Visa Inc. Class A

Mastercard rolled out a payment option Thursday that lets cardholders give an AI agent a virtual card to buy things online without checking in before each purchase, with limits on spending, retailers, or required approval before checkout. Rival Visa partnered with Alchemy earlier this year and has announced its own AI shopping and payment product, Visa Intelligent Commerce, which the company says is still being deployed, while Meta's Muse can search for products and navigate checkout but presents the purchase for the user's final approval. Phil Bruno, chief strategy and growth officer at payments company ACI Worldwide, called it "a land grab for infrastructure standards," saying that if card companies set the standards for agentic commerce they can keep the commerce in their environments for decades to come. Consumer appetite lags the infrastructure push: just 7% of U.S. and U.K. consumers surveyed who buy fashion items said they would allow an AI assistant to make purchases without approval under predefined conditions, according to research commissioned by ACI Worldwide, and more than half said they were uncomfortable allowing AI to purchase on their behalf. Mastercard has developed a digital paper trail called Verifiable Intent to record who authorized the agent to shop and what it was authorized to buy, but when asked who would be responsible if an agent made an incorrect, fraudulent, or unauthorized purchase, Mastercard pointed back to Verifiable Intent and did not specify who would ultimately be responsible if an agent bought something outside those instructions.

Visa has joined Mastercard and Ant International in pushing for common identity standards for AI purchasing agents, proposing a Know-Your-Agent framework that would let verified trust signals travel across card networks, digital wallets, marketplaces and agent platforms without forcing every participant into the same approval system. Under the proposal, each company would still decide which agents it trusts, while shared certification, identifiable operators and ongoing transaction monitoring could give the emerging agent-commerce ecosystem a common security backbone. Visa shares slipped approximately 0.4% to $369.39. For Visa, interoperability cuts both ways: common standards could strip friction out of agent payments, reduce duplicated verification and accelerate adoption across merchants and platforms, potentially expanding the pool of transactions flowing through Visa's network, but Visa would not control the identity layer alone. No transaction-volume, pricing or revenue commitments were disclosed.

Circle's Arc blockchain went live on September 16, 2026, as an open, EVM-compatible Layer 1 network, one day after the CLARITY Act failed a cloture vote in the U.S. Senate. The network's 12 founding validators include BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, Mastercard, and ICE, operating as a permissioned environment that Circle positions as institutional-grade settlement infrastructure. Arc uses native USDC as its gas token and launches with a Proof-of-Authority consensus mechanism, with a planned evolution to Proof-of-Stake and future staking economics for the ARC token. Circle plans to tokenize DTC-custodied assets on Arc by H2 2027, targeting a DTCC that industry estimates says processes approximately $2.4 quadrillion in securities transactions annually, while BlackRock is expected to deploy its BUIDL fund, valued by industry estimates at over $2 billion, onto the network. The project faces headwinds: the New York Department of Financial Services has not reviewed or approved the network as of the August 2026 announcement, and the small, hand-picked validator set invites centralization concerns.

A series of agreements between US and Vietnamese companies in sectors including energy, technology, aviation and finance are expected to be announced next week to coincide with the New York visit of Vietnam's top leader, Communist Party General Secretary and State President To Lam. The plans were revealed by officials and documents obtained by Reuters. An internal planning document lists 29 agreements that could be announced at a business conference in New York on the 23rd, which Lam will also attend. The contents of the document are subject to change, and it does not set out the specific details of the planned agreements. US energy companies Murphy Oil and Chevron are expected to announce agreements with Vietnamese state oil and gas company PetroVietnam, while ExxonMobil is expected to announce an agreement with PetroVietnam Refinery and Petrochemical, Vietnam's second-largest refinery. Vietjet, Vietnam's largest private airline, is expected to announce it will lease up to 22 aircraft from four leasing companies, comprising 17 Boeing 737s and five Airbus A321neos. SpaceX is also set to announce an agreement to provide its Starlink satellite internet service to 120 Vietjet aircraft. The planning document also includes an agreement between US-based Meta and Vietnam's Ministry of Culture, and one between US semiconductor giant Qualcomm and Vietnamese telecom company VNPT. Visa, Mastercard and Citibank are also expected to announce agreements with partners in Vietnam's domestic financial and hospitality services sectors.

