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Continuing its focus on developing consumer payments, tapping new business flows, and providing value-added services, Visa Inc. late Thursday posted a strong start to its 2025 fiscal year.
Speaking to equity analysts, Visa chief executive Ryan McInerney highlighted Visa’s recent deal with X, formerly Twitter, to power the social-media platform’s XMoney wallet. XMoney, which is expected to launch later this year, will use Visa’s network to fund XMoney wallets for cross-border and peer-to-peer payments through Visa Direct. XMoney users will also have the ability to move funds out of their wallet to their bank account. X has more than 600 million users.
McInerney characterized the deal as a “great example” of how fintechs, big tech companies, and said digital wallets have “concluded the Visa platform, Visa network, and Visa network of networks is the best, most reliable money-movement platform that’s engineered to enable their developers” to quickly implement the types of solutions they want to bring to market.
For Visa’s first quarter of fiscal 2025 ending Dec. 31, year-over-year payments volume increased 9% year-over-year, while total cross-border volume increased 16% and transactions processed rose 11%. Other highlights include a 7% year-over-year increase in Visa credentials to 4.7 billion, and a 44% rise in tokens. Tokens are digital stand-ins that shield sensitive cardholder information from fraudsters.
Visa tokens now total more than 12.5 billion across its network, with 184 token issuers in more than 200 markets. In addition, one-third of all transactions are now tokenized, Visa reported. In e-commerce, tokenization has led to a six-percentage point increase in card approvals and a 30% reduction in fraud, “which is good for everyone in the ecosystem,” McInerney told analysts during the call.
Meanwhile, interest in Visa’s Flexible Credential, which allows a single card product to toggle between payment methods, remains strong, Visa reported, especially with the launch of the Affirm card in the United States. The Affirm card is a Visa-branded debit card issued by Evolve Bank & Trust.
“Our strategy across consumer payments, new flows, and value-added services continues to resonate with clients and is reflected in our business results,” McInerney said. “Back in February 2020 when we articulated our strategy, total first quarter-volume on the network just crossed $3 trillion. Five years later, first-quarter volume is above $4 trillion.”
Visa’s Tap to Add solution, which enhances security when adding a card to a digital wallet or app, is now live in the United States and available to nearly 60% of all Visa consumer debit and credit card holders in the country, Visa reported. Tap to Add is part of Visa’s portfolio of “Tap to” products.
“Since the launch [of Tap to Add], millions of consumers have added cards to wallets by tapping, eliminating the overwhelming majority of provisioning fraud” that can come “from manual entry,” McInerney said during the call.
Tap to Pay, meanwhile, continues to see robust growth, accounting for 57% of all Visa transactions in the United States, a 13-point year-over-year increase.
Tap to Phone, which enables sellers to accept contactless payments on ordinary smart phones or tablets, is now live in 118 markets. The number of phones enabled with the app has more than doubled from the same period a year ago, while the number of transactions has more than tripled.
On the issuing side of the business, commercial card volume for the quarter was up 6% from a year earlier. Visa has entered into an agreement with food-ordering and delivery service DoorDash Inc. to begin using its virtual commercial card to enable delivery drivers to accept those cards. The agreement builds on Visa’s and DoorDash’s existing relationship with DoorDash to enable driver payouts, McInerney said.
