by Matt Rej
Visa and Mastercard both reported their latest quarterly earnings over the past two weeks, alongside six major credit card processors: PayPal, Adyen, Fiserv, Global Payments (which includes Worldpay), Toast, and Block (Square).
From a merchant’s perspective, this quarter was honestly fairly quiet compared to what we’ve seen in the past.
But there are still a handful of noteworthy takeaways you should understand, especially if you process with Toast, Square, Braintree, or a Global/Worldpay brand.
A Few Patterns Across Calls This Quarter
Not every company fits neatly here. But as I listened to the calls and reviewed the notes, there were three things that came up more than once:
Network pricing is still showing up in the numbers: Visa’s annual report gave credit to “select pricing modifications” as part of its growth, and Mastercard said pricing and mix pushed assessment revenue ahead of volume.
Processors are putting more money behind add-ons: This has honestly been trending for the past couple years but continues getting brought up what seems like every quarter. Examples from the latest calls:
- PayPal is building a sales team just for Braintree’s VAS.
- Square is planning to change its software pricing next year (“change” always means increase).
- Toast raised its price for its IQ Grow offering.
- Global is continuing to cross-sell FraudSight (from Worldpay) across its portfolio.
- Fiserv was an outlier here, as Clover VAS penetration actually fell. But it’s been trending up for a while now so a slight pullback was bound to happen, and it’s no secret that Fiserv has been struggling as a whole.
Banks and ISOs are becoming a bigger part of distribution: Square doubled its ISO partner count, and Global officially started selling Genius through Worldpay’s bank partners.
Visa Closed FY26 With $14 Billion in Value-Added Services (VAS)
Visa’s fiscal fourth quarter (reported on October 27) wrapped up its 2026 fiscal year. Some key numbers worth calling out:
- Net revenue up 13% (vs. 14% previous qtr)
- Payment volume up 9%, with US volume up 10%
- Cross-border volume up 14%, led by cross-border ecommerce at 17%
- VAS revenue up 31% in 4Q26
- FY27 guidance calls for low double-digit revenue growth and VAS growth in the low-to-mid 20s.
Zooming out a bit, VAS went from $10.9 billion in FY25 to $14.2 billion in FY26, which is not close to a third of Visa’s entire net revenue.
A few months ago I pointed out that Visa said its 2026 pricing actions would be weighted toward the back half of the year, and its new 10-K lists “select pricing modifications” among the reasons why data processing revenue grew. So that pricing is now on the books.
Visa also said that about 25% of its payment volume comes up for renewal in FY27 (vs. roughly 20% this year), which will push client incentives even higher. Those deals are with issuers and acquirers, so they don’t directly change what merchants pay. But as costs go up for your bank, they inevitably trickle down to the businesses relying on those services.
Mastercard Pushes Back on Virtual Cards for AI Agents
One of the most interesting parts of Mastercard’s call was related to agentic commerce.
Some processors are currently using a one-time virtual card number to complete AI agent purchases. Where the virtual number sits between the shopper’s card and the merchant.
Mastercard CEO Michael Meibach said this approach is a processor decision that’s a bridge to fully tokenized transactions, which Mastercard wants running through Agent Pay (so the shoppers’ chosen card, rewards, and controls carry through).
As for the numbers, 3Q26 looked a lot like last quarter for Mastercard:
- Net revenue up 14% (vs. 12% previous qtr)
- Worldwide GDV up 7%, with US credit up 10% and US debit up only 1%
- Cross-border volume up 11%, while cross-border assessments grew 16%
- Domestic assessments up 13%
- VAS revenue up 19%, with roughly 60% still network-linked
Once again, assessment revenue is growing much faster than the volume behind it. And while the cross-border gap narrowed a bit from last quarter, it’s still there.
Mastercard’s new CFO Ling Hai also cited token pricing as an example of charging for added functionality. And pointed to token features for AI agents as an area for further development and pricing.
PayPal is Building a Sales Team to Sell Braintree Add-Ons
This was the second earnings call for Enrique Lores since he took the helm as CEO. And growth is still a bit slow:
- FX-neutral revenue up 1% (vs. 3% previous qtr)
- Branded checkout TPV up 1% (vs. 2% previous qtr)
- Total TPV up 7%, with Braintree up 10% and Venmo up 14%
- Transaction take rate of 1.58% (vs. 1.61%)
- 2,000+ roles cut and $700 million in run-rate savings exiting Q4
Braintree is where merchants should be focusing the most. As value-added services rose from 5% to 6% year-over-year, and Lores specifically named services that are valuable but not properly monetized, including:
- Payouts
- Risk-as-a-service
- Invoicing
The fix? They’re building a specialized sales force whose only job is to attach and sell VAS.
I flagged PayPal’s VAS plans for Braintree back in February. And now there’s a dedicated team behind it. So if you’re on Braintree, expect even more of these pitches and make sure the rep shows you cost improvements in actual numbers before you sign onto anything. Otherwise, it’s just going to be more margin for them at your expense.
Adyen Gives Up Some Margin to Invest in Talon.One and Orb
This was the first quarter consolidating Talon.One (loyalty and promotions) and Orb (usage-based billing), which added about two points of revenue growth for Adyen.
Adyen claims that demand for both of these has been stronger than expected, so they’re accelerating investment in both. Part of that included adding 177 net new employees this quarter, plus 399 through the acquisitions. They’re expecting a total of 1,000 to 1,100 net new hires for the year, which is definitely noteworthy considering how many other businesses have been slashing their workforce.
