International Payments Generate Profits for MasterCard, Visa

Athens and Sparta. East Coast and West Coast. Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc.

The rival payment processors released quarterly reports within 24 hours of each other, with MasterCard gaining the upper hand this time around.

Purchase, N.Y.-based MasterCard this morning reported first quarter net income more than doubled to $446.9 million, or $3.38 a share, compared with $214.9 million, or $1.57 a share in its first quarter a year ago.

Revenues rose nearly 30 percent to $1.2 billion. Purchase volume outside the U.S. grew 30 percent to $352 billion, while U.S. volume grew nearly 9 percent to $259 billion.

San Francisco-based Visa yesterday announced its profits increased 28 percent to $314 million in its fiscal second quarter ending March 31. Net operating revenue was nearly $1.5 billion, up from about $1.2 billion a year ago.

Payments worldwide grew 19 percent to $681 billion, driven by increases in international markets. Outside the U.S., credit payments grew 27 percent while debit payments rose nearly 44 percent.

The slow U.S. economy hasn’t yet hurt results, but that is bound to change, Chief Financial Officer Byron Pollitt told analysts during a conference call.

However, Visa released a three-year outlook that said its annual net revenues would grow 11 percent to 15 percent while earnings-per-share could rise 20 percent or more.

MasterCard went public in 2006 and its shares (NYSE: MA) have risen more than six times to trade today at $266.48. Visa (NYSE: V) went public last month and its shares have risen more than 70 percent to trade at $74.59 today.