“We expect Q4 net revenue growth in the high end of low double digits, similar to Q3 on an adjusted basis.”

In context

“Christopher Suh (Chief Financial Officer): Thanks, Ryan. Good afternoon, everyone. We delivered a strong quarter, a reflection of resilient consumer spending, improved key business drivers, and effective execution of our strategy. In constant dollars, global payments volume was up 10% year over year. Cross-border volume excluding intra-Europe was up 12%. And total processed transactions grew 10%. Fiscal third quarter net revenue was up 14% year over year, better than our expectations, primarily due to stronger-than-expected key business drivers, higher-than-expected value-added services revenue, and better-than-expected FX. Third quarter net revenue was up 13% in constant dollars. EPS was up 11% year over year in both nominal and constant dollars, better than expected primarily due to stronger-than-expected net revenue growth. Let's go into the details. U.S. payment volume grew 10% year over year, up about two points from Q2—a growth rate not seen since fiscal '39 excluding the post-COVID recovery. With both card-present and card-not-present growth accelerating strongly. U.S. payment volume growth was the result of several factors, including higher tax refunds, the cost of fuel, retail including the timing of promotional shopping events, strong Visa Direct growth, and FIFA-related spend. U.S. credit rose 11% year over year, up more than a point from Q2. Debit accelerated by more than two points from Q2 to grow 9% year over year. Growth across consumer spend bands saw incremental improvement from Q2, with the highest spend band continuing to grow the fastest. Across our volume, both discretionary and nondiscretionary spend remains strong. We do not see signs of the lower-spend consumer weakening in our volumes. Third quarter total international payments volume was up 10% year over year in constant dollars, generally consistent with the growth we have seen over the past several quarters. Now to cross-border volume, which I will speak to in constant dollars and excluding intra-Europe transactions: Q3 total cross-border volume grew 12% year over year, up more than a point from Q2. Cross-border e-commerce volume was up 16%, three points above Q2, primarily driven by retail including the timing of promotional shopping events. Travel-related cross-border volume was up 10%, consistent with Q2. While the conflict continued to be an offsetting factor, commercial and U.S. inbound continued to improve. And in June, the FIFA World Cup boosted inbound North America and Latin America volume. I want to zoom in on the tournament's impact on our key business drivers. As we all know, the FIFA World Cup brought many visitors to the U.S. From the first whistle on June 11 through the round of 32 matches on June 30, we saw both host cities as well as destination cities benefit from the influx of fans. A few highlights: total card-present spend in the U.S. accelerated with card-present transactions up as much as 20% in select host cities on match days. We saw acceleration in tap-to-pay, with weekly tapped transit transactions reaching a peak of nearly 40% year-over-year growth in U.S. host cities. Tap-to-pay transit transactions in Boston were up more than 50% for the June tournament period. Focusing on inbound cross-border card-present spend, U.S. host cities increased by nearly 25% year over year from June 11 to June 30, with the most significant increases driven by fans from Norway, Uruguay, and Ecuador. By spend categories in host cities, entertainment and restaurants saw the highest growth in cross-border spend. Match days drove spikes in host cities, Kansas City topping out at 1,000% year-over-year cross-border card-present transaction growth. And for destinations like D.C. Metro and Las Vegas, we saw a pickup in spend prior to the knockout matches. The U.S. was not the only beneficiary, as Mexico and Canada saw inbound cross-border card-present volume growth of more than 70% and 35% year over year respectively from fans from countries with matches there. With that as a backdrop, I will move to discuss our financial results, starting with the revenue components. Service revenue grew 14% year over year versus the 9% growth in Q2. Constant-dollar payments volume growth was primarily due to pricing and card benefits. Data processing revenue grew 17%, above the 10% growth in processed transactions, primarily due to pricing, strong value-added services performance, and higher cross-border transaction mix. International transaction revenue was up 6%, below the 12% increase in constant-dollar cross-border volume growth excluding intra-Europe, primarily due to lapping the currency volatility peak last year and mix. Other revenue grew 45%, primarily driven by growth in advisory and other value-added services, especially marketing services revenue, as well as pricing. Client incentives grew 18%, a step up of four points from Q2, primarily due to lapping low incentive growth last year and strong client performance. Now to our three growth engines. Consumer payments revenue was driven by strong payments volume, cross-border volume, and processed transaction growth. Commercial and money movement solutions revenue grew 17% year over year in constant dollars. CMS revenue stepped down from Q2 due to the absence of performance adjustment benefits that helped Q2 and lapping pricing impacts that started in Q3 of fiscal 25. Commercial payment volume grew faster than Visa's overall payments volume, up 13% in constant dollars and accelerating two points from Q2 driven by a point of acceleration from both U.S. and international volume growth. While we have a handful of client wins that have helped us since Q4 of fiscal 25, the bulk of the strength in our commercial payments volumes has been from our underlying business in both domestic and cross-border portfolios, which we expect to continue well into the future. Visa Direct transactions grew 21% year over year with continued strength in both domestic and cross-border. Value-added services revenue grew 34% year over year in constant dollars to $3.8 billion, primarily due to three factors: 1) underlying business drivers which included strength in marketing services engagements related to FIFA; 2) pricing; and 3) the acquisition of Pismo. While we had strong growth in all