Visa is intent on demonstrating that it can adapt to a changing world, despite naysayers who earlier this year questioned whether it would be able to compete with new technologies.

In presenting the company’s fiscal full-year results Tuesday, Visa’s CEO, Ryan McInerney, rattled off a list of accomplishments for the year, including record net revenue of $46 billion that grew at the fastest rate in 15 years, excluding leaps after the COVID-19 pandemic and due to acquisitions.

All of which led to the San Francisco-based company reporting what McInerney called “milestone” results for the fiscal year 2026 that ended on Sept. 30. 

“In 2026, we also demonstrated that whenever technology changes commerce, we move with it,” McInerney said, gloating on a webcast over the results. “We anticipate what's next, and we enable its growth as the leading hyperscaler of payments globally.”

The company’s stock flagged earlier this year as analysts and investors worried that the largest U.S. card network company might not be able to adapt to technological changes, including stablecoins and agentic commerce, reshaping the payments industry. Concerns have also increased as fintech startups, such as Stripe and Adyen, gather momentum.

But Visa’s stock soared Wednesday, crossing $400 a share for an all-time high. The increase came after Visa reported fourth-quarter net income rose 18% to $6 billion, pushing up the full-year profit 17% to $23.5 billion, according to a Tuesday press release. 

Analysts were quick to praise the financial results, with those at Bank of America citing Visa’s “broad based strength” and those at TD Cowen saying the report “demonstrated the strength of the franchise across core payments.” 

Visa’s revenue increase for the fiscal year, including a 13% jump for the fourth quarter over the year-ago period to $12 billion, occurred as the company processed 9% more transactions, 281 billion, over last year and as cross-border activity jumped 12%, McInerney said. Overall payments volume rose 9%, with 12% commercial payments volume growth outstripping consumer payment growth. 

The results showed how Visa is creating a portfolio of services beyond its traditional card payment rails. Specifically, McInerney pointed to software services sold to corporate clients increasing 19% and its value-added services consulting revenue rising 30% over fiscal 2025. Collectively, those two revenue streams made up about 40% of the company’s overall revenue.

McInerney touted Visa’s expansion by way of new partners, pointing to consulting services that include a new investment in Overwatch Data, a firm that provides threat intelligence services and its recent acquisition of fraud prevention services company Biocatch; the company’s work with Shopify and Anthropic on agentic commerce; and its support for five stablecoins and 10 blockchain projects around the world.

The company is also scaling in new regions of the world, handling its first transaction in Syria in over a decade during the year and Latin America accounting for about one-fifth of its 5.2 billion payment credentials issued worldwide. 

Tap-to-pay, tap-to-phone, peer-to-peer payments and remittances carried on its Visa Direct network are all among the ways in which Visa is seeking to keep its dominant grasp on payments around the world. 

Analysts on the webcast were particularly interested in Visa’s outlook for agentic commerce, the innovation in which shopping and payments are driven by artificial intelligence agents. While McInerney was eager to support the potential of that new technology to lift the business, he also cautioned that the agentic era is in a nascent stage, with work still being done to allow its safe and efficient use.

Some banks and online retail behemoth Amazon have made moves to block AI agents from operating on their systems.

“We want to make sure that there's a clear path to resolution in the event of a problem, so disputes, rules, and processes and things like that,” McInerney said. “And then finally, we want to make sure that this all works securely everywhere in the world for billions of users at scale.”

With consumers and businesses seeking payments security in a new era of technological innovations, McInerney contends they will reach for a brand name they know.

“As I look ahead to 2027, one thing is clear: trust is the next growth vector for Visa,” the CEO said. “Trust fuels everything we do at Visa every day, and trust will fuel our future.”