1.2 trillion; and
. An increase in processed transactions of 11%, to 11.6 billion.

Worldwide purchase volume during the quarter was up 12% on a local currency basis versus the fourth quarter of 2013, to $858 billion. As of December 31, 2014, the company’s customers had issued 2.1 billion MasterCard and Maestro-branded cards.

Full-Year 2014 Results
For the year ended December 31, 2014, MasterCard reported net income of $3.6 billion, an increase of 14%, both before and after adjusting for currency, and earnings per diluted share of $3.10, up 19%, in each case versus the year-ago period and excluding last year’s special item. Acquisitions had a $0.04 dilutive impact on earnings per diluted share.
Net revenue for the full-year 2014 was $9.5 billion, an increase of 14% versus 2013, both before and after adjusting for currency. Gross dollar volume growth of 13%, cross-border volume growth of 16% and transaction processing growth of 12% contributed to full-year net revenue growth.