Visa reported fiscal third-quarter 2026 net revenue of $11.6 billion, up 14% from a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 11% to $3.32, with CEO Ryan McInerney saying both net revenue and EPS exceeded the company's expectations.
Payments volume surpassed $4 trillion for the first time in Visa's history.
Payments volume increased 10% year over year on a constant-dollar basis, while processed transactions grew 10% to 72 billion. International payments volume rose 10% in constant dollars, and cross-border volume (excluding intra-Europe transactions) grew 12%, including 16% growth in cross-border e-commerce and 10% in travel-related volume.
McInerney attributed the results to resilient consumer spending, client wins, product development, and growth in value-added services. The FIFA World Cup supported inbound spending in North America and Latin America during June, with inbound cross-border card-present spending in U.S. host cities rising nearly 25% year over year from June 11 through June 30. Kansas City recorded a peak increase of 1,000% in cross-border card-present transaction growth on match days, while Mexico posted more than 70% growth and Canada more than 35%.
Visa's CFO Suh noted that the cross-border business is geographically diversified, with no region representing more than 25% of cross-border volume. Through July 21, U.S. payments volume was up 9%, cross-border volume (excluding intra-Europe) was up 14%, and processed transactions increased 9%.
Value-Added Services and Commercial Growth
Value-added services revenue rose 34% year over year in constant dollars to $3.8 billion, reflecting underlying business activity, pricing, FIFA-related marketing-services engagements, and the acquisition of Prisma. Commercial and money movement solutions revenue increased 17%, with commercial payments volume climbing 13%. Visa Direct transactions rose 21% to 4 billion during the quarter.
McInerney highlighted several client agreements: a renewal of Visa's 55-year relationship with Bradesco in Brazil, an agreement with Grupo Aval in Colombia for domestic processing and Visa Direct cross-border transactions, and a consumer credit portfolio win with NatWest in the United Kingdom.
Visa said its credential count rose 8% year over year, and tokenized transactions approached 60% of global e-commerce transactions. The company continued to expand its issuer-processing operations through Pismo and DPS, and plans to pilot DPS Full Service Credit in the fiscal fourth quarter. Visa secured its first U.S. client for that offering and expects general availability next year.
AI, Stablecoins, and Partnerships
Management outlined further investments in artificial intelligence, stablecoins, and agentic commerce. McInerney said Visa has deployed more than 150 AI-powered applications and released more than 300 major products over the past 12 months. AI-enabled product-development teams have achieved 80% more code commits, reduced requirement-definition time from 30 days to five days, and delivered feature development more than 65% faster. Some product-development teams are being reorganized into smaller 'agentic squads' supported by AI tools and human oversight.
Visa joined Open Standard, an initiative planning to issue the OpenUSD stablecoin, and launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform for stablecoin minting, movement, and management. McInerney said Visa intends to remain 'multi-coin, multi-chain'. The company also announced partnerships with OpenAI and Meta.
Visa is eliminating roles, primarily in technology and product teams, and recorded $563 million in GAAP severance costs during the quarter. For the fiscal fourth quarter, Visa expects adjusted net revenue growth at the high end of low double digits and operating expense growth in the low double digits. It expects fourth-quarter EPS growth at the low end of the mid-teens, with a tax rate of about 19%.
For the full fiscal year, Visa raised its outlook to forecast net revenue growth in the low end of the low teens and EPS growth in the low end of the mid-teens. It expects full-year operating expense growth in the low end of the low teens and a tax rate between 18% and 18.25%. During the quarter, Visa repurchased $4.9 billion of stock and paid $1.3 billion in dividends, leaving $28.4 billion under its buyback authorization at the end of June.