Brazilian card operator Cielo SA's profit for the fourth quarter of 2017 rose 4.2% from a year earlier as the company booked higher financial income and lower operating expenses.
The São Paulo-based firm posted quarterly net income of about 1.11 billion Brazilian reais, up from the 1.06 billion reais earned in the final quarter of 2016. Profit attributed to the company's owners rose 3.1% year over year to 1.04 billion reais.
Cielo's financial income ticked 13.0% higher to 437.9 million reais in the fourth quarter from 387.6 million reais a year ago. Operating expenses, meanwhile, declined 18.3% to 360.2 million reais, driven by a fall in personnel expenses as well as sales and marketing expenses.
The company further noted that its financial volume of transactions in Brazil, excluding agro products, improved 8.7% on an annual basis to reach 169.2 billion reais in the fourth quarter.
When including agro products, the transaction financial volume totaled 625.6 billion reais for full year 2017, up 7.0% from 2016. This growth was above the 4% to 6% expansion envisioned by the company at the beginning of 2017.
The fourth-quarter results brought Cielo's full-year 2017 net income to 4.26 billion reais, rising 1.9% from 4.18 billion reais in 2016.
As of Feb. 1, US$1 was equivalent to 3.17 Brazilian reais.
