MasterCard 2Q profit slips and revenue falls short

PURCHASE, N.Y. (AP) — MasterCard Inc. on Wednesday said that its second-quarter profit edged down 1 percent as a strong dollar weighed on the company’s results.

The payment processor earned $921 million, down from $931 million a year earlier. On a per-share basis, it earned 81 cents per share. Excluding a legal settlement, earnings were 85 cents, which met Wall Street expectations.

However, revenue fell shy of financial analysts’ forecasts. MasterCard, which generates the bulk of its revenue by charging a fee on each transaction processed on its network, had revenue of $2.39 billion, compared with $2.42 billion forecast.

The results were hurt by a strong U.S. dollar. Transactions done internationally are worth less when their local-currency price is converted to dollars. MasterCard, like Visa and American Express, is particularly exposed to currency fluctuations when U.S. customers buy products while traveling internationally, because their accounts are denominated in dollars. Quarterly revenue would have risen 7 percent were it not for the impact of the dollar, as well as other currency fluctuations.

The company processed $1.14 trillion worth of transactions on its network, on a local currency basis, up 13 percent from a year earlier.

MasterCard shares fell 2 percent in early trading to $93.22, due largely to the concerns over revenue. MasterCard shares have risen 8 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has climbed nearly 2 percent.

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Elements of this story were by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on MA at http://www.zacks.com/ap/MA

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