Here’s a Thought! 27 July, 2020, by Vladimir Rojankovski, Senior Analyst, Grand Capital Global payments processor Visa reports earnings on July 29, and it will be more than just one more set of quarterly financial numbers. Investors will get a direct insight into how consumer spending is being affected by the pandemic and an uncertain economy. This quarter revenues for the payments processing giant are expected to drop by roughly 17% to $4.81 billion versus $5.84 billion a year ago. This anticipated drop has a lot to do with lower transaction volume as many stores were closed throughout the quarter. With that said, there is optimism for a potential beat driven by increased digital payment volume as more and more people shopped online. Indeed, dealing with paper money has now become not only unsafe, but also unsanitary. So VISA’s performance will be more or less accurately reflecting the real global consumer spending, and households’ entire propensity to consume, and how efficient the world’s largest central banks’ and governments efforts to offset the COVID-19 impact. So fasten your seatbelts!