Visa: Credit Card Competition Act not needed | PaymentsSource

• Key insights: Visa CEO Ryan McInerney reiterated the company’s long-held stance that the Credit Card Competition Act would have far-reaching negative consequences. 
• What’s at stake: President Trump’s support of the Credit Card Competition Act and calls for a 10% interest rate cap have drawn fresh attention to credit card fees and costs.
• Expert Quote: “We view it as our job to educate elected representatives on the impacts that the various policies that are being floated around could have,” Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said on a call with analysts Thursday. 

Visa Chief Executive Officer Ryan McInerney reiterated the company’s long-held stance that the Credit Card Competition Act would have far-reaching negative consequences after talks of the embattled regulation were revived by President Trump. 

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“This legislation would have far reaching negative consequences at a time when the economy certainly doesn’t need that,” McInerney said, noting that security protections would also be weakened by the legislation in addition to reduced credit access, fewer card options and the elimination of rewards programs. 

“We view it as our job to educate elected representatives on the impacts that the various policies that are being floated around could have,” McInerney said.

“In the case of CCCA, specifically, we’ve talked extensively in this call and other places about our view, and it hasn’t changed. It’s very harmful, and it’s just simply not needed,” McInerny said. “The competitive environment in this business– it is intense.”

Focus on agentic commerce

Visa this past quarter has been developing its token credentials, which are the underlying foundation for its agentic commerce protocol Visa Intelligence Commerce. 

“We’re working to enable agentic commerce with more than 100 partners across the commerce ecosystem globally,” McInerney said. “Over 30 partners are actively building in our sandbox, with multiple agents and agent enablers running live production transactions.”

Visa expanded to business-to-business agentic payments with Ramps corporate bill pay, and struck a distribution deal with Amazon Web Services to have Visa Intelligent Commerce listed on its marketplace so developers can use it to build agentic commerce solutions. 

“In addition, we are building interoperability between key elements of Visa Intelligent Commerce and Google’s new Universal Commerce Protocol as part of our global effort to help ensure that visa transactions are securely supported as different protocols evolve

Visa’s earnings

For the first fiscal quarter ended Dec. 31, revenue tallied $10.9 billion, a 15% increase from the same prior-year period, and ahead of analysts’ estimates of $10.69 billion, according to S&P Capital IQ. Resilient consumer spending, coupled with a strong holiday season and growth in payments volume, cross-border volume and processed transactions drove revenue growth, according to Visa. Expenses were up 27% to $4.2 billion. 

“Visa reported a solid quarter, driven by a solid revenue beat,” Keefre Bruyette and Woods analyst Sanjay Sakharani said in a research note. “While the non-GAAP opex growth this quarter offset some of the top-line beat and was higher than our estimate, we think this is timing-related, and Visa maintained its [fiscal year] guide.” 

Net income came in below consensus estimates on Wall Street, landing at $5.9 billion, or $3.03 per diluted share, representing a 14% and 17% increase, respectively. Analysts expected a net income of $6.05 billion, or $3.12 per diluted share. 

Payments volume rose 8% year over year on a constant dollar basis as consumer spending held strong. U.S. debit and credit payment volume increased 8%, compared to 9% last year. 

Cross border payment volume excluding transactions within Europe increased 11%, and total processed transactions bumped up 9% to $69.4 billion. 

Service revenue, which is generated from payments volume in the prior quarter, hit $4.8 billion, an 13% increase. 

Commercial and money movement solutions revenue grew 20% on a constant dollar basis, which was better than expected, Chief Financial Officer Chris Suh said on the call with analysts. Commercial payments volume grew by 10%, faster than Visa’s overall payments volume. 

Visa Direct transactions grew 23% to 3.7 billion transactions thanks to domestic and cross-border flows.  And value added services revenue grew 28% year over year in constant dollars to $3.2 billion, Suh said. 

Visa also reiterated its guidance of low-double-digit revenue growth in the second quarter and full year 2026.