How Has Visa’s Growth Story Changed

Visa's management tells its growth story differently than it did two years ago. That matters for your money. The shares cost 31 times a year of earnings, against 22.4 times for the S&P 500. A price that high assumes the growth keeps coming. One label that used to feature in Visa's results has faded. Which part of the business did Visa's management use to highlight in its quarterly results?

Visa Once Highlighted New Flows In Its Quarterly Results

Visa's management used to highlight new flows. Its growth came from commercial payments and Visa Direct money transfers. On the fiscal Q4 2024 call, management said new flows revenue grew 22% from a year earlier. That figure was in constant dollars, which strips out currency swings.

New flows had earned that attention. It was one of three parts of Visa's strategy, besides consumer payments and value-added services. In that same fiscal Q4 2024 call, management said its strategy for newer areas of growth was paying off.

The last new flows growth rate we can find is from the fiscal Q1 2025 call, in January 2025. New flows revenue grew 19% that quarter. Commercial cross-border payments and Visa Direct drove it. Since then, Visa's management no longer highlights new flows, so you would want to know where that business went.

Where Did Visa's New Flows Business Go?

The same two drivers, commercial payments and Visa Direct, are now reported as commercial and money movement solutions. That line's revenue grew 17% in fiscal Q3 2026, in constant dollars. It had grown 24% in fiscal Q2 2026. Management gave two reasons for the slowdown. A benefit that helped fiscal Q2 did not repeat. The year-earlier quarter also already included price increases.

Much of the new airtime went to value-added services. These include advisory and marketing services. Value-added services revenue grew 34% in constant dollars to $3.8 billion in fiscal Q3 2026. That is about a third of the quarter's $11.6 billion in net revenue.

Measured the same way, in constant dollars, value-added services is growing faster than the commercial and money movement line. Management now also leads with agentic commerce and stablecoins, and neither comes with a revenue figure yet.

No Revenue Figure Yet For Agentic Commerce Or Stablecoins

We found no revenue figure for either one in the fiscal Q3 2026 call. Agentic commerce means AI agents that shop and pay for people. Management said it believes agentic commerce will expand Visa's addressable market. On stablecoins, management said they have yet to scale beyond a few uses, such as stablecoin-linked cards. That leaves Visa's newest themes without a revenue figure you can check.

What Does Visa's Shift Mean For You?

For you as a holder, the fading of new flows is mostly reassuring. The business behind it is still growing in the teens. Value-added services are growing even faster. The concern is price. The shares already trade at a premium to the market, yet they have lagged it over the past year. A $10,000 holding in Visa (V) a year ago was worth about $10,950 as of September 24. The same sum in the S&P 500 would have been worth about $11,710.

Visa's fiscal Q3 2026 call also took up whether the current growth mix would last. Management answered that it was focused on running the company as it closes out fiscal 2026. On the fiscal Q4 2026 call, watch commercial and money movement growth against its fiscal Q3 2026 pace. Watch too for a first revenue figure on agentic commerce.

The move away from new flows reads as a new label on a growing business, not a retreat from it. That view changes if the fiscal Q4 2026 call shows commercial and money movement growth well below 17%. Agentic commerce still lacking a revenue figure would weaken the view further.

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