SAN FRANCISCO (Feb. 4) - Visa says its fiscal first-quarter profit rose by 35 percent as payment volume rose despite the recession. The results beat Wall Street expectations.

The credit card payment processor reported net income of $574 million, or 74 cents per share. That's up from $424 million, or 55 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

Excluding one-time charges, Visa earned $599 million, or 78 cents per share, in the latest quarter.

That easily beat Wall Street's expectations. Thomson Reuters says analysts expected a profit in the latest quarter of 66 cents per share.

San Francisco-based Visa says its revenue rose 17 percent to $1.74 billion. Payments volume jumped 12 percent over the year-ago period to $701 billion.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2009-02-04 16:56:01

PRINT|E-MAIL TWITTER FACEBOOK DIGG AIM MORE