Visa Press Releases

New Visa Research Finds Consumer Trust is Accelerating the Path to Agentic Commerce

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 07:00:00 -0400

Consumers rank Visa as the most trusted brand to deliver AI-powered commerce.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Visa (NYSE: V) today announced the Visa Trust Index for agentic commerce, providing new insight into how consumers are navigating the next evolution of AI shopping and payments. While consumers are increasingly using AI across the shopping journey, only 23% of U.S. consumers trust GenAI to handle payment transactions on their behalf. However, confidence in agentic commerce shifts when payments brands come into consideration. Visa emerged as the most trusted brand for AI-powered payments with 61% of respondents saying they would trust Visa to handle agentic transactions. The findings suggest that while consumers are intrigued by agentic commerce, trust remains the key factor determining whether adoption moves from possibility to reality.

"AI has the potential to fundamentally reshape how people discover, buy and pay for goods and services, much like e-commerce and mobile commerce did before it," said Oliver Jenkyn, Group President, Visa. "While we're still in the early days, trust will be foundational to driving agentic commerce adoption. Consumers will increasingly look to trusted payment experiences and brands as they deploy AI agents to shop on their behalf.”

Trust Will Unlock the Promise of Agentic Commerce

The Visa Trust Index found that consumer adoption of AI is already widespread, with 72% of consumers having used an AI assistant. Yet when it comes to agentic commerce, trust becomes increasingly important in the path to adoption. As AI continues to change the way people discover and shop, trust will shape how they pay.

Visa’s research looked across multiple sectors, including payments, technology and social media, and found that Visa was the most trusted brand for AI-powered payments among respondents surveyed. Visa maintained this leadership across key demographic groups, rising to 68% among consumers ages 18 to 34 and 71% among frequent AI users.

The findings suggest that consumers distinguish between the AI tools they use and the payment brands they trust. While consumers may engage with a range of AI assistants and platforms, trusted payments remain central to their willingness to complete transactions in agentic environments.

"Throughout every major shift in commerce, from the growth of e-commerce to the rise of mobile payments, trust provides stability and certainty to consumers as the world changes around them," Jenkyn said.

Building the Foundation for AI-Powered Commerce

For more than 60 years, Visa has helped enable new forms of commerce by delivering the security and reliability consumers expect when making payments. As agentic commerce continues to evolve, Visa is working with partners across the ecosystem to help establish the capabilities, standards and infrastructure needed to support secure, permissioned agent-initiated transactions.

Through Visa Intelligent Commerce and related initiatives, Visa is helping prepare the payments ecosystem for the next generation of digital commerce through technologies that support secure transactions, identity verification, authentication, and consumer controls.

According to the Visa's Trust Index, consumers are beginning to define what they expect from the companies that will help power the next era of commerce. As AI transforms how people discover, shop, and transact, Visa will continue to track consumer sentiment and help build the trusted foundation for the future of commerce.

Learn more about Visa's leadership in building the trusted infrastructure for agentic commerce at Visa Payments Frontier and on the Visa Newsroom.

Methodology

This survey was conducted on behalf of Visa by the Harris Poll using its Omnibus survey platform - a recurring bi-weekly survey tool that can accommodate ad hoc questions at a moment’s notice for quick turnaround.

The survey was fielded May 26 - 28, 2026, in the United States. Respondents are matched to the US General Adult population based on the US Census. The total sample size was 2,065 US consumers. The payment transaction question sample was 1,028 – 1,034 per brand tested.

About Visa

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.

Media Contact
Conor Febos
CFebos@visa.com

Source: Visa Inc.

Visa and World Bank Group Announce New Risk-Sharing Initiative to Expand Digital Payments and Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 05:00:00 -0400

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Visa (NYSE: V), a global leader in digital payments, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group focused on the private sector, are partnering on an innovative risk-sharing initiative designed to help expand financial inclusion by increasing access to digital financial services in emerging markets.