of our portfolios, value-added services revenue was higher than expected primarily due to greater utilization of our network products in issuing and acceptance solutions. In fact, looking at VAST results over the past 12 months, all four of our VAST portfolios have individually grown faster than their respective historical growth rates disclosed at Investor Day. Looking collectively at issuing solutions, acceptance solutions, and risk and security solutions, the revenue has grown more than 20% year over year every quarter over the last 12 months in constant dollars. This is faster than the fiscal 2021 to 2020 CAGR for total VAS revenue that we disclosed at Investor Day in February 2025. For our advisory and other portfolio, in addition to the strong marketing services revenue growth, we have also increased the velocity of our consulting projects through the help of AI. Just this past quarter alone, for over 700 clients across 100-plus countries and territories, we delivered 1.2 thousand consulting projects, which is more than we delivered for all of 2019. Advisory and other continues to grow the fastest of the VAST portfolios and we expect it to continue to do so well into the future, driven by a focus to better serve our clients. Operating expenses grew 17%, primarily driven by marketing and personnel expenses. This was above our expectations, primarily due to larger-than-expected FX impact from balance sheet remeasurement and higher-than-expected personnel expense as a result of deferred compensation mark-to-market, which as a reminder is EPS neutral. This was partially offset by the timing of some marketing that shifted into Q4. In our GAAP results, we had $563 million in severance costs related to changes to our workforce including those that Ryan discussed as we continue to focus on driving efficiency across the company and reinvest those savings in our highest-potential growth opportunities. Nonoperating expense was $35 million better than our expectations, primarily due to the investment income from the deferred compensation mark-to-market impact I just mentioned. Our tax rate for the quarter was 18.4%, consistent with our expectations. EPS was $3.32, up 11% year over year, better than expected, with an approximately 0.5 point of benefit from exchange rates. For our non-GAAP results, Pismo and Newpay added a little under 1.5 points to net revenue growth, approximately two points to operating expense growth, and approximately 0.5 point to EPS growth. In Q3, we bought back $4.9 billion in stock and distributed $1.3 billion in dividends to our shareholders. In May, we settled our previously announced exchange offer for Class B-1 and Class B-2 common stock. We also funded the litigation escrow account $250 million which has the same effect as a stock buyback. At the end of June, we had $28.4 billion remaining in our buyback authorization. In July, we expanded our commercial paper capacity to $7 billion. Now let's look at drivers through July 21 with volume growth in constant dollars. U.S. payments volume was up 9%, with both credit and debit up 9% year over year, a step down from June primarily due to retail, including the timing of promotional shopping events, a lack of a days-mix benefit that helped June, and the change in the cost of fuel. For cross-border volume excluding transactions within Europe, total volume grew 14% year over year, with e-commerce up 18% and travel up 12%. Processed transactions grew 9% year over year. As we move to our guidance, let me remind you that it is on an adjusted growth basis defined as non-GAAP results in constant dollars and excluding acquisition impacts. You can review these disclosures in our earnings presentation for more detail. Now moving to Q4 and the full-year financial expectations. We expect Q4 net revenue growth in the high end of low double digits, similar to Q3 on an adjusted basis. For drivers, we are assuming that the broader consumer spend stability continues from a macro perspective and our overall drivers remain resilient and strong. On volatility, we are assuming that current levels, which are generally in line with Q1, persist, implying more of a drag than was incorporated previously. On incentives, we expect to have renewed about 20% of our payments volume by the end of the fiscal year, and when we combine that with some new business we have won, this puts Q4 incentive growth slightly above Q3 on a nominal basis. We expect Q4 operating expense growth in the low double digits, which includes some Q3 expenses shifting to Q4. Nonoperating expense is expected to be about $80 million and our tax rate in the fourth quarter is expected to be around 19%. As a result, we expect fourth quarter EPS growth to be in the low end of mid-teens. For our non-GAAP nominal Q4 financials, Pismo and Newpay will add approximately 1 point to net revenue growth, approximately 1.5 points to operating expense growth, and approximately 0.5 point to EPS growth. Pulling it all together for the full year, we expect full-year net revenue growth to now be in the low end of low teens. We expect full-year operating expense growth in the low end of low teens. Nonoperating expense for the full year is expected to be about $165 million. Our tax rate for the full year is expected to be between 18% and 18.25%. As a result, we expect full-year EPS growth to now be in the low end of mid-teens. In closing, we are already several weeks into our fourth quarter and engaging in our strategic and financial planning work for 2027, and I wanted to make a few comments. As we do every year, we are running a number of scenarios to arrive at our assumptions for the macroeconomic environment, key business drivers, and volatility. We have clear line of sight into our expected renewals, product pipeline, and the expected pricing impact across our solutions which, as you know, has tended to be similar in its contribution the past few years. We have conviction in our strategy and our ability to continue to deliver strong results across consumer payments, commercial and money movement solutions, and value-added services. All of this will result in the guidance that we will provide next quarter. As the leading hyperscaler of payments globally, we are excited about the opportunities ahead, the investment decisions we are making, and our ability to drive Visa's future revenue growth. And now, Jennifer.”