Stripe introduced its Shared Payment Token in October 2025 as a programmable, revocable primitive designed to standardize how AI agents interact with financial rails. The token prevents exposure of underlying credentials during agent-initiated transactions by mapping to the latest Funding Primary Account Number while adding agent-specific metadata such as merchant scoping, time-bound constraints, and transaction caps, with Stripe Radar providing real-time fraud and risk signaling. Stripe is currently the only provider supporting both agentic network tokens and BNPL tokens within a single primitive, a consolidation that matters given BNPL accounts for over $300 billion in global volume and businesses on Stripe report up to a 14% revenue increase on BNPL-eligible sessions. As of March 3, 2026, the platform supports Mastercard Agent Pay, Visa Intelligent Commerce, and BNPL providers including Affirm and Klarna, meaning merchants already integrated with Stripe need no additional development work to support agentic transactions. Adoption remains far behind the infrastructure: only 14% of consumers express trust in AI to execute purchases, dropping significantly for transactions exceeding $50, while just 3% of total transactions involve agents even as 42% of merchants report testing the technology. Stripe is also co-developing the open-source Agentic Commerce Protocol with OpenAI and has made a $7.5 billion acquisition of OpenRouter, signaling an intent to control the routing and execution environment where agents operate.

Visa Inc. says the "couch economy" has become a lasting part of consumer behavior rather than a passing e-commerce trend, with online and in-app payments expanding in every market it studied between 2019 and 2026. In the United States, online and in-app payment volume rose to 58% in 2026 from 48% in 2019, while Poland climbed to 24% from 10% and the UAE increased to 55% from 35%. More than 17% of U.S. cards now carry streaming subscriptions, versus about 6% tied to cinema and concerts, and in the UAE active food delivery cards jumped from roughly 2% in 2018 to nearly 30% in 2026. Visa said the shift creates a favorable payments backdrop, as more online, in-app, subscription and delivery spending can lift digital transaction activity across its network and deepen card usage through recurring payments. Mastercard Incorporated and American Express Company are also benefiting from the same move toward digital purchases, with Mastercard seeing higher transaction volumes and demand for tokenization and fraud prevention services, and American Express gaining through increased card spending, merchant fees and its closed-loop transaction data. Visa shares have gained 7.1% in the year-to-date period against the broader industry's 10.8% decline, and the stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 25.18X versus the industry average of 17.69X.

London-based payments company Finsei has launched an acquiring service that lets business clients accept Visa and Mastercard payments through the same account they already use for transfers and cards. Existing clients can add card acceptance through a simplified onboarding process without bringing on a new provider, with settlement funds landing in the same account that holds their multi-currency balances, cards and SEPA/SWIFT transfers. Card payments are accepted through a dedicated acquiring dashboard with its own login, and settlements flow straight into the business's existing Finsei account. To launch acquiring, Finsei selected two technology partners: Hypergate handles the payment gateway and routing, while SilverFlow handles processing with direct connectivity to card schemes. CEO Artjoms Dozorcevs said acquiring is built into the company's broader financial ecosystem rather than treated as a stand-alone product, giving clients business accounts, payment infrastructure and other financial services through a single point of access. FINSEI LTD is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under reference number 900878 and company number 11347482, is ISO 27001 certified, and holds client funds in UK and EU banks under FSCS protection.

Visa shares closed at $375.28, up 1.3% and outperforming a session in which the S&P 500 fell 0.48%, the Dow lost 0.29% and the Nasdaq dropped 0.56%. Ahead of the payments processor's upcoming results, the consensus estimate projects earnings per share of $3.43, a 15.1% increase from the same quarter last year, on revenue of $12.07 billion, up 12.56%. For the full year, Zacks Consensus Estimates project earnings of $13.16 per share and revenue of $45.83 billion, representing changes of +14.73% and +14.58% respectively from the prior year. Over the past 30 days the consensus EPS projection has moved 0.05% higher, and Visa currently carries a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold). The stock trades at a forward P/E of 28.15, a premium to the industry average of 13.14, with a PEG ratio of 1.98 versus an average of 0.86 for the Financial Transaction Services industry.