Under the agreement, IFC will share credit settlement risk for Visa transactions associated with enrolled financial institutions, enabling these institutions to connect more underbanked consumers and small businesses to digital payments. The facility is expected to support approximately $200 million in risk sharing over five years, with an initial focus on 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and reach approximately 50 financial institutions with below-investment grade ratings.

Together, Visa and IFC aim to help financial institutions enable millions more people and small businesses to save, spend, borrow, grow, and participate more fully in the formal economy.

“Access to digital payments can help unlock economic opportunity,” said Paul Fabara, Visa’s Chief Risk and Client Services Officer. “Through this first-of-its-kind partnership with IFC, Visa will help financial institutions bring secure and reliable payment solutions to more people and small businesses in emerging markets. Together, we can expand financial inclusion and help more communities participate in and benefit from the global economy.”

“This initiative exemplifies the power of innovation and partnership to expand economic opportunity where it is needed most,” said Mohamed Gouled, IFC’s Vice President of Products & Clients. “By reducing constraints that limit the participation of financial institutions, we are enabling greater access to digital payment solutions for small businesses and entrepreneurs across emerging markets. This will help them reach new customers, scale their operations, and create jobs. Ultimately, this is how financial inclusion drives sustainable growth and delivers lasting impact.”

Digital financial services can help increase the speed, security, and transparency of transactions, while giving consumers and businesses more ways to participate in the global economy. By helping financial institutions access Visa’s global network, this partnership will support broader participation in digital payment ecosystems across emerging markets.

About Visa

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating payments transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.

Media Contact
press@visa.com

Source: Visa Inc.

Visa Brings Onchain Lending into Everyday Payments

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0400

By combining VisaNet settlement data with blockchain lending, Visa is helping its partners unlock new financing opportunities for stablecoin-linked card programs.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today, Visa (NYSE: V) announced a new approach to onchain credit designed to help stablecoin-linked card programs and fintechs access working capital using onchain lending infrastructure and Visa data.

Onchain lending has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments of digital finance. According to the Visa Onchain Analytics Dashboard, since 2020, more than $694 billion in stablecoin-denominated loans have been sent through onchain lending protocols, creating a global credit market that operates 24/7. Yet much of that activity remains concentrated within crypto markets and hasn’t meaningfully supported the businesses and payment experiences people use every day.

Visa is helping bridge that gap by combining VisaNet settlement data with onchain credit infrastructure. This information can help lenders better understand how a program is operating, making it easier to evaluate financing opportunities that fit their needs and extend capital to support their goals.

"Stablecoins are not only changing how money moves, they're creating opportunities to rethink the financial infrastructure that supports payments," said Rubail Birwadker, Global Head of Growth Products and Partnerships, Visa. "We're seeing how trusted payment data and onchain technologies can work together to unlock new forms of liquidity, helping businesses access capital in ways that are more transparent, programmable and aligned to the speed of modern commerce."

The announcement builds on Visa's broader stablecoin strategy, which includes the recent launch of Visa Stablecoin Platform, enabling stablecoin settlement, expanding stablecoin-linked card programs, and helping financial institutions access new digital asset capabilities.

Today, more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs operate on Visa's network, with payment volume on those programs growing nearly 200% year over year. Visa's stablecoin settlement volume recently surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, up more than 15x year-over-year.

For many emerging payment companies, obtaining working capital can be difficult during periods of rapid growth. Traditional financing structures often require significant scale, operating history or manual underwriting processes before credit becomes available. Visa believes blockchain-based lending infrastructure, supported by trusted payment data, can help address these challenges while introducing greater transparency and efficiency.

An early example of this model is Visa's work with Credit Coop, which provides working capital and settlement financing for stablecoin-linked card programs using smart contracts to automate funding, collateral management and repayment. With customer authorization, Credit Coop combines Visa settlement data with onchain transaction records to help assess credit performance and support automated settlement financing.

