MasterCard's third-quarter profit soared 38% on a big spike in credit card use around the world. The US-based payments processor also attributed the strong results to new deals with certain banks to issue debit cards bearing its logo and new transaction processing deals overseas.
MasterCard reported net income of $717m for the three months to the end of September. That compared with $518m, or $3.94 per share, the same time last year. Revenue jumped 27% to $1.82 billion, from $1.43 billion last year.
The results far exceed expectations and outpaced the performance of its larger rival, Visa, which missed revenue forecasts last week.
Purchase volume, the amount spent on debit and credit cards, rose 17% worldwide to $628 billion. In the US, spending was up 13% to $227 billion.
Visa and American Express said most of the increased spending in the US they saw during the last quarter came from affluent card users, a cause for some concern as it reflects broader weakness for the economy.
MasterCard has far fewer debit cards in use than Visa, but its revenue from those cards is growing faster. Mastercard said US purchases with its debit cards rose 23% to $97 billion. Its rival's growth in debit purchase volume was just 8% last quarter, a point noted by Wall Street.
More than half of MasterCard's revenue comes from outside the US, and card use rose nearly 20% abroad. Big increases in purchases in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific-Middle East region led overseas gains. The company's worldwide footprint has helped to partially insulate it from economic woes in the US and Europe.
