Visa Says It’s Positioning Itself to Be a ‘Hyperscaler’ in Payments

Visa Inc. chief executive Ryan McInerney touted the card network’s ability to build and deliver innovations and scalable technologies as drivers behind the company’s strong fiscal first quarter 2026 results. 

Processed-transaction dollar volume grew 8% year-over-year in the quarter to nearly $4 trillion in constant dollars, with transactions up 9% for the quarter to 69 billion. The growth reflects Visa’s role as a “payments hyperscaler” that enables anyone in the payments ecosystem “to build, launch, and scale money movement, and payments businesses across the globe,” McInerney told equity analysts on a call to discuss the network’s quarterly results.

One of the core technologies in Visa’s technology stack is the Visa credential, which McInerney described as a “connection point to the Visa network” on top of which Visa can “layer all types of services, solutions, and access.” Visa has issued more than 5 billion credentials.

To help fuel the adoption of credentials, Visa has been focusing on several enhancements through its Tap to Pay, flexible credentials, and tokenization solutions.

Tap to Pay now accounts for more than 80% of face-to-face transactions globally and 70% in the United States. Acceptance by transit agencies has been a key driver. During the quarter, Visa launched Tap to Pay for transit in San Francisco and 10 other markets globally.

One enhancement to Visa’s Flexible Credential during the quarter was Block Inc.’s launch of a Visa-branded debit card that supports the credential for its Cash App users. The new card enables Cash App cardholders to convert upcoming purchases into scheduled payments through Block’s Afterpay buy now, pay later service, with any merchant in the Visa network. The deal also leverages Visa’s GPS processing solution for the debit component of the card.

One advantage for BNPL providers supporting BNPL payments through the Flexible Credential is the utility and versatility it provides BNPL providers. As a result, BNPL platforms no longer have to build out BNPL offerings for each merchant, McInerney added. The credential “is like the Swiss Army knife of payments with its multiple funding options,” McInerney said.

Visa has issued 20 million flexible credentials globally, allowing users to fund their accounts using multiple payment sources, such as debit, credit, and multicurrency networks. Visa expects to add 20 issuers for the service this year.

Visa tokens, which provide a unique digital identifier in lieu of sensitive payment information, now total more than 17.5 billion, better than three times the total number of physical Visa cards globally, McInerney said. “We are positioning our token and credentials as building blocks for the future of payments,” he added.

Agentic commerce remains a key focus for Visa as the network is working with more than 100 partners, 30 of which are actively building agentic commerce solutions, to develop the “underlying foundation for agentic commerce,” according to McInerney.

During the quarter, Visa entered into a deal with Amazon Web Services to make Visa’s Intelligent Commerce platform available through the AWS marketplace. Visa is also working with Google Inc.’s agentic-commerce payments protocol to ensure Visa transactions are “securely supported” as new protocols emerge. “We believe we are well-positioned to be the infrastructure provider and key enabler in agentic commerce,” McInerney said.

Meanwhile, stablecoins remain an area of focus for Visa as they have “tremendous growth and disruption capabilities,” according to McInerney. To help fuel the acceptance of stablecoins as a payment option, Visa has launched its stablecoin advisory practice, which is intended to help payment providers develop strategies to enter the stablecoin payment business and to enable technology to facilitate market entry.  

McInerney said Visa will continue to invest in stablecoin on- and off-ramps, settlement, money movement, consulting, and other value-added services.

For the quarter, Visa reported $10.9 billion in net revenue, up 15% from the same period last year, while net income rose 14% to $5.9 billion.