Visa (NYSE:V) CEO Ryan McInerney said the payments company is seeing continued strength in consumer spending, accelerating cross-border activity and growing demand for cybersecurity, processing and other value-added services as it invests in artificial intelligence and new payment technologies.
Speaking at a company news event, McInerney attributed Visa’s performance to a strategy developed several years ago, organizational changes and execution by its global leadership team. He said Visa reorganized around areas including value-added services, CMS and consumer payments, while dedicating product and engineering teams to build and launch new offerings.
Consumer Spending Remains Stable
McInerney characterized consumer spending conditions as marked by “strength and stability,” despite uncertainty related to affordability, elections and broader economic conditions.
In the U.S., Visa’s business has grown roughly 6% to 8% over the past year and a half, he said. The company’s U.S. business grew 10% in the most recent quarter and was growing about 9% quarter-to-date through the end of August. McInerney described Visa’s U.S. business as roughly $7 trillion in size.
Globally, payment transaction growth was running at approximately 10% year over year through the end of August, he said. Cross-border growth accelerated to about 14%, compared with approximately 12% in the prior quarter. E-commerce has continued to grow faster than travel, according to McInerney.
He also pointed to cross-border opportunities across consumer payments, Visa Direct and commercial payments. Visa Direct has 18 billion endpoints globally, including accounts, cards and wallets, McInerney said.
AI Adoption and Cybersecurity Demand
McInerney said Visa has used artificial intelligence for decades and was an early adopter of generative AI tools following the emergence of ChatGPT. The company made a range of models and tools available to employees and provided training, support and coaching, he said.
According to McInerney, Visa has seen measurable productivity gains in its product and technology organizations, including:
- An 80% increase in code commits;
- An 80% reduction in the time required to design and build a product; and
- Feature development occurring 65% faster.
He said AI-related productivity improvements are also occurring across functions including human resources, marketing, finance, disputes and client service.
Cybersecurity has become one of the top three issues raised by clients worldwide, McInerney said. Visa participated in Project Glasswing and used the Mythos model to test for vulnerabilities, he said. While the company did not identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited externally, it identified internal system vulnerabilities and developed a “harness” intended to identify, remediate and fix issues.
Visa later open-sourced that harness through GitHub, according to McInerney. The company has also introduced the Visa Threat Intelligence Harness, which uses Visa’s cyber and fraud capabilities to help clients protect their environments.
McInerney said Visa’s planned acquisition of BioCatch would expand its ability to address identity-related risks before a transaction occurs. BioCatch serves companies with billions of users, he said.
Value-Added Services and Pismo Expansion
McInerney said Visa’s value-added services businesses are performing well across issuer services, acceptance, risk and identity, and advisory offerings. He highlighted issuer benefits platforms, credential growth, tokenization and the Pismo platform as contributors to the company’s strategy.
Pismo, which Visa acquired after identifying demand for cloud-based banking technology and global issuer-processing capabilities, is being used to offer integrated debit, credit, prepaid and commercial issuer processing. In the U.S., McInerney said Visa sees an opportunity to combine Pismo with Visa DPS for small and midsize banks and fintechs seeking a single issuer-processing platform.
Visa expects larger and more sophisticated issuers to continue using separate, highly customized credit and debit stacks, he said, while Visa DPS remains positioned for debit processing.
On core banking, McInerney said relatively few large banks globally have moved their core systems to the cloud, but many are considering doing so. He said cloud-based core systems can enable banks to operate more agilely and introduce products more quickly.
Agentic Commerce, Stablecoins and Europe
McInerney said consumers are increasingly using large language models for product discovery and comparison shopping, though autonomous payments have not yet gained comparable adoption. The principal barrier, he said, is trust among both merchants and consumers.
Visa is developing tools including the Trusted Agent Protocol and Trusted Agent Directory to help merchants identify legitimate, purpose-driven agents. McInerney said Visa planned to announce a “Visa Trust Index” the following day. He said research found that three out of four consumers do not trust agentic platforms to make payments independently using their financial information, while 61% said they would trust an agent to make payments if Visa were involved.
The company also sees product-market fit for stablecoins in countries where consumers and businesses seek access to U.S. dollars and in cross-border remittances and business-to-business payments. McInerney said Visa has more than 200 stablecoin issuance programs in 50 countries and is building capabilities across blockchains, issuance, wallets, infrastructure and applications.
In Europe, McInerney said Visa is responding to payment sovereignty concerns by investing locally. The company recently announced a €500 million incremental investment in the region, including a European data center, additional offices, a Frankfurt headquarters and an innovation center in Poland. He said the region remains highly competitive, with domestic card networks, digital wallets and the emerging Wero wallet offering alternatives.
McInerney said Visa’s recent workforce reduction was part of a multiyear effort to operate more efficiently and free resources for investments in marketing, product development, sales, offices and data centers.
About Visa (NYSE:V)
Visa Inc is a global payments technology company that operates one of the world’s largest electronic payment networks. The company connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments, enabling transactions through credit, debit, prepaid and commercial payment products. Visa generally does not issue cards, extend credit or set consumer interest rates; instead, it provides the network, technology and services that support payments.
Visa’s products and services include Visa-branded cards, digital payment solutions, tokenization, fraud prevention, risk management, data analytics and payment acceptance tools.
