Visa pitches itself as a tollbooth for the cashless era, while stablecoin pilots move from experiment to infrastructure

Investors looking for exposure to the “cashless economy” often focus on companies that sit closest to everyday payments. In a recent market piece, The Motley Fool framed Visa as one of the cleanest ways to play that trend, arguing that physical cash is gradually losing ground and that Visa’s card network remains difficult to displace. The article also points to payment innovation, including stablecoins, as more likely to create new “on-ramps” for Visa than to replace it. (The piece is an opinion article, not a company report.)

The commentary highlights Visa’s scale in terms of transaction throughput and global reach. It claims that during the first three months of 2026, which it describes as Visa’s fiscal 2026 second quarter, the company handled $4.4 trillion in total payment volume, with 5.1 billion Visa cards in use worldwide. It also says Visa has adoption in more than 200 countries and territories, with 175 million merchant acceptance locations. Those specific totals appear in the market commentary, not in Visa’s earnings release materials.

From a fundamentals standpoint, Visa’s latest reported quarter shows how the network’s revenue model continues to respond to transaction activity. Visa’s fiscal second quarter 2026 earnings release, dated April 28, 2026, reported net revenue of $11.2 billion (up 17% year over year) and GAAP net income of $6.0 billion, or $3.14 per share. The company also reported non-GAAP net income of $6.3 billion, or $3.31 per share. On operating metrics, it said total processed transactions for the three months ended March 31, 2026 were 66.1 billion, up 9% from the prior year.

Visa’s push into stablecoin rails is also a key part of the “cashless plus” thesis. Visa said it is expanding its global stablecoin settlement pilot by adding five blockchains, bringing support to nine and citing a $7 billion annualized stablecoin settlement run rate, up 50% since the prior quarter. Separately, Visa announced that it launched USDC settlement in the United States, saying U.S. issuer and acquirer partners can settle VisaNet obligations using Circle’s USDC. Visa also said the initial U.S. participants include Cross River Bank and Lead Bank, and that broader availability is planned through 2026.

The company has also been testing stablecoin-linked spending experiences rather than only settlement. Visa and Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure platform associated with Stripe, said they are expanding Bridge-enabled stablecoin-backed Visa cards, with plans to bring the program to over 100 countries by the end of the year. Visa said these cards can be used at Visa’s 175M+ merchant locations and that the cards were already live in 18 countries at the time of the announcement. The release also says the card transactions can be settled on-chain with Visa via Bridge’s partnership with Lead Bank.

On valuation and growth, the market commentary leaned on recent earnings momentum and expectations for continued profit expansion. It cited adjusted earnings per share growth of 15.2% on a compound annual basis from fiscal 2022 to fiscal 2025, and said analysts expect adjusted EPS to rise at a 13.5% annual clip over the coming three years. It also referenced a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.5 and a net profit margin of 53.6% for the prior fiscal quarter, presenting those figures as supportive of future returns. Again, those inputs are presented as the author’s analysis rather than Visa guidance.

Even with these tailwinds, there are important gaps in what is made explicit. The earnings release does not provide the specific “cards in use” and “total payment volume” totals highlighted in the commentary, and it does not quantify how much of Visa’s revenue is attributable to stablecoin settlement pilots today. More generally, the commentary does not detail potential risks that could pressure network economics, such as regulatory friction around digital assets, shifts in consumer behavior, or competitive pressure from alternative payment rails.

What to watch next is whether Visa can translate expanding stablecoin settlement capability into measurable commercial impact, while sustaining cashless-driven transaction volume growth. Visa’s quarter also included capital returns, including a new $20.0 billion multi-year class A share repurchase program and a quarterly cash dividend of $0.670 per share (both authorized and declared in connection with the fiscal second quarter results). If Visa continues to show strong transaction-linked growth while stablecoin settlement pilots expand, it could reinforce the idea that Visa remains a core payment layer even as the rails evolve.