Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF) stock rose 3.94% (As on July 19, 11:52:01 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company’s bottom line came in at $0.79 billion in the second quarter of FY 22 compared with $1.23 billion in last year’s second quarter. Synchrony pointed to upbeat loan growth and credit trends, with the consumers remaining strong. Consumer health also remained strong during the second quarter, which supported continued demand for the wide variety of products and services that our partners, merchants, and providers offer. As a result, Synchrony added 6 million new accounts, grew average active accounts by 4%, and achieved our highest purchase volume ever in a quarter of 47 billion, a year-over-year increase of 12% or a 16% increase on a core basis. Dual and co-branded cards accounted for 38% of core purchase volume and increased 31% from the prior year. Consumer spend was broad-based across the platforms, leading to double-digit growth in our diversified and value, health and wellness, digital, and home and auto platforms, as well as single-digit growth in our lifestyle platform.

Moreover, Loan receivables grew 5% year over year to $82.7 billion or 11% on a core basis. We also continue to see sequential growth driven by strong purchase volume and partially offset by higher payment levels. Net interest income increased 15% to $3.8 billion, primarily reflecting the 13% increase in interest and fees due to higher average loan receivables. Payment rate for the second quarter, when normalizing for the impact of the portfolio sold during Q2, was 18.1%, approximately 20 basis points higher than last year and approximately 250 basis points higher than our historical average. Net interest margin was 15.60% in the second quarter, a year-over-year increase of 182 basis points. The primary driver of our NIM expansion was a 570 basis-point increase in the mix of loan receivables relative to total interest earning assets, primarily due to the growth in average receivables and lower liquidity. This accounts for 105 basis points of the year-over-year increase in our net interest margin.

SYF in the second quarter of FY 22 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $1.60, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share of $1.43, according to the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The company had reported the adjusted revenue of $3.8 billion in the second quarter of FY 22, beating the analysts’ estimates for revenue by 3.32%.