HES FinTech and Acquired have expanded their partnership to give lenders running on HES LoanBox and HES CollectionAgent in the UK access to multiple payment rails through a single integration. The stack covers card processing through Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay, BACs-authorised API-powered direct debit with mandate management, open banking collections, Variable Recurring Payments, and instant payouts across Faster Payments, Visa Direct and Mastercard Send with Confirmation of Payee and settlement accounts built in. Andre Kravchenko, Senior Vice President at HES FinTech, said the UK is one of its core markets and that extending the work with Acquired lets clients offer borrowers the payment methods that suit them within the same workflows they already use. AJ Davison, Head of Partnerships at Acquired, said a borrower usually falls into arrears not because they cannot pay but because the way they would naturally pay is not on offer, and that building multiple rails into LoanBox lets HES FinTech's clients put the right method in front of each borrower. HES FinTech, founded in 2012, provides automated loan management software for banks and financial institutions, while Acquired, founded in 2016, provides UK payments infrastructure for recurring commerce.

Visa Business and Economic Insights released new research finding that consumers are increasingly shopping, dining, streaming and managing daily life from home, driving the rise of the "couch economy." The report, The Great Indoors: How the "Couch Economy" Is Redefining Consumer Spending Habits, examined spending trends across six markets: Australia, Brazil, Poland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. In three illustrative markets, the share of domestic payment volume occurring online and in-app rose from 48% to 58% in the U.S., 10% to 24% in Poland and 35% to 55% in the UAE. Streaming subscriptions now appear on a larger share of cards than cinema and concert spending across all markets studied, with more than 17% of U.S. cards used for streaming subscriptions compared to roughly 6% associated with cinema and concert spending. Food delivery has become a mainstream service, with the share of UAE cards active on delivery apps rising from approximately 2 percent in 2018 to nearly 30 percent in 2026, and roughly 8 percent of U.S. domestic cards show regular pet-related spending.

Agentic commerce still accounts for less than 1% of overall e-commerce activity, even as Meta and Anthropic rolled out new AI shopping tools this week. Meta launched Muse, a personal AI agent that can autonomously handle multistep tasks including email, travel booking, shopping and project management, while Anthropic launched Commerce Agents, an open-source framework for building consumer shopping agents and merchant-side operational agents rather than a standalone shopping assistant. Bernstein analysts said agentic commerce is often framed as a risk for Visa and Mastercard but is "very much the opposite," citing more digitization, transactions and value-added services, and argued cards will remain the payment method of choice given their dispute management, standards and more than 7 billion credentials and 100 million-plus merchants. The firm said none of the recent agent launches currently seek to control merchant payments, and that Visa and Mastercard have developed their own agentic tokens and standards including Trusted Agent Protocol, Verifiable Intent, Agent Pay and Intelligent Commerce, with 100% of agentic transactions expected to be tokenized. Bernstein also flagged a differentiation opportunity for processors such as Adyen, which launched Adyen Agentic this summer, and noted that agent-to-agent micro-payments remain in the "proof-of-concept stage," citing Coinbase and Cloudflare's x402 protocol, which has generated roughly $0.5 million to $1 million in monthly volume a year after launch with average transaction sizes of about $0.20. GenAI referral traffic as a share of total referrals has climbed sharply over the past two years, reaching 39% for Wayfair, 28% for Walmart, 25% for Target, 23% for Etsy and 22% for eBay as of August 2026, though that traffic represents only 1-2% of total traffic for these retailers, and a Visa survey cited in the note found only 23% of consumers trust AI agents to conduct payment transactions on their behalf. Bernstein rates Visa, Mastercard and Adyen "outperform."

Visa is expanding its data offering to blockchain-based lenders as demand for stablecoin-linked cards accelerates, combining its VisaNet settlement data with onchain lending infrastructure to help stablecoin card programs and fintechs obtain working capital more efficiently. The company currently has more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs, with payment volume on those programs up nearly 200% year over year, while stablecoin settlement volume has surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, more than 15 times the level a year earlier. The model gives blockchain lenders access to settlement-performance data so they can assess credit risk and provide financing faster, addressing a practical constraint for fast-growing stablecoin card issuers that need capital to fund daily settlement obligations before collecting money from cardholders. Visa has already been piloting the approach with Credit Coop, with more than $2.5 billion in cumulative financed settlement volume since 2023 across participating facilities and no reported defaults. Its broader partnership with Bridge is targeting expansion of stablecoin-linked Visa cards to more than 100 countries, though the $20 billion annualized stablecoin settlement run rate remains relatively small compared with Visa's traditional payments business, and regulatory, credit and privacy risks persist.

