11:54 AM EDT, 07/19/2024 (MT Newswires) -- American Express' ( AXP ) second-quarter earnings surpassed Wall Street's views while revenue fell short of expectations as the payments company increased its full-year profit outlook to reflect a gain from the sale of its fraud prevention solutions provider.

The company now expects earnings per share of $13.30 to $13.80, compared with the prior guidance of $12.65 to $13.15. Analysts surveyed by Capital IQ are expecting $12.92. American Express ( AXP ) continues to expect full-year revenue growth in the range of 9% to 11%.

Earlier this year, American Express ( AXP ) sold Accertify to private equity firm Accel-KKR. The sale resulted in a $0.66 per share gain in the second quarter, American Express ( AXP ) said.

"Based on the strong performance of our core business, we believe we can increase our marketing investments by around 15% over last year without using any of the (Accertify) transaction gain, while still delivering exceptional earnings results this year," Chief Executive Stephen Squeri said in a statement. "As a result, we have made the decision to drop the entire gain to the bottom line."

For the three-month period ended June 30, adjusted EPS rose 21% year over year to $3.49, excluding the transaction gain, above the Capital IQ-polled consensus of $3.26. Revenue, net of interest expense, increased 8% to $16.33 billion, missing the Street's view of $16.6 billion. The surge was aided by higher net interest income, card member spending and card fee growth.

American Express ( AXP ) shares were down 3.9% in Friday trading.

US consumer services revenue advanced 12% to $7.73 billion while international card services increased 9% to $2.82 billion. Commercial services grew 6% to $3.95 billion, while global merchant and network services gained 1% year over year to $1.87 billion.

"We continued to drive momentum across the business," including 6% billings growth and new card acquisitions of 3.3 million, Squeri said.

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