Visa’s latest results showed moderate earnings driven by steady consumer spending and expanding cross-border transactions. The company’s value-added services arm also delivered double-digit growth, reinforcing its strength in the global payments ecosystem.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Nate Svensson, senior equity research analyst at Deutsche Bank, about Visa’s performance, its outlook for 2026 and the company’s early leadership role in the evolution of agentic commerce.
Key Takeaways
- Visa reported fourth-quarter revenue growth of 12 per cent and EPS of US$2.98, narrowly beating expectations.
- Cross-border volumes held steady at 11 per cent, supported by resilient global travel and spending.
- Value-added services rose about 25 per cent, diversifying Visa’s revenue mix beyond traditional transactions.
- The company guided for low double-digit growth in both revenue and earnings for fiscal 2026.
- Agentic commerce and AI-driven payment innovation are emerging as key long-term growth themes for Visa.
Read the full transcript below:
ROGER: Visa narrowly beat expectations with the release of its fourth-quarter — or third-quarter, excuse me — earnings. Our next guest says that’s no surprise. Here to talk more about this is Nate Svensson, senior equity research analyst at Deutsche Bank. Nate, thanks very much for joining us.
NATE: Thanks for having me, Roger.
ROGER: Okay, no surprises. Is that a good thing?
NATE: Yeah, in this market and in this sector — payments and fintech — that’s absolutely a good thing. We even put it in the title of our note: “No surprises here with Visa.” They posted a moderate beat in the quarter. Revenue growth was 12 per cent; our model was a little closer to 11 per cent. They did earnings per share of US$2.98, which was a couple of cents ahead of where we were.
All of this was driven by consistent and resilient consumer spending, where we actually saw a slight acceleration in volumes from Visa’s fiscal third quarter to its fiscal fourth quarter. U.S. volume growth was eight per cent, and cross-border volumes — a big point of debate among investors — were stable at 11 per cent.
This was all supplemented by Visa’s value-added services business, which grew a really healthy 25 per cent. So all in all, really solid results — no surprises — and the same could be said for their outlook for fiscal 2026. They guided to revenue growth in the low double digits and also guided earnings per share growth in the low double digits.
One of the few debates we were having with investors heading into this print was where Visa would guide — would it be low double digits or high single digits? So they came in a little toward the higher end. If you wanted to pick nits, you’d say revenue and EPS are growing at the same rate. Typically, Visa has really good operating leverage, so EPS tends to grow a little faster. But they pointed out they’re investing in future growth initiatives like agentic commerce and stablecoins.
ROGER: I want to talk about that in just one second — agentic commerce. Is this just a company that kind of gets things right for the most part? They have a 55 per cent market share.
NATE: Yeah, Visa is a steady engine. They’ve proven they can win and benefit regardless of what’s happening with the consumer. Historically, some of Visa’s biggest outperformance relative to the market came when the overall economy was doing well because they’re such a stable, steady engine of growth.
I mentioned value-added services earlier — that’s been a new leg to the stool for Visa. It diversifies their revenue away from traditional consumer spending and gets them into consulting, marketing, data analytics and fraud protection. That’s been a nice boost to growth.
And relative to the rest of my coverage in the payments and fintech universe, it’s nice to see something stable that can consistently deliver and compound over time.
ROGER: Okay, let’s talk a little bit about agentic commerce. What exactly is it, and what is Visa doing with it?
NATE: Agentic commerce has been a big topic. Earlier yesterday, PayPal announced a relationship with OpenAI and ChatGPT, so that was kind of the topic du jour among investors.
Agentic commerce uses large language models like ChatGPT and others that are out there. Instead of us going online and searching for a flight to Toronto, for example, we can go into ChatGPT and say, “Book me a flight to Toronto, find me the cheapest price on these dates, and use whatever payment method will give me the best rewards.”
Over time, we’ll likely see a shift away from how we traditionally shop online or on mobile toward this kind of commerce. It’s very early days, but Visa is playing an integral role in establishing this. They did the same thing when the world transitioned to e-commerce, and again as we started shopping more on our phones.
They’re setting the rules and infrastructure for new payment modalities that we use every day. Visa is investing in technology, tokenization and new fraud-prevention methods that will evolve as agentic commerce becomes more real. How do you determine that a purchase made by an AI agent was actually authorized by the user? Visa is doing the groundwork there.
Historically, through all these changes — whether e-commerce, buy now pay later or crypto — the company has always stayed on the front foot and kept itself in the ecosystem. I think that’ll play out here with agentic commerce too.
ROGER: Are other credit companies looking at that — MasterCard, for instance?
NATE: Yeah, absolutely. MasterCard is another very high-quality company, very similar to Visa, and both announced new agentic protocols over the past couple of weeks. They’re both investing and staying on the front foot.
You’ll see more announcements from other payments players across the ecosystem — PayPal, Stripe, Shopify, Apple Pay, and the buy now pay later players like Affirm or Klarna. It’s going to be an ecosystem where everyone wants to contribute to this potential seismic shift in how consumers shop online.
ROGER: How important is it for you to hear that a company is looking ahead like that — always a step ahead at what’s next?
NATE: It’s very important. You never want to be caught on the back foot. A lot of companies were taken by surprise by the rise of Apple Pay, especially in the U.S., where it was dismissed early on but ended up taking a lot of share. You always want industry leaders like Visa to stay on the front foot.
It’s too early to make predictions about the uptake of agentic commerce — how many consumers use it, how many merchants accept it, or what volume goes through it. But you always want to evaluate companies on their ability to adapt to change. Whether or not it materializes, Visa is making the right investments and is well positioned to benefit no matter what happens.
ROGER: Okay, Nate, thank you very much for joining us.
NATE: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
ROGER: That’s Nate Svensson, senior equity research analyst at Deutsche Bank.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Oct. 29, 2025 interview with Nate Svensson are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.
