During Visa’s fiscal first quarter conference call, CEO Ryan McInerney emphasized that Visa credentials—encompassing tokens, mobile wallets and digital IDs—now serve as the primary connection to its global payments architecture. The company reported that credentials in active use surpassed 5 billion worldwide, with tokenized credentials exceeding 17.5 billion—more than three times the number of physical cards. Tap-to-pay solutions now account for over 80% of face-to-face transactions globally, and Visa Flex, which allows multiple funding sources on a single credential, has reached 20 million credentials, with more than 20 additional issuers expected to join this year.

Visa delivered net revenue of $10.9 billion in Q1, up 15% year-over-year, while payments volume climbed 8% in constant dollars to nearly $4 trillion. Cross-border volume (excluding intra-Europe) rose 11%, and total processed transactions grew 9%. Management pointed to three emerging growth lanes: agentic commerce through the Visa Intelligent Commerce platform (over 100 partners engaged, 30 building in sandbox), Visa Direct person-to-person and business-to-business money movement (transactions up 23% to 3.7 billion), and stablecoin settlement (annualized run rate of $4.6 billion), primarily for cross-border and currency-volatile markets.

CFO Chris Suh highlighted steady consumer demand across spend bands, with U.S. debit and credit volumes both up mid-single digits. Value-added services revenue surged 28% to $3.2 billion, contributing roughly half of the quarter’s revenue growth. International eCommerce grew 12%, while travel-related volume rose 10%, indicating recovery in travel spending. Management noted that guest checkout rates on e-commerce sites have fallen from 44% in 2019 to 16% company-wide and under 4% among the top 25 online merchants.

On Capitol Hill, Visa warned that the proposed Credit Card Competition Act could reduce credit access, rewards programs and innovation. McInerney described the bill as “very harmful” and unnecessary given competition from digital wallets, BNPL providers and account-to-account options. Despite these risks, management guided to full-year revenue growth in the low double-digit range, reflecting confidence in secular drivers like digital payments migration, credential adoption and expansion into B2B and agent-enabled commerce.