MoneyGram has launched a stablecoin-backed card that lets users hold a U.S. dollar-denominated balance and spend it anywhere Visa is accepted. The new MoneyGram Card is initially available only in Colombia, with plans to expand to other markets in the coming months. Consumers can sign up through MoneyGram's app and use the card for online and in-store purchases, and can also send money to themselves for cash pickup at MoneyGram locations. The card runs on Visa's global payments network and uses Circle Internet Group's USDC stablecoin, and MoneyGram said it plans to eventually make its own MGUSD token available with the card as well. MoneyGram added that it plans to introduce a physical version of the card later this year that will support withdrawals at ATM bank machines. The launch comes as stablecoin trading volumes surpassed $1.1 billion U.S. in August, according to Payment Scan. MoneyGram is no longer publicly traded, having been acquired by private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners in 2023 for $1.8 billion U.S.

Ant International is rolling out its Agentic Mobile Protocol globally, with 10 Alipay+ digital wallets and 7 acquiring partners joining Phase I in 2026. The Phase I wallets, which together serve 1.5 billion user accounts, are Alipay, AlipayHK, DANA, GCash, KakaoPay, MPay, TNG eWallet, TrueMoney, Toss and Starryblu, while the acquiring partners are Adyen, Allinpay, Checkout.com, Fiserv, Global Payments, Nuvei and Worldline. The protocol sits inside the Alipay+ ecosystem, a mobile payment network with more than 50 mobile payment partners, over 10 national QR schemes and more than 2 billion consumer accounts. Ant International, Mastercard and Visa have begun collaborating on a Know-Your-Agent interoperability framework to streamline agent onboarding and identification across networks, working through BuildFin.ai, an industry platform convened by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. AMP, launched in April 2026, is now open-sourced on GitHub with source code, developer SDKs and technical documentation, and it includes AgentSafePay, a money-back guarantee for merchants against agentic-specific risks, and a nano-scale agent-to-agent settlement mechanism handling transactions as small as $0.000001.

MoneyGram announced on September 10 the launch of the MoneyGram Card, a card backed by stablecoins, in partnership with the Visa network. The pilot begins with a virtual card in Colombia as the first market. The card lets users hold balances in a fixed-value digital currency and spend through Apple Wallet or Google Wallet with tap-to-pay anywhere Visa cards are accepted, as well as withdraw cash at MoneyGram service points. It supports the USDC digital currency as the first currency, with plans to add support for its own MGUSD stablecoin, which launched on the Stellar network in June, in the near future. Behind the technology is a partnership in which Rain handles the card issuance system, Crossmint manages the digital wallet system, and the Stellar network is the main blockchain used for processing. Anthony Soohoo, Chairman and CEO of MoneyGram, said the company is giving customers more freedom and control in managing their own money, all in one place. MoneyGram said it will launch additional physical plastic cards in late 2026 before expanding to other markets worldwide in the following months. MoneyGram currently serves more than 60 million customers worldwide, covering more than 200 countries and territories through nearly 500,000 service points. The move comes just one month after major competitor Western Union launched its own Stablecard, also in partnership with Rain, reflecting that major players in the international money transfer business are racing to bring stablecoins in to cut cross-border transaction costs. A World Bank report in September 2025 noted that debit cards were the lowest-cost channel for receiving remittances, at 3.61% of the amount transferred.

Mastercard unveiled a Know-Your-Agent initiative with Visa and Ant International on Thursday, aimed at letting merchants trust software that shops on a customer's behalf. Through the Monetary Authority of Singapore-backed BuildFin.ai platform, the companies plan to connect Mastercard Verifiable Intent, Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol and Ant International's Agentic Mobile Protocol, so card networks, digital wallets, marketplaces and AI platforms can identify approved purchasing agents without surrendering control of their own authorization rules. Mastercard handled 47.4 billion switched transactions last quarter and generated $9.28 billion in revenue. AI agents could eventually bring more purchasing activity onto its network, but they also raise the question of who pays when autonomous software authorizes the wrong transaction. Investors still lack an adoption timetable, a defined revenue model and clear rules for allocating losses.

