News : Prepaid Credit Card UK

Heartland Q1 income surges 31%

01 May 2008

Heartland Payment Systems (NYSE:HPY), a leading provider of credit/debit/prepaid card processing, payroll, check management and payment services, today announced record first quarter net income of $9.0 million and fully diluted earnings per share of $0.23.

Highlights for the First Quarter include:

» Net income up 31% from the first quarter of 2007
» Transaction processing volume of $13.2 billion, up 18.3%
» New margin installed increased by 17.4%
» Net Revenue up 19.9%, with payroll revenues advancing 41%
» Total period end merchants up 15.1% to 165,900
» Operating margin on net revenue of 17.7%, an improvement of 210 basis points from the first quarter of last year

Robert Carr, Chairman and CEO, said, "Our record first quarter is a reflection of the momentum in our core business built on our strong value proposition, our focus on improving efficiency through technology investments, and solid progress from our new growth initiatives. The key to our success is the sustained growth and increasing success of our team of relationship managers, which this quarter grew to 1,191.

We are clearly facing a difficult economy, which limited same store sales growth in the quarter to only 0.6%, with our restaurant segment declining by 0.4%. Notwithstanding this environment, our relationship managers increased new margin installed by 17.4% over the first quarter of last year. At the same time, we continue to exploit the advantages of our own platform; in the first quarter, 84.7% of new merchants installed and 81% of total transactions were on HPS Exchange.

By driving an increasing proportion of transactions onto our proprietary platforms, our operating margin on net revenue increased by 210 basis points from the first quarter of 2007. Our "Fair Deal" philosophy, competitive products, superior technology and dedicated sales organization are sustaining our growth while delivering value to our expanding international base of merchants."

Total revenues in the first quarter were $340 million, an increase of 19.5% compared to $284 million in the first quarter of 2007. Card processing volume for the three months ended March 31, 2008 increased 18.3% to $13.2 billion from $11.2 billion during the same period in 2007. The Company's active bank card merchant count rose to 158,900 at March 31, 2008, a 14.2% increase over the past twelve months. Transaction processing volume and net revenue growth continue to benefit from the installation of larger and more profitable merchants onto our platform.

Source: http://www.finextra.com