Visa Q3 - Crossborder Payments Upbeat

On Tuesday night Visa released a strong set of results. Their revenue, profits and dividend all came in higher than expected. It is always a positive sign when a company feels confident enough to have a strong dividend increase. The good results meant Visa closed up 4.6% yesterday.

These results also offer a very good look at global consumer spending. Here is what the Visa CFO had to say: "If you just looked at our numbers and didn't look at what people are writing or saying in the media, you wouldn't think there's all this anxiety or uncertainty out there or that people aren't feeling good about things,". . . "The numbers have been steady for nine months and spending is stable almost everywhere in the world and quite strong." Visa has seen "no evidence of consumers feeling a pinch, consumers feeling anxious," he added.

The very profitable cross-border payments have rebounded and are growing. Visa noted that due to bottlenecks with hotels and airlines, some consumers weren't able to have their post-Covid holiday. With pent-up demand, Visa is expecting continued strength in global tourism.

As it stands, both Visa and consumers are doing well. Let's hope that we don't talk ourselves into a global recession.