To date, the model has supported more than $2.5 billion in cumulative financed settlement volume since 2023 with zero defaults across participating facilities. The infrastructure has also processed more than 3,000 borrow events and 9,000 repayment events programmatically onchain, creating a transparent and auditable record of financing activity.

"Payment companies have always had good collateral in their settlement receivables, but no way to show lenders how it performs in real time," said Chris Walker, Founder and CEO, Credit Coop. "By combining Visa settlement data with onchain infrastructure, we can evaluate live performance, enforce repayment from the settlement flow and extend capital onchain from participating lenders as a program grows."

Visa views onchain credit as a natural extension of its broader efforts to bridge traditional financial infrastructure with emerging digital asset technologies.

As digital payment ecosystems evolve, access to liquidity remains a critical requirement for growth. Visa believes models that combine trusted payment infrastructure, tokenized assets and programmable financial services have the potential to support new forms of lending, treasury management and settlement across the global payments ecosystem.

"Visa has spent decades helping make payments more secure, reliable and accessible," added Birwadker. "As new forms of digital money emerge, we see an opportunity to apply those same principles to the next generation of financial services."

Interested in learning more? Connect with us via Visa | Stablecoin Contact.

About Visa

Media Contacts
press@visa.com
Jackie Dresch
Conor Febos

Source: Visa Inc.

Visa Launches Enhanced A2A Protect Innovations to Help Financial Institutions Stop Fraud Before Money Leaves Accounts

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0400

New unified fraud score is the company’s first combined offering in-market since Visa’s acquisition of Featurespace
A2A Protect has been shown to reduce over 50% more fraud and help reduce over 40% in unnecessary fraud alerts

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Visa (NYSE: V), a world leader in digital payments, today announced an enhanced version of A2A Protect, delivering real-time risk insights that help banks stop account-to-account fraud before money leaves customer accounts. The expanded solution introduces a new unified fraud score—Visa’s first in-market integration of Featurespace technology—giving financial institutions faster, clearer signals to detect more fraud while reducing unnecessary alerts.

As account-to-account (A2A) payments accelerate globally, A2A transactions are projected to surpass 5.8 trillion by 2028, a 160% increase from 2024¹. A2A Protect leverages advanced AI and sophisticated transfer learning and gives banks immediate access to critical global risk insights on A2A transactions, without waiting months for models to develop intelligence from a bank’s own transaction data, and without having to wait for other banks to join a consortium, delivering results and value from day one. Banks that opt in can incorporate additional network-level signals to enhance detection of emerging threats operating across the ecosystem.

“Fraudsters move fast across payment types, and financial institutions need risk insights just as quickly, without slowing down legitimate payments,” said James Mirfin, Head of Risk and Security Solutions, Visa. “A2A Protect combines Visa’s network expertise with Featurespace’s technology to deliver a powerful new layer of protection that helps financial institutions detect more fraud, earlier.”

For financial institutions that opt into network level intelligence sharing, A2A Protect highlights emerging scam hotspots and coordinated fraud activity – insights that may be difficult for individual financial institutions to detect alone, and that help the wider ecosystem respond faster to new threats. This gives financial institutions a more complete and early view of risk, helping to identify scams before authorization. In fact, Visa A2A Protect has been shown to increase fraud detection by 75% in the first six months of deployment.

A2A Protect integrates with financial institutions’ current systems through a single API, reducing implementation time and complexity. Each alert includes a plain language explanation of why a transaction was flagged, helping fraud teams act quickly and confidently without disrupting genuine customers.

For more information on how Visa works to prevent fraud across the ecosystem, visit Visa.com/security.

About Visa Inc.

____________________

¹ Juniper Research, Global Instant Payments Market Report, September 2025

Media Contact
press@visa.com

Source: Visa Inc.