CellPay, the Stafford, Texas-based payments platform behind more than $1 billion in processed transaction volume across 1,000+ retail locations, launched the ZivoMoney Single Load Visa Prepaid Card, a cash-purchased prepaid card that can be added to Apple Pay and Google Pay the same day it is bought. The card requires no bank account and no credit check, is accepted anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted in the United States, carries a single load of up to $999.99, is non-reloadable, and offers no ATM withdrawals, with fees varying by participating retailer and disclosed before purchase. CellPay says the product targets the roughly 5.6 million U.S. households with no bank account and the about 19 million households that hold an account but still rely on nonbank financial services, citing the FDIC's most recent National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households. ZivoMoney also ships with an API that lets retailers, marketplaces, and fintech platforms issue wallet-ready prepaid cards to their own customers without building a card program from scratch, a capability Chief Operating Officer John Lim described as opening up the rails. Berkeley Payment Solutions serves as program manager, and the card is issued by Sunrise Banks, N.A., Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc.

Ant International, a Chinese fintech company, announced a partnership with Visa and Mastercard to jointly develop new standards for payments made through AI Agents, citing McKinsey estimates that AI Agents could handle global consumer commerce transactions worth around 3 to 5 trillion dollars by 2030. Jiang-Ming Yang, Chief Innovation Officer of Ant International, stated that the risk of AI generating erroneous or hallucinated information means businesses must ensure users feel safe, and the heart of this collaboration lies in the concept of Know Your Agent, or the verification and authentication of AI Agents, as well as making different systems interoperable in order to reduce duplication in registration and verification. Pablo Fourez, Chief Digital Officer of Mastercard, stated that interoperability between different Know Your Agent frameworks is a key factor that will allow Agentic Commerce to expand broadly. Visa and Mastercard play a major role in card payment systems, especially in developed countries, while many developing countries prefer electronic wallets, and there are currently more than 50 e-Wallets partnered with Ant International through the Alipay+ system. Data from Worldpay indicates that in 2025 Digital Wallets accounted for 56% of global e-commerce transaction value and 33% of point-of-sale payment value, representing total spending of more than 13 trillion dollars.

Visa released its Trust Index for agentic commerce, revealing that while only 23% of U.S. consumers trust GenAI to handle payments, 61% would trust Visa for such transactions, positioning Visa as the most trusted brand for AI-powered payments. The survey, conducted by the Harris Poll among 2,065 U.S. consumers, found that 72% have used an AI assistant, but trust in payment brands remains crucial for adoption. Visa's leadership in trust is strongest among younger and frequent AI users, with 68% trust among ages 18-34 and 71% among frequent AI users. Oliver Jenkyn, Group President of Visa, emphasized that trust will be foundational as AI reshapes commerce, and Visa is working with partners to build secure infrastructure for agentic transactions.

On September 16, Circle's Arc mainnet goes live with a validator cohort including BlackRock, DTCC, Mastercard, and Visa, even as the CLARITY Act faces a likely Senate cloture failure the day before. The Layer-1 blockchain features native USDC gas and sub-second finality, with BlackRock expected to deploy its $3.2 billion BUIDL fund and DTCC planning to tokenize assets from its $114 trillion custody portfolio starting in 2027. The CLARITY Act, which needs 60 votes but has only 53 Republican seats and expected defections, has Polymarket odds for 2026 passage at 15%, down from 90% in February. Institutions are instead aligning with the GENIUS Act's January 18, 2027 enforcement date and agency rules from the OCC and SEC, signaling a pivot to infrastructure-led compliance. This move reflects a capital-allocation decision by institutions that read NPRMs, not Polymarket.

Visa and the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, have announced a new risk-sharing initiative to expand digital payments and financial inclusion in emerging markets. Under the agreement, IFC will share credit settlement risk for Visa transactions with enrolled financial institutions, enabling them 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, initially focusing on 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and reaching about 50 financial institutions with below-investment-grade ratings. Visa's Chief Risk and Client Services Officer, Paul Fabara, called it a first-of-its-kind partnership, while IFC's Vice President of Products & Clients, Mohamed Gouled, said the initiative exemplifies the power of innovation and partnership to expand economic opportunity.

Visa has unveiled its Singapore Security Roadmap 2026 and Beyond, a comprehensive strategy to strengthen the resilience of Singapore's digital payments ecosystem against evolving fraud, scams, and cyber threats. The roadmap outlines six strategic priorities, including strengthening cybersecurity, advancing authentication, enabling safer transactions through tokenisation, transforming eCommerce checkout experiences, leveraging foundational standards and risk programs, and building a resilient payments ecosystem to combat fraud and scams in the AI era. Visa's study shows that close to seven in 10 Singapore residents trust digital payments, but 42 per cent have encountered scams, with only 8 per cent losing money. To address these threats, Visa is investing in AI-powered fraud detection, tokenisation, and authentication innovations like passkeys and biometrics, deploying over 150 AI and machine learning models globally. The roadmap emphasizes ecosystem-wide collaboration with regulators, financial institutions, merchants, and fintechs to enhance cyber resilience and intelligence sharing.

