Visa Q3 earnings show card growth as AI and stablecoin plans expand

Visa Q3 earnings showed stronger card spending alongside a broader push into AI-led commerce, tokenization and stablecoin infrastructure. The company reported fiscal third-quarter net revenue of $11.6 billion, up 14%, while U.S. payments volume rose 10% from a year earlier, with credit volume up 11% and debit volume up 9%, according to Visa’s financial materials.

Visa shares were down about 1% in after-hours trading Tuesday after the results and outlook. The company said Visa Direct transactions increased 21%, adding to evidence that its money-movement products are growing beyond conventional card purchases.

What did Visa say about AI agents and stablecoins?

Chief Executive Ryan McInerney told analysts that Visa expects the way payments begin and settle to change as AI agents, stablecoins and token-based credentials become more prominent. He said agentic commerce is a “when, not an if,” while adding that adoption depends on whether consumers trust an agent to act within their authorization and whether protections apply when a transaction fails or is disputed.

McInerney said Visa is developing agent scores, an agent directory and token-assurance infrastructure to support that model. Those tools are aimed at verifying that an AI agent is legitimate, that a payment reflects the consumer’s intent and that the transaction can be handled within Visa’s risk and protection framework.

Visa is also using AI inside the company, according to management comments on the earnings call. The company has deployed AI across engineering, client service and other functions, and is shifting some product teams from groups of 10 or more employees into agentic squads of two to four people, with AI agents performing tasks under human supervision.

On stablecoins, McInerney said Visa would remain “multi-coin and multi-chain” and that its role was not “to pick winners.” Visa has joined Open Standard, which plans to issue OpenUSD, and has introduced the Visa Stablecoin Platform for minting, moving and managing stablecoins. McInerney said stablecoins have not yet reached broad scale beyond a limited set of uses, including cards linked to stablecoin balances.

Card volume and cross-border trends

Chief Financial Officer Chris Suh said U.S. payment volume reached a pace Visa had not seen since fiscal 2019, excluding the post-pandemic rebound period. Visa attributed the improvement to tax refunds, fuel prices, retail promotions, Visa Direct and FIFA-related spending.

By July 21, growth had eased slightly. Visa said U.S. payments volume was running 9% higher, with both credit and debit up 9%. Cross-border volume excluding intra-Europe rose 14%, including an 18% increase in eCommerce and a 12% increase in travel.

Suh said in the question-and-answer session that June and July cross-border eCommerce growth was unusually elevated because of promotional-shopping timing and calendar effects. He said he expected that growth to return closer to its typical relationship with travel.

The company said tokenized credentials are approaching 60% of Visa’s global eCommerce transactions. In payments, tokenization replaces sensitive account information with a digital credential that can be used to approve transactions without exposing the underlying card details.

Visa expands issuer and checkout products

Visa’s digital product expansion also includes Cybersource’s Unified Checkout, which launched globally in March. The product is designed to coordinate multiple payment types through a Visa-hosted checkout experience and has been enabled by more than 4,500 sellers and acquirers, according to the company.

Visa is also combining DPS and Pismo capabilities into an issuer-processing product for debit and credit programs, aimed at FinTechs and small to midsize banks. McInerney said Pismo is tied to banks’ efforts to move legacy systems toward cloud and API-based technology. Visa has taken Pismo into 19 additional markets since buying the company, while using DPS and Pismo differently in the U.S. depending on issuer needs.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, Visa expects adjusted constant-dollar net revenue growth at the high end of low double digits and earnings-per-share growth at the low end of the mid-teens. For the full year, the company expects revenue growth at the low end of the low-teens range.

This story draws on original reporting from PYMNTS.