Earlier this year I wondered whether merchants would end up absorbing the cost of Adyen’s hiring push. But nothing in these numbers points to that (at least yet).
Highlights, include:
- Net revenue up 22% on constant-currency basis (vs. 21% last qtr)
- Processed volume up 30%
- Platforms net revenue up 44%
- Blended take rate 16.4 bps (vs. 16.2 bps)
- 2026 EBITDA margin now expected around 50%, and the medium-term target was dropped.
I think Adyen merchants should expect more conversations around loyalty and billing products being pushed alongside their payment stack.
No reason to add these on unless you actually need them.
Fiserv Stabilizes But Clover Revenue Growth Stalls
After about a full year of chaos at Fiserv, the overall business has finally stopped shrinking this quarter. But Clover (it’s lone shining star) had a weak quarter on the revenue side.
Here’s what was reported on the earnings call:
- Organic revenue flat (vs. -5% previous qtr)
- Merchant Solutions organic revenue down 2%, while Financial Solutions up 2%
- Clover Revenue up 1% (vs. 13%), while Clover processing revenue grew 12%
- Clover GPV up 11% excluding a gateway conversion
- Clover VAS at 23% of Clover revenue (vs. 25% last qtr and 26% last year)
- Project Elevate savings target doubled to $1 billion, with ~3,000 roles cut since the CEO transition.
That VAS number is a reversal from earlier this year when Clover VAS outgrowing Clover itself. This quarter, VAS revenue declined 3$ YoY, which the CFO said was stable (excluding Argentina).
Fiserv expects Clover revenue to return to double-digit growth in 4Q as last year’s one-time items roll off.
Worth noting that Fiserv will launch Clover for Enterprise in 2027, which is aimed at multi-location businesses and enterprise clients currently using third-party hardware.
They’re also reviewing more than a dozen smaller non-core products to sell. So if you’re using one, it could end up being owned by someone else.
Genius Heads Into Worldpay’s Bank Channel
In October, Global Payments officially began rolling Genius out to more than 30 of Worldpay’s banking partners, after a pilot with three.
The full channel covers roughly 6,000 branches. And once that scales, Global plans to push Genius through ISOs and agents, too. So if your business banks with a Worldpay partner, there’s a good chance you’ll hear about it.
Key numbers from Global’s latest earnings call:
- Adjusted net revenue up 4% to $3.18 billion
- SMB up 5%, Enterprise up 8%, and Platforms up 8%
- Adjusted operating margin of 42.5%, up 220 bps
- New Genius locations up 65% (vs. 50% last qtr), with bookings up 140%
- New Genius customer yields up nearly 60% (vs. 75% previous qtr)
Global also said it’s successfully cross-selling FraudSight and other VAS across its segments. And that about half of its enterprise revenue now comes from VAS.
I’ve previously covered how FraudSight “free trial” enrollments work, and how they convert to paid subscriptions. So if you’re on Global or Worldpay, check your statements for any FraudSight charges you didn’t sign up for.
Toast Raises IQ Grow to $699 and Responds to the FTC
Looking at the numbers first, Toast’s core business is still growing rapidly:
- Revenue up 21% (vs. 23% previous qtr)
- 8,500 net new locations, bringing the total ~189,000
- GPV up 20% to $61.8 billion
- Fintech net take rate of 61 bps (vs. 59 bps) with Toast Capital contributing 11 bps
- Full-year recurring gross profit growth outlook raised to 26%
The most merchant-relevant story is Toast’s pricing on AI products.
Toast IQ Grow launched at $499 per month in May. And it’s already jumped to $699 per month, with Toast saying it expects the same demand at the higher price point. That’s a 40% increase in price in about five months.
When the tool first launched, I warned that AI pricing was brand new territory and could get more expensive. Well, this is exactly what that looks like in practice.
Toast also launched IQ Team (scheduling, payroll, and tip management), starting at $50 per month plus $9 per employee. Both are primarily being sold through Toast’s upsell team. And who knows, the price of this could skyrocket too in the next six months.
Another standout of Toast’s earnings call was leadership addressing the FTC lawsuit. Aman Narang, Toast’s CEO, said the FTC’s “application of ROSCA is unprecedented for custom contracts in B2B.” And continued to say the company is prepared to defend itself.
How this plays out could matter well beyond Toast.
Square Now Has 400+ ISO Partnerships and Plans Software Pricing Changes
Block’s latest results were solid, and Square’s distribution push continues to grow.
- Gross profit up 22% with Square gross profit up 14%
- Square GPV up 14% (US up 10.4%, international up 26%)
- New sellers from ISP partners up 90% quarter-over-quarter
- 400+ ISO partners onboarded (vs. 200+ last quarter)
- Full-year gross profit outlook raised to $12.63 billion
The line Square sellers should be paying attention to came from Block’s shareholder letter.
Only 16% of US sellers currently use monetized software, and Block sees room to “innovate on pricing and packaging to drive software attach higher next year.”
Translation: expect Square pricing changes in 2027.
Final Thoughts
None of these calls require immediate action on your end right now. But as a merchant, it’s important to pay attention because what leadership reports on these calls often impacts your business and pricing and some point.
Don’t just blindly accept a new service being pitched by your processor, either.
That’s where they can increase margins without directly raising your rates.