San Francisco - Credit card giant Visa Inc. reported late Tuesday a strong fourth quarter in fiscal 2008-2009 in figures which beat most analysts' projections and signalled a possible recovery in consumer spending.

San Francisco, California-based Visa said its net income came to 514 million dollars in the quarter ending September 30, compared with red-ink of 356 million dollars in the same 2008 quarter.

Company officials were upbeat about the figures as an indicator that year-long decline in consumer spending might be over.

"While the US and the rest of the world are still picking themselves up from the economic storm of the past year, we are beginning to see some very early signs of stabilization and some positive trends in aggregate payment volume," Chief Executive Officer Joseph Saunders said in a conference call, according to Bloomberg.

Visa said its quarterly operating revenue grew 10 per cent to 1.88 billion dollars. Transactions processed on Visas network went up nine per cent to 10.5 billion dollars.

At the same time, the company's operating expenses were lowered by 53 per cent to 1.01 billion dollars.

For the full fiscal year, Visa's net income surged to 2.35 billion dollars, nearly triple the 804 million dollars in the previous year. This came on operating revenues of 6.91 billion dollars, up 10 per cent. (dpa)