Card Networks Push Beyond Payments to Lock In Growth

Revenue growth remained healthy across the payments industry this quarter, but earnings calls and P&L statements also shed light on what makes a payment network stronger over time.

Visa discussed credentials, money movement and tokenization. Mastercard repeatedly described a continuum that links network scale, data and value-added services. Capital One devoted much of its discussion to building the Discover Network into a larger strategic asset. American Express continued demonstrating how spending, commercial relationships and premium customers reinforce its closed-loop model.

Drilling down into specific results, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach repeatedly described the company’s “virtuous cycle,” indicating that additional issuers, merchants, payment volume, tokens and services reinforce one another.

During the quarter, Mastercard added more than 230 million net new cards over the previous 12 months, token penetration exceeded 40%, and contactless reached 80% of in-person switched purchase transactions. Commercial debit and credit volumes increased 12%, while Value-Added Services and Solutions revenue climbed 18%.

Rather than describing those as separate businesses, Miebach connected them. More cards create more payment activity. More payment activity produces more data.

Visa CEO Ryan McInerney highlighted three priorities: consumer payments, commercial payments and money movement, while identifying value-added services during the call as a key driver of our growth. Credentials increased 8%, tokenized credentials now represent nearly 60% of global eCommerce transactions, commercial and money movement revenue increased 17%, commercial payment volume rose 13%, and Visa Direct transactions climbed 21% to 4 billion.

Credentials can reside inside mobile wallets, connected devices, commercial payment systems and AI-powered commerce. Every additional credential increases the number of ways consumers and businesses interact with the network.

Capital One’s earnings highlighted a firm that at the same time that it is expanding an existing network, is attempting to build one too. CEO Richard Fairbank repeatedly returned to the strategic value of Discover, describing continued investment in network acceptance, network technology and artificial intelligence while integrating Discover into Capital One’s technology platform.

Commercial Payments, Cross-Border and Services Keep Deepening the Network

Visa’s McInerney grouped consumer payments, commercial payments and money movement together. Commercial payments volume increased 13%, while commercial and money movement solutions revenue grew 17% year over year. Visa Direct transaction counts climbed 21% to 4 billion, supported by new relationships and additional use cases.

Visa also reported that value-added services revenue increased 34% in constant dollars. Those businesses, ranging from issuer processing and acceptance solutions to risk management and advisory services, increasingly generate revenue linked to transactions, cards and accounts rather than stand-alone consulting engagements. McInerney noted that products such as Subscription Manager and Stop Payment Services now cover 2 billion credentials, illustrating how services become more valuable as more issuers and consumers participate on the network.

Mastercard described its own progress in  adding commercial capabilities, including virtual cards, small-business solutions and Mastercard Move. Miebach also pointed to continued expansion in government disbursements, merchant partnerships and switching infrastructure, arguing that each new participant creates additional opportunities to distribute services across the network.

Cross-border commerce remained a growth engine.

Visa reported 12% cross-border volume growth excluding intra-Europe, with cross-border eCommerce volume increasing 16% and travel-related cross-border volume rising 10%.

Mastercard likewise reported 12% cross-border volume growth, supported by both travel and non-travel spending. Analysts spent considerable time questioning management about the durability of those trends, reinforcing that cross-border commerce continues to be one of the industry’s most closely watched growth drivers.

American Express reinforced that spending remained healthy across several customer segments. Total billed business increased 9%, including 11% growth in U.S. consumer services, 12% growth in international card services and 5% growth in commercial services. Billed business among Gen Z consumers climbed 40%, well ahead of millennials (14%), Gen X (10%) and baby boomers (5%). Those figures complement PYMNTS Intelligence research showing younger consumers remain the fastest adopters of digital wallets and mobile-first payment experiences, providing another tailwind for digital payment networks.

AI, Stablecoins and Fraud Are Being Built Into the Networks

Visa outlined investments across the stablecoin stack, from issuance and wallets to settlement infrastructure and applications. The company announced its Visa Stablecoin Platform, participation in the OpenUSD initiative and an expanded partnership with OpenAI designed to support secure agentic commerce. McInerney said Visa now has more than 150 AI-powered applications and has delivered more than 300 major product releases over the past year. AI is also reshaping internal development, with agentic engineering teams producing 80% more code commits and reducing requirements-definition cycles from 30 days to five days.

Mastercard approached the opportunity from the perspective of network infrastructure. Miebach described machine-to-machine payments as a new addressable market and said more than 30 industry participants are already working within Mastercard’s ecosystem. The company also emphasized that stablecoins are additive to its network, particularly for B2B and P2P flows, while continuing to expand identity, fraud prevention and cybersecurity offerings that support both card and non-card transactions.

“We believe stablecoins have great potential, but to work, there are a few essential principles for it to scale,” Mastercard’s CEO said, pointing to “reliability, security, and interoperability.”

Capital One’s Fairbank told analysts that the company is continuing to invest heavily in AI, customer-facing experiences and the Discover Network. He linked Discover’s technology integration with the ability to improve underwriting, increase spending, grow loan volumes over time and expand the network itself.

Across the four earnings calls, one theme surfaced repeatedly: payment companies are investing in assets that become more valuable as additional participants join. Commercial payments, tokenized credentials, fraud intelligence, AI, cross-border commerce and network infrastructure all expand alongside the network itself. That common strategy, more than any quarterly revenue figure, defined this earnings season.