Can Visa Direct Give Visa's Growth Story a New Direction?

Visa Inc. V is expanding its role in money movement as Visa Direct gains traction across domestic and cross-border use cases. In third-quarter fiscal 2026, Visa Direct transactions grew 21% year over year, while commercial and money-movement solutions revenues increased 17% in constant dollars. V also expanded Visa Direct into new applications, including DoorDash’s Crimson banking and rewards platform.

The opportunity is getting larger as Visa Direct expands its network. It provides access to 18 billion eligible payment endpoints across cards, accounts and digital wallets in more than 195 countries and territories and 150-plus currencies. The platform supports a growing range of use cases, from payouts and remittances to marketplace payments and account funding.

V is also strengthening its cross-border capabilities. In February 2026, the company announced a connection between Visa Direct and UnionPay International’s MoneyExpress platform that is expected to enable transfers to more than 95% of UnionPay International debit cardholders in mainland China. This could open a key corridor for remittances and business-to-consumer payouts.

Meanwhile, V is expanding Visa Direct’s stablecoin capabilities through partnerships with infrastructure providers such as BVNK and zerohash. The initiatives allow eligible businesses to prefund Visa Direct payouts with stablecoins and, in select pilot programs, enable recipients to receive funds directly in stablecoins. By bringing stablecoins into its existing money-movement infrastructure, Visa can give businesses greater flexibility in managing liquidity while supporting faster, more flexible cross-border payouts.

As these initiatives scale, Visa Direct could help Visa diversify growth beyond traditional card transactions and capture a larger share of the rapidly evolving global money-movement market.

How Are Competitors Faring?

Some of V’s competitors in the fintech space include Mastercard Incorporated MA and PayPal Holdings, Inc. PYPL.

Mastercard is strengthening its position in stablecoin-powered money movement after completing its acquisition of BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure provider. The deal combines BVNK’s digital-asset capabilities with Mastercard’s global payments network, helping connect stablecoins with traditional fiat rails. This could give MA more ways to capture growth as digital assets gain traction in mainstream payments.

PayPal is taking a more direct stablecoin approach through PYUSD, which is now available across 70 markets. The company is integrating PYUSD into its payments ecosystem to facilitate faster, potentially lower-friction transactions, giving PayPal a natural avenue to expand cross-border money movement beyond conventional payment rails.

Visa’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Over the past year, shares of Visa have gained 6.3%, outperforming the industry’s 12.7% fall.

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From a valuation standpoint, V trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 24.70, well above the industry average of 18.85. V carries a Value Score of D.

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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Visa’s fiscal 2026 earnings implies a 14.7% jump from the year-ago period.

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Visa stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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