Visa Expands Support for its Clients and the Industry as Organizations Navigate New AI Era of Cybersecurity

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Latest Visa Vulnerability Agentic Harness release moves AI-powered cyber risk management from discovery to validated remediation

New services from Visa Consulting & Analytics help clients identify the vulnerabilities that matter most and act before bad actors do

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Visa (NYSE: V) today announced enhancements to its cybersecurity portfolio to help organizations identify and fix vulnerabilities more effectively. Unveiling the next evolution of the Visa Vulnerability Agentic Harness (VVAH), its open-source, model-agnostic framework, Visa is helping organizations significantly reduce the Mean Time to Adapt (MTTA), the time between discovery and resolution of attack paths, with some resolutions shrinking from weeks to hours.

And to help clients navigate this evolving threat landscape, Visa also announced the expansion of its Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA) Cybersecurity Advisory Practice with new advisory services designed to help clients assess risk, prioritize remediation efforts and strengthen resilience in an evolving threat environment.

"AI is compressing the time between vulnerability discovery and exploitation, which means defenders need a faster, more reliable path to action," said Rajat Taneja, President, Technology, Visa. "By advancing VVAH and expanding our cybersecurity advisory capabilities, we're helping organizations move from insight to validated remediation while strengthening resilience in an increasingly AI-driven threat landscape."

Expanding VVAH

Originally released following Visa's participation in Anthropic's frontier AI cybersecurity initiative, Project Glasswing, VVAH demonstrated how AI can help security teams uncover vulnerabilities, assess exploitability and generate structured findings. The latest release extends that workflow beyond discovery into remediation and validation.

Key enhancements include:

Closed-loop remediation: Structured feedback helps teams refine fixes that fail validation without restarting the process.
Flexible model choice: Organizations can now deploy approved Anthropic models and OpenAI models, in addition to any other AI model through configuration rather than code changes.
Greater visibility: Optional real-time progress views provide additional transparency into long-running scans and remediation workflows.

The framework is designed to help organizations discover, triage, remediate and validate vulnerabilities within a single structured workflow.

New Cybersecurity Services

To help organizations operationalize those insights, Visa Consulting & Analytics is introducing three new cybersecurity advisory services informed by Visa's experience in AI-powered security:

AI Cyber Leadership Education – Executive workshops, trainings and Visa University certification courses led by Visa's AI and cybersecurity specialists, sharing lessons from Visa’s experience with frontier AI cybersecurity, helping leaders prepare for an increasingly AI-driven threat environment.
VVAH-Informed Cybersecurity Maturity Assessment – Helps organizations apply VVAH framework to identify and evaluate potential vulnerabilities, understand areas of risk and prioritize remediation efforts.
VVAH Cyber Risk Prioritization and Roadmap – Provides strategic guidance to help organizations evaluate findings, prioritize remediation efforts, and develop a long-term cyber risk management roadmap.

"Finding vulnerabilities is no longer the hardest part. Speed to remediation is the new battleground. When AI-enabled attackers move faster and probe at scale, companies need AI-powered defenses," said Carl Rutstein, global head of Visa Consulting & Analytics. "Our enhanced cybersecurity advisory services combine insights from implementing frontier AI models for cybersecurity, VVAH, and decades of payments expertise to help clients prioritize risk areas, act quickly and build sustainable cyber resilience."

Over the past year, Visa Consulting & Analytics' Cybersecurity Advisory Practice has supported clients across a range of cybersecurity advisory engagements intended to help clients evaluate cybersecurity maturity, assess areas of cyber risk, and identify potential priorities for strengthening risk management and operational resilience. One example is CAIXA Cartões, which worked with Visa to support its cybersecurity maturity assessment and help prioritize its risk management and operational resilience initiatives:

"At CAIXA, we understand that cybersecurity is a fundamental pillar for customer trust and business sustainability in an increasingly complex digital environment,” said Lessandro Thomaz, Executive Director at CAIXA Cartões. “Our partnership with Visa has helped broaden our strategic perspective on cybersecurity by providing a structured assessment of the maturity of our processes and supporting the prioritization of initiatives focused on risk management and operational resilience. Projects like this reinforce the importance of collaboration between financial institutions and strategic partners to anticipate challenges, strengthen capabilities and deliver increasingly secure and reliable solutions to our customers."

