Fly Intel: What to watch in credit card space earnings reports

American Express (AXP), Visa (V), and MasterCard (MA) are scheduled to report quarterly results on October 18, 24 and 30, respectively. What to watch for: 1. OUTLOOK: During the company's last earnings call, American Express reaffirmed its FY18 EPS view at the high-end of $6.90-$7.30, with consensus at $7.24. The company also said it sees FY18 revenues to be up at least 9%. Meanwhile, back in July, Visa also backed its FY18 revenue growth view of low-double digits on nominal basis and said it sees FY18 adjusted EPS growth in the low 30s. During last quarter's earnings call, MasterCard told investors it still sees full year non-GAAP revenue growth in high teens as "not much has changed," and said it expects forex to be benefit to revenue of 0.5%-1% for FY18. FX is expected to be a headwind in each of the next two quarters, MasterCard added. 2. KROGER BANS VISA: Kroger (KR) said a California subsidiary will stop accepting Visa credit cards beginning next month in a dispute over swipe fees, according to a Bloomberg report back in July. The ban would affect two dozen Foods Co. stores and fuel centers in Central and Northern California, a company statement added. Customers will still be able to use Visa's debit cards, as well as cards from MasterCard, Discover Financial Services (DFS) and American Express, the publication noted. Two months later, Kroger confirmed it had stopped accepting Visa credit cards and said it was prepared to expand non-acceptance if necessary. 3. FOREX UNIT PROBE: Federal Bureau of Investigation was said to be in the early stages of a probe into whether the foreign-exchange international payments department of American Express misrepresented pricing to clients in order to win their business, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal last month. Also, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is looking into how AmEx disclosed pricing to customers, the Journal added. 4. DIVIDEND RAISE: Late last month, the board of American Express approved a 4c -- or 11% -- increase in the quarterly dividend on the company's common stock. The dividend was raised to 39c per common share, from 35c, payable on November 9, to shareholders of record on October 5. 5. PARTNERSHIPS: American Express and GreenSky (GSKY) announced on August 6 a strategic alliance that will enable eligible U.S. merchants within the American Express network and the customers they serve to access GreenSky's proprietary point-of-sale financing solutions. GreenSky will have access to American Express vPayment, a virtual payments solution, in order to facilitate purchases via virtual account numbers delivered to approved customers. Meanwhile, Visa announced an expansion of Netflix's (NFLX) use of the Visa Token Service, with a key focus of improving card-not-present authorization rates and enabling a more seamless and secure merchant and customer experience globally. With the Visa Token Service, card details can be replaced with a unique digital identifier used to process payments without exposing the cardholder's sensitive account information.