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Visa Profits Surge 24 Percent

Visa Inc. posted fiscal second-quarter results Wednesday, posting a 24 percent surge in profits, fueled by a 45 percent increase in revenue from overseas markets.  The results mirror those of rival payment processor MasterCard, who reported Tuesday that its profits also grew 24 percent in the quarter.

In the three months ended March 31st, Visa earned $881 million, or $1.23 per share, compared with earnings of $713 million, 96 cents a share, for the same period in 2010.  Overall revenue, meanwhile, increased from $1.96 billion in the year ago period to $2.25 billion.  The results handily topped the expectations of analysts taking part in a recent FactSet survey, who had projected earnings of $1.20 a share on revenue of $2.23 billion, on average.

Visa says it processed more than 12 billion transactions in the quarter, a 13 percent increase over the transactions it handled in the same quarter a year ago, strong evidence that consumers are picking up credit card spending bot domestically and abroad.