Growing Momentum Across the Security Community

Since its open-source release in June 2026, VVAH has been downloaded by tens of thousands of developers across the world, reflecting growing interest in practical AI-powered vulnerability management. Visa also recently joined industry initiatives to further support the development of safe, secure and open practices as frontier AI continues to evolve. As a part of NVIDIA’s Open Secure AI Alliance, Visa is contributing VVAH as a model-agnostic framework, and through IBM and Red Hat’s Project Lightwell initiative, Visa is collaborating with other organizations to help secure open-source software.

For more information, explore the Visa Vulnerability Agentic Harness on GitHub or learn more about Visa's Value-Added Services cybersecurity offerings here.

About Visa

Media Contact
Conor Febos
cfebos@visa.com

Source: Visa Inc.

Visa to Participate in Upcoming Investor Conference

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 16:05:00 -0400

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Visa (NYSE: V) today announced its participation in the following investor conference.

On Tuesday, September 8, Ryan McInerney, Chief Executive Officer, will present at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference. The discussion will begin at 1:05 p.m. Pacific Time and last for approximately 35 minutes.

A listen-only audio webcast and replay will be accessible for 30 days following the event and available on the Investor Relations website at investor.visa.com.

About Visa

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, sellers, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.

Investor Relations: Jennifer Como, 650-432-7644, InvestorRelations@visa.com

Media Relations: Fletcher Cook, 650-432-2990, Press@visa.com

Source: Visa Inc.

Visa to Acquire BioCatch

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 08:30:00 -0400

BioCatch’s behavioral and device intelligence expertise expected to help detect scams, account takeovers and digital fraud before they happen

SAN FRANCISCO & TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Visa (NYSE: V) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire BioCatch, a leading provider of behavioral-first, multi-signal fraud intelligence, from funds advised by Permira and other shareholders for $2.4 billion in cash. The acquisition of BioCatch complements Visa’s existing cyber, fraud, risk and security solutions and is expected to help clients better protect themselves and their customers from the growing threat of account takeovers, scams, money mules and application fraud.

Since its inception, BioCatch has developed innovative AI and machine learning-based solutions that analyze thousands of application, behavioral, device, and network signals—such as keystrokes, touch gestures, and device handling—to detect fraud and distinguish legitimate users from fraudsters in real time. BioCatch protects 1.8 billion devices and 760 million users around the world, serving more than 350 banking clients in 21 different countries, including more than 100 of the largest banks globally.

“Account takeovers and scams cost the global economy over $1 trillion annually and AI is enabling these attacks at unprecedented scale,” said Andrew Torre, president of value-added services, Visa. “BioCatch will help our clients stop fraud before it reaches the point of payment. This acquisition is part of our strategy to help clients prevent cyber threats upstream, building trust into every transaction.”

AI, biometrics, authentication, identity, cyber defense and fraud prevention are increasingly interconnected, and Visa is investing to stay ahead of evolving threats, both to protect its own network and to help clients do the same. That includes the Visa Vulnerability Agentic Harness, an open-source AI security tool designed to help clients identify and remediate vulnerabilities at scale. The acquisition of BioCatch builds on Visa's existing suite of products, providing AI-powered solutions to detect and prevent fraud and both cyber and financial crime, from account opening to transactions. Over the last five years, Visa has invested more than $13 billion in technology and infrastructure to safeguard the integrity of the payments ecosystem and accelerate the decline in fraud rates.

“Real-time insights into customer intent continue to grow increasingly essential for institutions to establish trust within digital banking sessions,” said Gadi Mazor, CEO, BioCatch. “For more than a decade, we've demonstrated behavior’s unique ability to distinguish the criminal from the legitimate. In the last couple of years, we’ve shown how real-time intelligence-sharing networks between our customers can amplify the power of our behavioral intelligence further still. Together with Visa, we're even better positioned to advance our mission of making the world a safer place to transact and protect consumers from financial crime.”

