VISA Inc. (V)

Visa reported on 27 October 2026 that net revenue for its fiscal year rose 15 percent to $45.9 billion, which it called the strongest growth in over 15 years outside the post-pandemic recovery and acquisitions 1. Net income was $23.5 billion, up 17 percent 1. In the fourth quarter alone, net revenue rose 13 percent to $12.1 billion 1.

The company credits more spending on Visa cards, more spending across borders and more transactions 1. For the year, payments volume rose 9 percent in constant dollars, cross-border volume 13 percent, and processed transactions 9 percent to 281.3 billion 1. Data processing revenue, the fees for carrying each payment, rose 17 percent to $23.4 billion, and other revenue, mostly services sold on top of the network, rose 40 percent to $5.7 billion 12.

The year carried $1.7 billion of provisions for merchant lawsuits over interchange, the fee a merchant's bank pays a cardholder's bank, and $563 million of severance 12. Bloomberg News reported in July that Visa planned to cut about 2,600 jobs, around 7 percent of staff, mostly in technology and product teams 15. The open questions are the pending $2.4 billion purchase of BioCatch, a fraud-detection firm, and the Justice Department's debit lawsuit 114.

Visa traces its business to 1958, and until 2007 it was a set of associations owned by member banks, each region serving its own 28. In October 2007 the regions except Visa Europe combined into Visa Inc., and in March 2008 it completed its initial public offering, raising net proceeds of $19.1 billion 7. It used $13.4 billion of that money to buy back shares held by its member banks 7.

In fiscal 2008, its first year as a public company, revenue was $6.3 billion, up from $5.2 billion, as payments volume grew 17 percent 7. Steady growth followed as cards replaced cash: by fiscal 2016 net operating revenue reached $15.1 billion, up 9 percent on the year, on more processed transactions and payments volume 8.

On 21 June 2016 Visa bought Visa Europe, bringing back under one company the business left out of the 2007 reorganization 8. It paid €12.2 billion ($13.9 billion) in cash up front plus preferred stock then equal to €5.3 billion ($6.1 billion), and owed a further €1.0 billion after three years 8. To pay for it, Visa had issued $16 billion of bonds in December 2015 8.

The pandemic broke the run: net revenue for fiscal 2020 fell 5 percent to $21.8 billion, from $23.0 billion the year before 9. The annual report blames lower payments volume, cross-border volume and transactions once COVID-19 spread from late March 2020 9. Travel across borders, which carries Visa's richest fees, was hit hardest 9.

Revenue recovered to $24.1 billion in fiscal 2021 and jumped 22 percent to $29.3 billion in fiscal 2022 as spending, transactions and travel came back 10. In March 2022 Visa suspended its operations in Russia under Western sanctions; Russia had brought in about 4 percent of net revenue in fiscal 2021 10. That stretch also brought two purchases: Currencycloud, for $893 million, and Tink, an open banking platform, for $1.9 billion 10.

Ryan McInerney, president since May 2013, became chief executive in February 2023 11. Net revenue rose 10 percent to $35.9 billion in fiscal 2024 and 11 percent to $40.0 billion in fiscal 2025, on more transactions and cross-border spending, partly offset by larger incentives paid to clients 2. Visa bought Pismo, a cloud banking platform, for $929 million in January 2024 and Featurespace, an AI fraud-prevention developer, for $946 million in December 2024 2.

Fiscal 2026 also simplified the shares tied to old lawsuits 564. In May 2026 holders of about 98 percent of the class B-1 and B-2 stock, held mostly by U.S. banks, swapped it for new class B-3 and class C stock 564. In February 2026 Visa bought Prisma and Newpay, card processors and payment networks in Argentina, for $1.5 billion in cash 3.

How the network makes money

Visa runs VisaNet, the network that carries a card payment between the buyer's bank, the issuer, and the seller's bank, the acquirer, and authorizes, clears and settles it 2. Visa does not issue cards, lend money or set cardholders' rates and fees, so it bears no credit risk on them 2. Nearly 14,500 financial institutions offer Visa products, and in fiscal 2025 nearly 5 billion Visa credentials could be used at more than 175 million merchant locations 2.

Revenue comes in four streams, less incentives paid back to banks, merchants and partners to win their volume 2. In fiscal 2026 service revenue, tied to payments volume, was $19.9 billion; data processing revenue $23.4 billion; international transaction revenue $15.3 billion; and other revenue $5.7 billion 1. Client incentives took back $18.3 billion, up 16 percent 1.

Most revenue comes from outside the United States: in fiscal 2025 international revenue was $24.4 billion, up 15 percent, against $15.6 billion in the U.S., up 6 percent 2. International transaction revenue comes from cross-border payments and currency conversion, and it rose 12 percent that year as cross-border volume outside Europe grew 13 percent 2.

Credit, debit and prepaid cards

Credit, debit and prepaid cards issued by banks under Visa's brand remain the core of the business 2. In the twelve months to June 2025, Visa carried $5,604 billion of consumer credit, $6,551 billion of consumer debit and $1,739 billion of commercial payments volume 2. Tapping a card or phone made up 79 percent of face-to-face Visa transactions worldwide and 66 percent in the U.S. in fiscal 2025 2.

