Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) stock was up on Wednesday after releasing an earnings beat for the first quarter of the year.

Mastercard Inc is starting the year off well with its earnings per share of $1.50 for the first quarter of 2018. This is better than the company’s earnings per share of $1.01 from the same time last year. It also beat out Wall Street’s earnings per share estimate of $1.25 for the quarter and is a boon to MA stock.

Net income reported by Mastercard Inc in the first quarter of 2018 was $1.49 billion. The financial services company reported net income of $1.08 billion in the first quarter of the previous year.

During the first quarter of the year, Mastercard Inc also reported operating income of $1.83 billion. Operating income reported by the company in the same period of the year prior came in at $1.51 billion.

Mastercard Inc’s earnings report for the first quarter of 2018 also includes strong revenue of $3.58 billion. This is an improvement over its revenue of $2.73 billion that was reported in the first quarter of 2017. It is also good news for MA stock by coming in above analysts’ revenue estimate of $3.25 billion for the period.

Mastercard Inc notes that one of the benefits to its earnings report for the first quarter of the year was a tax rate of 17.3%. This is down from its tax rate of 26.9% for the first quarter of the year prior. The company says this was due to the change to tax laws in the U.S.

MA stock was up 3% as of Wednesday afternoon.

As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.