Financial Earnings: MasterCard Gets Overseas Boost
NEW YORK -- MasterCard Inc.'s second-quarter profit jumped 31%, beating analysts' expectations, as higher consumer spending in Latin America, Europe and Asia boosted the top line.</br></br>Though sales of discretionary items in the U.S. have slumped in recent months, the company said spending in Europe hasn't been hurt by macroeconomic uncertainty, and its Asian-Pacific and Latin America businesses continue to expand by double digits on a percentage basis.</br></br>Still, President and Chief Executive Ajay Banga said during a conference call on Tuesday that there could be "some tempering" in top-line growth in the second half of the year compared with the 9.7% revenue increase the company posted for the six months through June, citing an uneven pace of economic recovery, especially in the U.S., as well as tough comparisons to strong year-ago figures.</br></br>Roll-offs of some debit-card portfolios will continue to damp processed-transaction results as well, though MasterCard expects the effects of those terminated contracts to wane after the third quarter.</br></br>Shares of MasterCard fell $1.61, or 0.8%, to $200.91, in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading.