by Matt Rej
This is the third time in 2026 that I’ve covered Visa and Mastercard’s quarterly earnings together, as the takeaways from a merchant’s perspective are largely linked.
Both networks delivered another strong quarter with double-digit revenue growth, resilient consumer spending, and continued momentum of cross-border payments and value-added services.
But the underlying numbers tell a more interesting story than another quarter of strong card spending. Visa and Mastercard’s revenue is growing faster than their payment volume and transaction counts, with their pricing strategies contributing to several key revenue categories.
While the gap isn’t a direct measure of merchant cost increases, it does provide useful context for several other developments discussed on these calls. I’ll explain what this could mean for any business accepting card payments.
Key Takeaways From the Latest Visa and Mastercard Earnings
Here’s what stood out to me the most from a merchant perspective:
- Pricing contributed to multiple Visa and Mastercard revenue categories.
- Mastercard’s cross-border assessment revenue grew much faster than its cross-border volume.
- Visa’s VAS revenue increased 34%.
- Mastercard says roughly 60% of its VAS revenue is linked to its network.
- Visa is restructuring parts of its workforce as AI helps smaller product teams develop and release products faster.
- Cross-border ecommerce continues growing faster than cross-border travel.
- Both companies are still bullish on agentic commerce, though widespread adoption is still difficult to predict.
- Stablecoins appear more relevant to B2B payments, money movement, and settlement (vs. regular consumer checkouts).
- Commercial card growth makes payment data optimization increasingly important for B2B merchants.
Network Revenue is Growing Faster Than Payment Volume
In our previous update, I highlighted Visa’s statement that 2026 pricing actions would be weighted toward the second half of its fiscal year. Well we’re in the second half now, and those pricing actions are now showing up in Visa’s results.
Visa’s service revenue increased by 14%. The payment volume behind that revenue (which Visa reports on a one-quarter lag), grew by 9%. And Visa said pricing and cardholder benefits were the main reasons why revenue grew faster than volume.
Data-processing revenue increased by 17% compared to a 10% growth in processed transactions. Leadership said that pricing, VAS, and favorable cross-border transactions contributed to that gap.
Mastercard provided an even clearer breakdown:
- Domestic assessment revenue up 10% vs. 8% gross dollar growth, and Mastercard said the difference was primarily due to pricing.
- Cross-border assessment revenue increased 20% vs. 12% cross-border volume growth.
- Other network assessment revenue increased 23%.
It’s important to acknowledge that these aren’t estimates of how much merchant costs are increasing. Visa and Mastercard’s revenue categories are affected by far too many variables to draw that conclusion directly.
But businesses should still understand the broader trend.
These networks are both heavily relying on their pricing, additional services, and cross-border mix to monetize payment activity more effectively.
Value-Added Services Are Becoming Part of the Network
Value-added services (VAS) have been a recurring theme all year.
Though the takeaway isn’t necessarily a direct line that higher VAS revenue translates to higher merchant fees. It’s actually far more impactful.
- Visa’s VAS revenue increased 34% to roughly $3.8 billion.
- It now represents about one-third of Visa’s overall net revenue.
- Mastercard’s VAS and solutions revenue increased 18%.
- Mastercard said that approximately 60% of its VAS revenue is “network-linked.”
This is the most meaningful long-term development.
Visa and Mastercard are both making it harder to separate the basic payment network from surrounding services. Things like authentication, fraud detection, tokenization, account updating, authorization tools, and cybersecurity services are being integrated into how payments move across the network infrastructure.
Some of these products provide real value, and many are purchased by banks rather than merchants. Others are optional services sold through processors, gateways, and software providers.
But processors and other merchant-facing providers aren’t just going to eat these added costs. Whether you’re getting the benefits or not, those costs will ultimately trickle down to merchants somewhere on their statements.
So make sure you’re closely reviewing any fee on your statement that could be tied to a VAS to assess whether it’s something you need or something you’re actually benefiting from. Even if they are tied to the networks, many of these are optional and you can opt-out to save money.
Visa is Restructuring Around Faster Product Development
This definitely wasn’t the biggest payments story from Visa’s quarter. Though I found it interesting and I think it amplifies the last point about VAS.
Visa announced its plans to eliminate ~2,600 jobs (about 7% of its workforce).
Most of the roles affected are in its technology and product teams, and the company recorded $563 million in severance costs during the quarter.
Layoffs in any industry are normal. But Visa’s explanation is worth a closer look.
The company says AI is allowing them to change how products are developed. Teams that previously required ten or more people are being reduced to groups of two to four. And the company says it has shipped more than 300 major product releases over the past year.
More importantly, Visa’s CFO said they plan to reinvest savings from workforce reduction into its highest-potential growth opportunities.
This shows how aggressively Visa is prioritizing the development and release of new products. As many of these will ultimately contribute to the rapid growth of VAS.
Cross-Border Ecommerce Growth is Strong (and Outpaced Travel)
Cross-border payment growth is solid for both networks, but ecommerce is the most notable part of the story.
- Visa’s cross-border volume (excluding intra-Europe) increased 12%.
- Visa cross-border ecommerce growth increased 16% while cross-border travel volume grew 10%.
- Mastercard cross-border volume increased 12%.
- Mastercard CNP cross-border volume (excluding travel) increased 20%.
- Mastercard cross-border travel grew 6%.
The practical takeaway here is the same. Cross-border activity is one of the fastest-growing and most expensive parts of the card ecosystem.
Despite the added costs to move money, these transactions are pricing accordingly so the networks can still profit.
Any merchant selling internationally needs to understand:
- Where their transactions are being acquired
- Whether their processor supports local acquiring
- How international and cross-border assessments appear on statements
- If currency conversion is being handled by the merchant, processor, acquirer, or customer
- If their current setup is creating unavoidable cross-border charges
This is crucial for hotels, international ecommerce merchants, businesses in any travel industry segment, or anyone operating in destinations with lots of international travelers.
Many businesses throughout North America saw an increase in international card transactions during the World Cup. And if you look at your effective rate during those months, you can see how those international cards impact your total costs.
I’m obviously not suggesting that you turn away business. But there are definitely ways to optimize those transactions from a cost perspective.
Stablecoins Aren’t Replacing Cards at Checkout
Stablecoins received significant attention during both calls. But the comments weren’t as dramatic as some of the headlines surrounding the technology.
Mastercard said that stablecoins have a clear potential in B2B and P2P payment flows. But they also said there’s “no problem to solve” with stablecoins in ordinary person-to-merchant checkouts.
Consumers have already widely accepted payment cards with fraud protection, rewards, and dispute rights. Stablecoin providers partner with Mastercard because they need access to that acceptance network and consumer protections. But customers aren’t suddenly going to opt for stablecoins as an alternative to credit cards.
Though both networks continue investing heavily in this technology.
Visa is building an infrastructure for stablecoin issuance, wallets, settlement, orchestration, and tokenized deposits. While Mastercard is developing OpenUSD, expanding crypto card relationships, and expects to complete its acquisition of BVNK (a stablecoin infrastructure provider).
This positions both networks as infrastructure that connects stablecoins to banks and other payment rails.
The average merchant doesn’t need to think about this much right now. That said, B2Bs and cross-border payments will likely see stablecoin technology play a more meaningful role in the near term. But there’s not much value for standard checkouts anytime in the near future.
Agentic Commerce Has a Trust Problem
Both Visa and Mastercard continue promoting their agentic-commerce initiatives to investors on the earnings call.
The basic idea is that AI agents will eventually be able to research products and complete purchases on behalf of consumers or businesses.
But widespread adoption still depends on these networks solving these fundamental questions:
- How does a merchant verify that an AI agent is legitimate?
- How does the agent prove that the customer authorized the purchase?
- Who is responsible when an agent buys the wrong product?
- How will refunds and chargebacks work?
- What payment information will agents share with merchants?
- How will merchants distinguish good automated traffic from bots and fraud traffic?
The networks believe that their existing strengths (tokenization, identity, authorization, dispute resolution, fraud protection, global acceptance, etc.) give cards an advantage.
Mastercard is expanding its Agent Pay solution and has introduced capabilities for machine-to-machine payments. It’s designed to let AI agents purchase low-value digital services like APIs, computing capacity, and data.
This is genuinely new. But it’s also very early, highly specialized, and nowhere near the payment flow for an average merchant.
In the short term, it’s likely that any agent-initiated purchases will still arrive as tokenized CNP transactions over existing payment rails. And the shopping experience may change before the underlying payment method does.
Commercial Payments Continue to Grow
While commercial payments didn’t get nearly as many headlines as AI or stablecoins, this is much more relevant to lots of merchants.
- Visa commercial payment volume increased 13%.
- Visa’s commercial and money-movement revenue increased 17%.
- Mastercard’s commercial debit and credit volume grew 12%.
For B2B merchants, more commercial card volume creates both an opportunity and cost-management challenge.
For businesses accepting corporate cards, purchasing cards, fleet, and virtual cards, they need to verify that their systems are properly transmitting transaction data required for the best available interchange qualification.
This is even more important following recent changes to enhanced data and commercial card programs. We’ve seen merchants that used to qualify for optimized rates but no longer do, even if their customers and payment methods haven’t changed. It’s just because their transactions aren’t qualifying correctly.
Final Thoughts
There’s no need for merchants to react to every single product or partnership mentioned during these earnings calls. But I think it’s good to get in the habit of paying attention, even if it’s just skimming through a merchant-focused summary like this one.
It helps add context and reinforce practical steps that can help you save money:
- Comparing network changes over time
- Separating network fees from processor markups on your statement
- Auditing any value-added services you might be paying
- Reviewing international processing volume and fees
- Ensuring you’re qualifying for any commercial card savings
The average merchant is going to do much right now with stablecoin and agentic commerce headlines. And you really don’t need to (at least not yet).
If anything, just let this recap serve as a reminder to check your statements a little closer to see how your processing costs are creeping up and what you can do about it.