San Francisco, April 29, 2026, 07:12 PDT
- Visa lifted its full-year revenue and earnings outlook after a second-quarter profit beat.
- Payments volume, cross-border volume and processed transactions all rose, easing fears of a sharper spending slowdown.
- A new $20 billion buyback gave investors another reason to mark the stock higher.
Visa shares jumped about 8% in early Wednesday trading after the payments network beat Wall Street profit estimates and raised its full-year outlook, a sign that card spending held up better than feared despite inflation and geopolitical strain. The stock was recently at $334.00 after opening at $337.57.
The report matters because Visa’s volumes are a fast read on consumer and business spending at a time when investors are searching for cracks in the U.S. consumer. Visa processes payments rather than lends money, so its results show how often people and firms are spending without the same direct exposure to credit losses as card issuers.
Net revenue rose 17% to $11.23 billion in the fiscal second quarter ended March 31. GAAP net income increased 32% to $6.02 billion, or $3.14 a share; adjusted earnings were $6.34 billion, or $3.31 a share, above the $3.10 expected by analysts polled by LSEG.
Payments volume, the dollar value of transactions over Visa’s network, rose 9% on a constant-dollar basis, which strips out currency swings. Cross-border volume, payments involving parties in different countries, rose 12%, while processed transactions increased 9% to 66.1 billion.
“Consumer spending remained resilient,” Chief Executive Ryan McInerney said in Visa’s release, adding that the company saw strength in consumer payments, commercial and money-movement products and value-added services.
Chief Financial Officer Chris Suh told analysts that “both discretionary and nondiscretionary spend remain strong,” and said Visa did not see lower-spend consumers weaken in its volumes, according to the Wall Street Journal. U.S. payment volume rose 8%, helped partly by higher tax refunds, the report said. The Wall Street Journal
Data processing revenue rose 18% to $5.54 billion, service revenue rose 13% to $4.98 billion and international transaction revenue increased 10% to $3.63 billion. Client incentives, payments Visa makes to financial institutions and merchants to win or keep volume, increased 14% to $4.25 billion.
The company also said its board approved a new $20 billion multi-year share repurchase program, after share repurchases and dividends totaled $9.2 billion in the quarter. Suh told Reuters the buyback showed Visa’s “ability to have a balanced capital allocation strategy” while investing in organic growth and acquisitions. Reuters
Cross-border growth remains the line investors watch most closely. It is a rough real-time gauge of travel and global commerce, and Visa’s 12% gain was slightly slower than the 13% posted a year earlier; McInerney said Visa was watching the Middle East conflict closely, while the company pointed to World Cup-related U.S.-bound demand and commercial travel as offsets.
Visa also pressed its case that new payment rails are an opportunity, not only a threat. McInerney said artificial intelligence and agentic commerce — AI systems that can take actions such as shopping or paying on a user’s behalf — could widen Visa’s addressable market; he also said Visa’s annual run rate for stablecoin settlement volume had reached $7 billion, up more than 50% from the prior quarter. Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to track the value of traditional currencies.
The read-through helped Mastercard, Visa’s closest listed peer, whose shares were recently up about 2.8%. American Express, more exposed to lending and affluent cardholders than Visa’s network model, edged lower in early trading after beating estimates last week on travel and entertainment spending.
The risk is that a sharper hit to travel, cross-border trade or lower-income spending could turn the data quickly. Barron’s noted Visa shares were still down about 12% for the year before the report amid oil-price, interest-rate, regulatory and stablecoin competition concerns; Visa’s own results also showed adjusted operating expenses rose 17%, driven by personnel and marketing spending.
For now, Visa’s tone turned less defensive. The company raised its annual revenue growth target to a range from low double digits to low teens and lifted its full-year EPS view to low-teens growth, while saying third-quarter revenue should grow in the low double digits.
