As consumers brushed aside concerns of a weakening economy to swipe cards on everything from travel to dining out, Visa’s second-quarter profits blew past Wall Street estimates on Tuesday, sending its shares up 2.7% after the bell.

Despite higher loan rates for longer periods of time, U.S. consumer spending has been impressively robust, with consumers continuing to seek out opportunities to spend on large-ticket items and overseas trips.

In a conference call with analysts, Visa officials reported that international travel is still doing well, especially outside of the two major U.S. and European markets. However, they also noted that Asia-Pacific travel has been poor because the post-pandemic recovery is still taking longer than anticipated.

However, the largest payment processor in the world claimed that robust e-commerce trends have somewhat counteracted the slowdown in Asian markets.

“Certain markets are not yet at 2019 levels and Asia in particular stands out. We do think it will continue to recover through the year … but the pace relative to our own expectations in Asia is a little bit slower than we anticipated,” CFO Chris Suh said in an interview with Reuters.

Visa’s second-quarter payment volume increased by 8%. A measure of demand for international travel, cross-border volume excluding intra-Europe, increased by 16%. Over that time, processed transactions increased by 11%.

“Consumer spending has stayed largely steady in all price ranges, from low to high. During a conference call following the company’s profits, Suh stated, “Our data does not indicate any meaningful behaviour change across consumer segments.”

Travel volumes are also usually high during the summer, when many individuals take domestic and foreign flights for vacations.

Visa projects “low double-digit” net revenue growth for the current quarter, which ends on June 30. The business also reiterated its projections for revenue and profit in 2024.

“There were a lot of investors who thought that they would have to cut the guidance, and the fact that they did not, is a positive for Visa,” said Dan Dolev, senior analyst at Mizuho.

The positive results follow the historic $30 billion settlement that Visa and rival Mastercard agreed in March to restrict credit and debit card fees for businesses. A portion of the settlement savings are probably going to be transferred to customers in the form of cheaper rates. According to analysts, it wouldn’t have a significant financial impact on Mastercard and Visa.

LSEG forecasts of $2.44 were surpassed by Visa’s adjusted profit per share of $2.51 in the second quarter.

Its $8.8 billion in net revenue above analysts’ projections of $8.62 billion.

Last week, American Express, a major credit card company, exceeded forecasts for first-quarter profit.

(Adapted from Business-Standard.com)