Moving money: Visa Direct and business payments

Visa Direct sends money to cards, bank accounts and digital wallets for transfers between people, payouts and seller settlements in more than 195 countries and territories 2. It processed more than 12.5 billion transactions in fiscal 2025 2. Visa Commercial Solutions sells corporate, purchasing and virtual cards so businesses pay suppliers digitally, aimed at what Visa sizes as about $35 trillion of yearly business payments 2.

Services sold on top of the network

Value-added services are sold on top of the network, more than 200 products by September 2025 2. They include fraud scoring such as Visa Protect, the Cybersource and Authorize.net gateways for online sellers, card processing for banks through Visa DPS and Pismo, and consulting 2. Visa sizes the opportunity at about $520 billion of revenue a year 2.

Featurespace, bought in December 2024, added real-time behavioral analytics to the fraud tools, and the pending BioCatch purchase would add more of the same kind 21.

New rails: tokens, AI agents and stablecoins

Visa Token Service replaces the 16-digit card number with a stand-in token, and more than 16 billion had been issued by September 2025 2. Visa Intelligent Commerce applies those tokens to purchases that AI agents make on a shopper's behalf 2. Since 2020 Visa cards have been used to buy more than $100 billion of crypto and stablecoins, and in December 2025 Visa began settling with U.S. partner banks in USDC, a dollar stablecoin 216.

Plants and people

Visa is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and runs four global data centers in the U.S., the United Kingdom and Singapore 2. It employed about 34,100 people in fiscal 2025, up 8 percent, with more than 60 percent outside the U.S. 2. Ryan McInerney is chief executive, Chris Suh chief financial officer and John F Lundgren the independent board chair 11.

Rivals

Visa competes with cash and checks, with other card networks and with bank-to-bank payment systems 2. Using Nilson Report figures, the annual report puts Visa's payments volume for calendar 2024 at $13,433 billion, against $8,014 billion for Mastercard and $1,750 billion for American Express 2. UnionPay dominates domestic card processing in China, and bank-run systems such as Zelle offer a route around cards 2.

Problems: lawsuits and regulators

Merchants have sued Visa and Mastercard over interchange since 2005, and Visa pays for those cases from an escrow account funded by diluting the class B stock that U.S. banks mostly hold 26. In September 2026 Visa deposited a further $405 million into that account 6. Merchants that opted out of the class settlement and hold about 95 percent of the disputed sales volume have now settled 3.

The Justice Department sued Visa in September 2024, alleging it monopolized U.S. debit network services, and the court refused to dismiss the case in June 2025 2. Payments Dive reported in January 2026 that prosecutors were pressing ahead and no trial date had been set 14. Regulators also cap or review interchange, among them the Federal Reserve on U.S. debit, the European Union and Australia's central bank 2.

The umbrella, in words

The annual report lists four significant subsidiaries, not all of them: Visa Europe Limited in the United Kingdom, Visa International Service Association and Visa's U.S. operating company in Delaware, and Visa Worldwide in Singapore 12. Visa owns outright the businesses it has bought, among them Visa Europe, Tink, Currencycloud, Pismo, Featurespace, and Prisma and Newpay in Argentina 81023.

Its brands include Visa, Visa Infinite for affluent cardholders, Interlink and V PAY debit, and the Visa/PLUS ATM network 2. In fiscal 2024 it agreed to buy a majority interest in Prosa, a payments processor in Mexico, subject to regulators 2. Its land is mostly offices and its four data centers; the annual report names no other notable property 2.

No one controls Visa: Vanguard reported holding 7.35 percent of the class A common stock at 31 March 2026, on a Schedule 13G for passive holders 13. The class B and class C shares vote only on matters such as a merger or leaving the core payments business 2. No one may own more than 15 percent of class A without board approval 2.

Visa agreed on 3 August 2026 to buy BioCatch, a provider of behavioral fraud intelligence, for $2.4 billion in cash 1. The company expects the deal to close by the end of its fiscal second quarter of 2027, once regulators approve it 1.

On 27 October 2026 the board raised the quarterly dividend by 16 percent 1. Visa returned $25.6 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends in fiscal 2026 and had $24.4 billion of buyback authority left at the end of September 1.

Chief executive Ryan McInerney said on 27 October that, looking to 2027 and beyond, "trust is the next growth vector for Visa" 1. The annual report says Visa is investing in tap payments, tokens, cross-border travel, affluent cardholders and credit outside the U.S., where card credit reaches less than half the U.S. share of spending 2. It also says it is building a full stack stablecoin platform with integrations into leading stablecoin issuers 2.

The annual report says Visa is pursuing growth for Visa Direct, its money transfer platform, in what it sizes at about $55 trillion of yearly payments between people, businesses and governments 2. It is also developing cross-border stablecoin payments for people and businesses in certain emerging markets 2. Its agreement to buy a majority of Prosa, a Mexican payments processor, was still awaiting regulators when that report was filed 2.

The merchants' injunctive relief class, which seeks changes to Visa's rules rather than money, asked the court on 15 July 2026 to give its revised settlement final approval 3. The settlement with that class was signed on 10 November 2025 and won preliminary approval on 9 June 2026 3.

In the Justice Department's debit case, prosecutors warned in a filing that Visa's proposed schedule could push a trial into late 2027 or even 2028, Payments Dive reported in January 2026 14. Visa argued for a longer delay so the case could be coordinated with private lawsuits over the same conduct 14.