Visa, Mastercard bet on AI, crypto ahead of earnings

• Key insight: Visa and Mastercard both released several AI and blockchain-related products in recent days. 
• What's at stake: The credit card companies announce third quarter earnings next week, and investors will be looking at revenue sources such as value-added non-payment services. 

With card-issuing banks pressured to build strategies for agentic commerce and digital assets, Visa and Mastercard are expanding their abilities to sell into these trends. 

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Both card brands have released services in the past few days, and in the case of Visa, there were rumors of a potential $2.5 billion deal to acquire cryptocurrency technology firm Fireblocks. Visa said it does not comment on rumors or speculation.

"We are aware of the rumors about a possible acquisition of Fireblocks by Visa. This is news to us, and not true," a Fireblocks spokesperson said in an email.

Supplier payments

Even before talk of a Fireblocks acquisition, Visa recently released several tools designed for agentic commerce and digital assets. Earlier this week, the card company introduced services for corporate payments, including new analytics for supplier spending, virtual-card fraud prevention, and a live pilot enabling trusted AI agents to complete B2B invoice payments."The B2B world is filled with very routine manual processes that are just begging for automation," Darren Parslow, global head of Visa Commercial Solutions, told American Banker. 

The new analytics, called SESA 2.0, use AI to produce spend analysis and to help businesses identify high-potential supplier opportunities. Another product, Visa Commercial Fraud Solutions, helps issuers and businesses validate suppliers, authenticate virtual-card payment activity and apply controls before a payment is approved."What we're really trying to do is build the ecosystem for agentic commerce," Parslow said.

An additional initiative, a pilot with Billtrust, enables trusted AI agents to initiate and help complete approved invoice payments through supplier portals, using Visa Intelligent Commerce and Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol.

"What's great about this pilot is it addresses both sides, the buyers and suppliers, for a fully automated payment from invoice approval to supplier acceptance," Parslow said. 

On the digital asset front, Visa this week took its Visa Direct stablecoin project out of pilot testing. In the initial deployment, Inyo Global, a Visa Direct processor that has banks, fintechs and payment companies among its clients, is supporting stablecoin processing for Visa Direct clients and partners. These businesses will have the option to  prefund cross-border payouts through Visa Direct with USDC in near real time, rather than relying solely on traditional funding windows.

"The next chapter for stablecoins is adoption," said Vira Platonova, global head of Visa Direct. In a release. 

Visa's digital asset strategy could get a boost if it were to acquire Fireblocks, which sells institutional custody, stablecoin settlement and tokenization, among other services. Visa and Mastercard have both made stablecoin support a key pillar of their value-added services strategies–or their quest to draw revenue from sources beyond card payments. 

Fruit from Mastercard's BVNK deal

Mastercard's moves over the past week include launching Global Money Platform with BVNK, with Nuvei, Marqeta, Ontop and Beem among the first users. The platform enables banks, fintechs and businesses to use software or an application programming interface to support traditional currency and stablecoins. Mastercard Move supports local bank payouts, with more than 40 currencies planned to be available by 2017.

Mastercard closed a $1.8 billion deal to acquire digital asset technology firm BVNK in August, supplying Mastercard with tools to scale digital assets–a goal Visa could also address if it acquired Fireblocks. 

"Stablecoins used to be just about powering crypto trading. It's now becoming a payment instrument and a way to store value as well," Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president of blockchain and digital asset products at Mastercard, told American Banker. 

Mastercard in recent days also launched Stablecoin Security, a product designed to assess fraud and other criminal risk before funds move from traditional rails to blockchain, and a demonstration of Agent Pay for Machines. This product enables AI agents to autonomously locate and pay for digital services based on rules set by humans. The move to agentic commerce builds on top of earlier moves the card network made to prepare for AI payments, including agentic AI protocols.

"With a lot of agentic commerce options, you can use these cards on the street today, they can be paired with a trusted agent," Dhamodharan said. 

Courting investors

Visa reports earrings on Tuesday after the market closes, while Mastercard reports Thursday before the opening. 

Mastercard's stock is up about 11% since late October 2025; while Visa's stock is up about 20%. Mastercard's most recent earnings report beat analysts' expectations, as did Visa's earnings. 

 In a research note, KeyBanc Capital Markets notes that Visa and Mastercard's work in agentic commerce positions the card networks well to offer services within guidance for agentic commerce that a group of large banks issued earlier this year. 

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"The [bank guidance] paper calls for secure and auditable methods to enter payment credentials and authorize purchase intents, and states unsafe practices should be discouraged and, where possible, prohibited naming raw card credential entry into websites, prioritizing payment methods with lower protections, and non-compliance with payment scheme rules," KeyBanc's analysts said. "In our view, an issuer consortium arguing for tokenized credentials and scheme rule enforcement supports the network trust and tokenization thesis we have outlined previously, and aligns with the direction of Visa Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard Agent Pay,".
More broadly, analysts from FT Partners said payment growth should remain strong for both Visa and Mastercard during the third quarter, overcoming any economic pressure. 

 "The [messaging] on the health of the U.S. consumer should remain upbeat. Card volume growth in the third quarter from the major issuing banks was in-line with the second quarter, with continued strength across debit and credit, implying no change in mix between discretionary and non-discretionary spend," FT Partners analysts said in a research note. 

This story has been updated with a response from Fireblocks.

October 22, 2026 4:08 PM EDT