Visa has introduced an upgraded version of its A2A Protect solution, designed to help financial institutions identify account-to-account fraud before customer funds are transferred out. The update includes a new unified fraud score, marking the first in-market product to integrate technology from Featurespace since Visa acquired the company. The unified score aims to give banks clearer and faster signals for spotting fraudulent transactions while reducing false alerts. Alongside the enhanced A2A Protect, Visa is building a separate capability called Visa Graph IQ, which uses graph-based, agentic technology to support deeper fraud investigations, helping institutions map fraud networks, spot money mule activity, flag emerging threats, and speed up investigation timelines. A2A Protect relies on AI and transfer learning to provide banks with global risk insights on A2A transactions, allowing institutions to see results from day one rather than waiting months to train models on their own data. Banks can also tap into additional network-level signals to detect threats across the broader payments ecosystem. Visa Asia Pacific Value-Added Services head Serene Gay said the enhancements combine Visa's network intelligence with advanced AI to help clients detect fraud earlier and strengthen trust in digital payments. A2A Protect connects to existing systems through a single API, and each fraud alert includes a plain-language explanation for why the transaction was flagged.

Visa shares rose 1.54% to close at $378.40, outpacing the S&P 500's 0.46% gain, while the Dow and Nasdaq advanced 0.56% and 0.45%, respectively. Over the past month, Visa appreciated 0.83%, lagging the Business Services sector's 1.36% gain and the S&P 500's 2% rise. For its upcoming earnings, analysts project EPS of $3.43, up 15.1% year-over-year, and revenue of $12.07 billion, a 12.56% increase. For the full year, consensus estimates call for earnings of $13.16 per share and revenue of $45.83 billion, reflecting growth of 14.73% and 14.58%, respectively. In the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.31% higher, and Visa holds a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold). The stock trades at a forward P/E of 28.32, a premium to its industry's average of 13.42, and its PEG ratio of 2 compares to the industry's 0.85.

Visa Inc. is strengthening its position in the fast-growing account-to-account (A2A) payments market with an enhanced A2A Protect solution that combines its network intelligence with behavioral AI from Featurespace to assess fraud risk in real time. The product has delivered up to a 75% increase in scam detection and a 40% reduction in false alerts, and banks can integrate it through a single API. As A2A transactions bypass traditional card rails, Visa aims to monetize this shift by providing security infrastructure, turning fraud prevention into a recurring software service that deepens ties with banks. Competitors Mastercard and FIS are also expanding fraud-prevention capabilities, with Mastercard embedding real-time scam scoring in markets like the UK and FIS offering real-time monitoring through SecurLOCK. Visa's shares have risen 6.3% year to date, and the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2026 earnings implies a 14.7% jump from the prior year.

TrueMoney, a leading digital financial services provider in Southeast Asia, has announced a partnership with Visa to launch the first-ever service allowing users to scan and pay via PromptPay QR codes using Visa cards. Users can link their Visa credit or debit cards to the TrueMoney app to scan and pay directly at participating merchants, offering a more flexible payment option for everyday spending. The service comes with special campaigns offering benefits and prize draws. According to DataReportal, 61.5 percent of Thais use their mobile phones to scan QR codes monthly, ranking third globally. Meanwhile, PromptPay has over 83 million registered numbers and processes over 2.39 billion transactions per month, totaling over 4.38 trillion baht. Ms. Thanida Suiwattana, Chief Business and Customer Strategy Officer at TrueMoney, said this partnership is a significant step in enhancing payment options on TrueMoney. Mr. Anthony Watson, Country Manager for Visa Thailand, said it reflects the commitment to connecting familiar payment methods with global networks. Users who link their cards and make their first scan-to-pay transaction will receive a 30 baht cashback for transactions of at least 100 baht, from now until December 31, 2026. There are also prize draws totaling over 6 million baht until September 30, 2026, along with the Easy Scan & Pay Caravan activities in Silom and Asok areas to promote the service.

