Payment Processor Total System’s 3Q Up 7 Percent

(AP) —

NEWS: Electronic-payments provider Total System Services Inc. said Tuesday that net income rose 7 percent in the third quarter, helped by a recent acquisition.

DETAILS: The company got a revenue boost from debit-card provider NetSpend, which it bought in July for about $1.4 billion.

BIG PICTURE: The Columbus, Ga.-based company processes credit- and debit-card payments for merchants and card issuers. Visa, MasterCard and Discover are increasingly offering competing services, and the company’s card-processing segment competes with First Data Corp.

NUMBERS: Net income was $64.4 million, or 34 cents per share, in the July-September period, compared with $60.3 million, or 32 cents per share, in the same months a year earlier.

Excluding acquisition costs and the expense of stock-based compensation, TSYS would have earned 49 cents per share, up from 36 cents a year ago.

Revenue rose 26 percent to $588.1 million.

Analysts, who usually exclude one-time items, expected the company to earn 46 cents per share on revenue of $596.7 million, according to FactSet.

STOCK: The shares rose 16 cents to close at $30.65 before the results were released.

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