Mastercard Inc. sailed past market estimates for quarterly profit on Thursday as a surge in cross-border spending sparked by this year’s travel boom more than offset higher costs.
Pent-up demand and the easing of COVID-19 curbs have led to the strongest summer travel season in three years, a boon for card companies that can charge more for overseas transactions.
Mastercard said cross-border volumes jumped 58 percent on a local currency basis in the April-June quarter, helping drive up gross dollar volumes on its network by 14 percent to $2.1 trillion.
The surge mirrored similar results at Visa Inc. and American Express Co., indicating consumers were still spending on travel and other high-end pursuits in the face of decades-high inflation and the threat of a possible recession….