UOB Thailand, in collaboration with Visa, has officially launched the new Visa Infinite platform in Thailand, as part of a rollout across multiple markets in the ASEAN region. This marks the first introduction of the Visa Infinite Privilege and Visa Infinite Private card tiers in Thailand, with UOB being the first financial institution in Thailand and ASEAN to offer these card levels. The partnership covers a phased launch across five ASEAN countries, with over 300,000 UOB Visa Infinite cardholders in the region set to benefit from the new platform, which restructures the portfolio into three tiers: Visa Infinite, Visa Infinite Privilege, and Visa Infinite Private. The UOB PRVI Miles, UOB Zenith, and UOB ROP Preferred cards will fall under the Visa Infinite tier, while the primary UOB Visa Infinite card is upgraded to Visa Infinite Privilege, and the primary UOB Reserve card is upgraded to Visa Infinite Private, making it the only card in UOB's network across ASEAN to achieve this tier. Cardholders will enjoy benefits starting from October 2026.

OCBC, Visa, and Doxa have deployed Singapore's first deep-tier financing solution through the Doxa Connex platform, expanding access to working capital for subcontractors and suppliers deeper within the construction supply chain. The solution, which went live in August, enables eligible subcontractors to receive payment ahead of invoice due dates once a main contractor or developer digitally approves a work claim, with funds disbursed via OCBC virtual purchasing cards. Early adopter Kimly Construction is deploying the solution across two existing projects, and selected subcontractors are being onboarded. The initiative addresses cash flow pressures that can cause payment delays of up to 100 days, and the partners aim to scale it across Singapore's built environment sector.

UOB Thailand, in partnership with Visa, has launched a new Visa Infinite platform, introducing the Visa Infinite Privilege and Visa Infinite Private cards for the first time in Thailand and the ASEAN region. Over 300,000 UOB Visa Infinite cardholders across the region will benefit from this new platform. Mr. Thirawat Treeratdilokkul, Managing Director and Head of Card Payment & Unsecured Products, said that this collaboration underscores the bank's premium services, catering to both the Affluent and Ultra-High-Net-Worth segments, while offering exclusive payment experiences and privileges in wealth, travel, and lifestyle. Mr. Antony Watson, Country Manager for Visa Thailand, noted that high-net-worth customers are a key driver of growth in the payments industry, with card spending growing nearly three times faster than that of general cardholders.

UOB Thailand, in partnership with Visa, has officially launched the new Visa Infinite platform in Thailand, marking the first launch in ASEAN for the Visa Infinite Privilege and Visa Infinite Private card tiers. UOB is the first financial institution in Thailand and ASEAN to introduce these card tiers. The new platform covers three card tiers: Visa Infinite, Visa Infinite Privilege, and Visa Infinite Private, catering to high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients. The UOB PRVI Miles card will be upgraded to Visa Infinite, the UOB Visa Infinite card will be upgraded to Visa Infinite Privilege, and the UOB Reserve card will be upgraded to Visa Infinite Private, making it the only card in the UOB network across ASEAN to achieve this tier. Over 300,000 UOB Visa Infinite cardholders across the region will benefit from the new platform, with benefits available starting October 2026.

Visa and Mastercard have processed their first international payment card transactions in Syria, following the US government's formal decision to remove the country from its state sponsors of terrorism list. Qatar's QNB Group collaborated with Mastercard to execute an international card transaction, while Visa completed its first live cross-border payment test in partnership with Lebanon-based Fransabank. Mastercard said QNB Syria processed the first point-of-sale transaction at an approved local merchant using an internationally issued Mastercard card, demonstrating the readiness of the infrastructure for international card acceptance. Visa's test involved Fransabank as the acquiring financial institution and domestic payment technology company Paymera. The Central Bank of Syria said the transactions mark the official start of international card acceptance services, though rollout remains limited.

Dunamu, the operator of South Korea's major cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, announced on the 28th that it has signed a partnership with payment giant Visa to explore the development of financial and payment services using stablecoins and AI. The two companies will combine Dunamu's digital asset technology with Visa's global network to consider stablecoin-based payment and remittance services in key markets, business models using the stablecoin OUSD, and the development of AI agent infrastructure for commercial transactions. The collaboration will be carried out in phases, with an emphasis on safety, transparency, interoperability, and regulatory compliance. Dunamu's CEO, Oh Kyung-seok, commented that AI, stablecoins, and tokenization are important trends that will transform finance and commerce. Additionally, this week, similar plans have been revealed between Visa and South Korea's Shinhan Financial Group.