Global card network Visa Inc. posted a net profit of $3.12 billion for the October to December quarter of the financial year, down by 4% from the corresponding period of the previous year. While over payments volumes processed by Visa improved by 5% on an annual basis, cross-border flows remained weak, lower by 21% annually, the company said in its financial statements. Visa net revenues decreased by 6% YoY to $5.7 billion in Q1FY21, primarily because of weak flows in cross-border payments. The company processed 39.2 billion payment transactions during the quarter, which is 4% higher than in the previous year. Visa continues to monitor the COVID-19 impact globally. During the quarter, several countries experienced a rise in cases and implemented restrictive measures, primarily impacting card present spending. While cross-border spending did improve for the quarter, it remains depressed, led by travel spending, as the majority of borders remain closed. Card not present excluding travel in both domestic and cross-border volume continued to grow at elevated levels. Weak recovery in cross-border payments According to Vasant Prabhu, vice chairman and chief financial officer at Visa, while overall global payments volumes had improved from the previous quarter they were still weaker than expected since credit card spending under-performed and was only slightly offset by higher debit card spending. "In the first quarter of fiscal ’21 our cross-border volumes were almost 40% lower excluding Intra-Europe volumes than they might have been had the pandemic never happened, largely due to travel. Cross-border travel volume…