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of applicable regulatory approvals. The transaction is expected to close by the end of Visa’s fiscal second quarter of 2027 and will provide significant benefits to its financial institution clients, consumers and the wider payments industry.

About Visa

About BioCatch

BioCatch prevents fraud and financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting more than 3,000 anonymized data points — keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, AI agent usage, jailbroken devices, and more — as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's AI and machine-learning models continuously assess both user intent and any signs of coercion or manipulation throughout every millisecond of every digital banking session, allowing banks to distinguish the criminal from the legitimate in real time. Insights drawn from across the network of BioCatch institutions further amplify the power and accuracy of that real-time risk-scoring. More than 350 financial institutions deploy BioCatch solutions, analyzing 19 billion user sessions per month and protecting more than 760 million users on more than 1.8 billion devices around the world from fraud and financial crime.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are identified by words such as “will,” “is expected,” and other similar expressions. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements we make regarding the timing and likelihood of closing, BioCatch’s future success, the impact of the acquisition on Visa’s growth, BioCatch’s operational plans and the other benefits to Visa, financial institutions and consumers.

By their nature, forward-looking statements: (i) speak only as of the date they are made; (ii) are not statements of historical fact or guarantees of future performance; and (iii) are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions or changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict or quantify. Therefore, actual results could differ materially and adversely from Visa’s forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including the timing and outcome of the regulatory approval process, shifts in the regulatory and competitive landscape, cybersecurity incidents, the pace and success of integration, and various other factors, including those contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025, and our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

You should not place undue reliance on such statements. Except as required by law, we do not intend to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

Visa Media Relations:
Stephanie Barnes, 628-278-9327, press@visa.com
Visa Investor Relations:
Jennifer Como, 650-432-7644, investorrelations@visa.com
BioCatch Media Relations:
Mac King, 206-200-8595, mac.king@biocatch.com

Source: Visa Inc.

Visa Fiscal Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:05:00 -0400

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Visa (NYSE: V) today announced its fiscal third quarter 2026 financial results through an earnings release that will be furnished with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a Form 8-K and available on its Investor Relations website at investor.visa.com/financial-information/quarterly-earnings/default.aspx.

Visa will host a live audio webcast at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time (5:00 p.m. Eastern Time) to discuss these financial results. The webcast and all related materials can also be accessed through Visa’s Investor Relations website at investor.visa.com.

About Visa

Investor Relations: Jennifer Como, 650-432-7644, InvestorRelations@visa.com

Media Relations: Fletcher Cook, 650-432-2990, Press@visa.com

Source: Visa Inc.

New Visa Data Reveals How the FIFA World Cup 2026™ Created Pop-Up Economies Across Canada, Mexico and the United States

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 07:00:00 -0400

New Visa data reveals the FIFA World Cup 26™ drove a nearly 20% surge in cross-border transactions across host cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- After the final whistle blew on the FIFA World Cup 2026™, millions of fans returned home with unforgettable memories and a trail of economic activity that stretched across countries. Every tap to pay left a lasting impact, as spending throughout the tournament delivered a meaningful boost to merchants and local economies across host cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

According to new data from Visa, the tournament drove significant growth in cross-border spending, international travel, and digital commerce across host cities. The findings show how a major global event creates “pop-up economies,” defined by Visa as temporary, highly concentrated periods of commercial activity that emerge around major cultural, entertainment and sporting events.

The data reveals that fans traveled from around the world to follow their teams, generating a surge in Visa cardholder spending across restaurants, transportation, entertainment, retail, lodging, and other sectors. From iconic host cities to emerging fan destinations, the tournament created a broad and lasting economic impact that extended well beyond stadium walls.

