Visa Beats Estimates With Higher Earnings

(Reuters) - Visa Inc (V.N), the world's largest credit and debit-card network, beat analysts estimates with a 23 percent increase in adjusted earnings as people spent more with cards.

The company also raised the high-end of its estimated range for full-year earnings per share.

Quarterly profit, excluding an accounting benefit from a revaluation of deferred tax liabilities, rose 23 percent from a year earlier to $1.08 billion, or $1.60 a share, the company said.

Analysts, on average, had estimated that Visa would earn $1.51 a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The results were for the three months ended March 31, which was the second quarter of the company's fiscal year.

The company forecast that earnings per share for the full year would increase by a percentage in the high teens to low twenties. The company said three months earlier it expected the growth would be in the high teens.

Without the adjustment for the tax liability, net income for the quarter was $1.29 billion, or $1.91 a share, compared with $811 million, or $1.23 a share, a year earlier, the company said on Wednesday after the close of New York Stock Exchange trading.

Earlier in the day MasterCard Inc (MA.N), which operates the second-biggest card processing network, reported a 21 percent increase in quarterly net income and stronger operating margins on additional card spending.