A Tournament of Pop-Up Economies

Visa data illustrates the scale, reach and pace of economic activity generated throughout the tournament^[1]:

Cross-border Visa transactions in FIFA World Cup 2026™ host cities increased nearly 20% year-over-year during the tournament period.
Fans from Colombia, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Brazil generated the highest levels of cross-border spend across host cities.
Santa Clara/San Jose, Boston, and Miami recorded the largest increases in in-person spending from international and domestic cardholders.
Consumers spent most heavily on transportation and entertainment, underscoring the broad economic benefit generated by tournament tourism.
Tap to pay transactions rose nearly 12%, reflecting fans’ preference for fast, secure and seamless payment experiences while traveling.
Ecuador v Curaçao and Colombia v Ghana, both in Kansas City, and Croatia v Ghana in Philadelphia were examples of matches that generated the highest year-over-year uplift creating significant spending spikes before, during and after kickoff.

“This was one of the most impactful FIFA World Cup™ tournaments we’ve seen to date both on and off the pitch,” said Frank Cooper III, Chief Marketing Officer of Visa. “FIFA World Cup 2026™ demonstrated how global events can create far-reaching economic value for businesses, cities and communities. For a few precious days, entire cities came alive with new visitors, new spending and new opportunities for local businesses. Through Visa’s network, we could watch those economies emerge, move from city to city and connect millions of fans with the merchants and communities hosting the world’s biggest sporting event.”

Pop-Up Economies Reached Far Beyond the Stadium

While matches took place inside stadiums, the economic impact spread throughout local communities. Restaurants, bars, retail districts, hotels, transit systems and entertainment venues all experienced increased levels of activity as fans gathered for matches and explored host cities. Several cities achieved standout performance in specific categories^[1]:

Boston led growth in year-over-year dining transactions as fans celebrated their nations in local bars and restaurants.
Guadalajara recorded the highest transportation spending growth as fans from around the world traveled to the stadium.
Atlanta saw strong entertainment activity tied to fan celebrations and cultural events, while New York City experienced a surge in retail spending.

These trends demonstrate how a pop-up economy distributes opportunity across an entire host market. The benefits reach businesses directly tied to the tournament and merchants serving everyday visitor needs, from neighborhood restaurants and independent retailers to hotels, transit providers and global brands.

The Tournament Moments That Moved Markets

Some of the tournament’s most memorable moments didn’t just capture attention. They sparked waves of economic activity around the world. Norway’s surprise run to the quarterfinals generated significant increases in consumer spending and transaction activity both in the country and around the world as fans rallied behind the country. In Norway, Visa transaction volumes nearly doubled during matches. Across Norway’s tournament run, increased transaction activity was recorded across a broader set of countries with each successive match, with spending eventually rising in more than 60 countries worldwide when Norway played, demonstrating how a pop-up economy can be fueled by fan passion and engagement.^[2]

Moments like this show how fan attention can translate into immediate shifts in economic activity. A major matchup, an unexpected result or a deep tournament run can quickly change travel patterns, increase demand and activate a new pop-up economy in the next destination.

From tourism and local business growth to digital payment adoption, the tournament demonstrated how shared moments of passion can drive commerce at an unprecedented scale. As fans return home, Visa’s data illustrates a lasting legacy, capturing the FIFA World Cup 2026™ as more than a single global event. It was a series of interconnected pop-up economies, each created by the movement, passion and spending of fans. Together, they generated economic opportunity across host communities and demonstrated the role seamless digital payments play in helping businesses serve global demand at speed and scale.

About Visa
Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, sellers, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.

^[1] Source: Visa cardholder transactions over VisaNet. This data includes all Visa card-present volume in the U.S. and Canada as well as Visa card-present cross-border volume in Mexico compared against the same period in 2025. Date range for U.S. and Canada is between 6/11-7/19 while date range for Mexico is from 6/11-7/5.
^[2] The analysis in the report was based on aggregated domestic spending data on the number of transactions at entertainment providers, retail goods merchants, specialty food and grocers, quick-service restaurants, full-service restaurants, bars and cafes. The lift is calculated by taking the volume of Visa transactions that occurred during a 12-hour period before and after a match started and comparing it against a comparable typical day of the week and time of day for each country included in the analysis in late May and early June before the FIFA World Cup™ started.

Comms Contact
Conor Febos
press@visa.com

Source: Visa Inc.

Visa Introduces Platform for Stablecoin Minting, Movement and Management

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 10:30:00 -0400

The Visa Stablecoin Platform gives financial institutions, fintechs and other payment providers a single environment to come onchain and run stablecoin operations with Visa.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today, Visa (NYSE: V) announced the Visa Stablecoin Platform (VSP), a new enterprise platform designed to help financial institutions, fintechs, and crypto natives access stablecoin capabilities through a single Visa-managed environment.

Building on Visa’s broader crypto strategy, VSP gives FIs, fintechs and other payment providers a simple way to access, store, and redeem stablecoins, beginning with Open USD (OUSD), a new stablecoin recently introduced by Open Standard. This includes onchain wallet infrastructure through a newly introduced Wallet-as-a-Service offering and connectivity for minting and burning Open USD.

“Stablecoins are opening up a new layer of programmable money, but for most institutions the hard part isn’t the concept, it’s the operational reality,” said Jack Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Visa. “With the Visa Stablecoin Platform, we’re giving our clients a single place to mint, move and manage stablecoin operations with the controls, security and network reach they already expect from Visa. It’s how we help them turn interest in stablecoins into real products and real payment flows.”

Visa Stablecoin Platform provides direct access to a range of stablecoin capabilities and flows alongside Visa’s network, risk and fraud capabilities, so institutions can move from exploration to implementation with greater confidence. This includes:

Access to Open USD: VSP integrates seamlessly into the Open Standard, providing institutions with direct access to Open USD alongside Visa’s network services. This gives clients a way to easily mint, burn, manage and transfer Open USD, bringing fiat onchain and managing flows in an environment they already trust.
Onchain wallet infrastructure: VSP packages the wallet infrastructure, controls and workflows needed to make stablecoins usable inside real-world treasury, settlement and product stacks for a range of institutional use cases.
Integration into Visa’s network: VSP is designed to enable connectivity of stablecoins into Visa’s network and tools, allowing users to embed stablecoin capabilities into existing payment flows, treasury operations and settlement processes. For existing Visa clients using Visa’s settlement, treasury and currency solutions, VSP provides direct interoperability to seamlessly integrate stablecoins into the workflows and systems they rely on today.
Built for trust on day one: VSP allows institutions to interact with stablecoin flows with the same security and trust that Visa is known for. Users will have access to features like dual-control approval for workflows, where one user initiates a sensitive action and another authorized user must approve it, comprehensive audit logging, and Wallet-as-a-Service features of secure passkeys and allow lists to control transfers, to help provide the level of security and control they require to operate.

VSP is interoperable with Visa's existing stablecoin offerings, including stablecoin settlement, stablecoin-linked cards, and stablecoin money movement. Together, these capabilities provide a full stack of solutions that help FIs and fintechs come onchain and enable crypto platforms to access Visa's global network.

How to get Started

Onboard and operate: Institutions can onboard into a Visa-managed wallet stack or connect existing wallets, creating a single home to manage stablecoin mint, burn, and transfer activity.
Connect bank accounts and controls: Clients can link bank accounts and configure approvals, users and policies to govern who can initiate and approve stablecoin movements.
Mint, move and manage stablecoin operations: From the start, VSP supports minting, redeeming, holding and transferring stablecoins, beginning with Open USD, as part of treasury, settlement and liquidity workflows.

VSP, including Wallet-as-a-Service, is initially available for beta testing with select clients, providing an early opportunity to explore how stablecoins fit into their strategies. As clients test and refine use cases, Visa will use those learnings to inform how and where the platform scales to broader market availability.

About Visa

Media Contacts
press@visa.com
Jackie Dresch
Conor Febos

Source: Visa Inc.