Fiscal year 2023 was a year of enormous change. We saw continued economic growth coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and the pace of technological development accelerate, including generative artificial intelligence (AI), which has emerged as a once-in-a-generation innovation that will transform how we live and work, and most certainly how we shop, buy and pay.

Throughout all this, Visa played a vital role in payments around the world, while consistently delivering for our clients, partners and shareholders.

FY23 marked another year of strong financial performance amid much uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment. We drove broad-based growth in payments volume, processed transactions and cross-border volume, all of which enabled us to deliver $33 billion in net revenues and GAAP earnings per share of $8.28, up 11 percent and 18 percent from the prior year, respectively. Consumer spending remained resilient around the world, while the ongoing recovery in travel continued to be a tailwind for cross-border volume growth.

In FY23, we delivered against our key growth levers — consumer payments, new flows and value added services. We executed with a relentless focus on supporting our go-to-market teams, delivering for our clients, enabling innovative products and solutions and selling our solutions more effectively to accelerate our growth, now and in the future.

Consumer payments

Our consumer payments business aims to grow digital commerce by connecting buyers and sellers globally with safe, simple and innovative digital payments solutions. We are continuing to grow our credentials, increase our acceptance and deepen our engagement with cardholders, issuers, merchants and fintechs across the ecosystem. Over the past year, credentials grew 7 percent to 4.3 billion and we surpassed 7.5 billion network tokens. Total transactions, including cash and payments transactions, were 276 billion, meaning that Visa credentials were used on average 757 million times a day in the fiscal year. Merchant locations were up 17 percent to more than 130 million, helped by strong growth in Latin America, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa. We signed more than 500 commercial partnerships with fintechs globally, from early-stage companies to growing and mature players. Finally, tap-to-pay transactions, which continue to be a powerful driver of engagement, grew another 9 percentage points to 63 percent of total face-to-face transactions globally (76 percent of total face-to-face transactions excluding the United States).

New flows

We see significant opportunities in new flows to accelerate our growth and enable more payments use cases for our clients and partners. Business-to-business (B2B) remains the largest component of new flows today, with small business and corporate card issuance comprising the majority of the $1.57 trillion in commercial payments volume in the past year. To help address large-ticket cross-border B2B flows, our Visa B2B Connect network enables businesses to make payments to other businesses, while removing friction, attaching rich data to the payment and enabling the tracking of payments in progress. In FY23, we increased the number of banks that have signed onto Visa B2B Connect by more than 70 percent, while the number of transacting banks more than doubled as clients activated the service.

Visa Direct, our push payment platform that allows funds to be sent and received in near real-time, from person-to-person (P2P), B2B, business-to-consumer and government-to-consumer, is a key enabler of our new flows growth strategy. Through Visa Direct, we continue to scale our reach, add new capabilities and drive adoption across markets and segments. Visa Direct has the potential to reach more than 8.5 billion cards, deposit accounts and digital wallets around the world. In FY23, we saw more than 7.5 billion Visa Direct transactions across more than 65 use cases and over 2,800 programs, helped by more than 500 enablers. For example, one use case that is a significant opportunity is cross-border remittances. Cross-border P2P transactions grew 65 percent this year enabling us to reach a new record for Visa Direct payments volume in the fourth quarter. We are excited about the momentum across Visa Direct and will continue to execute our strategy of growing existing use cases, extending into new geographies, expanding into new areas and deepening our engagement with our partners.

P2P payments can be sent and received in near real-time with Visa Direct, our push payment platform.

Value added services

Our third growth engine is value added services — services that help our clients and partners optimize their performance, differentiate their offerings and create better experiences for their customers. In FY23, we delivered more than 2,000 consulting engagements that we estimate created more than $3 billion of additional client revenue, thanks to our support. Our growth strategy in value added services is threefold: deepening client penetration of existing products, expanding geographically and building and launching new solutions. We’ve made significant progress across each of these areas over the past year. Our top 265 largest clients now use on average 22 Visa services — double that of our overall client base.

The payments industry is evolving faster than ever and we are evolving with it. By developing the next generation of products and solutions, delivering on our purpose and investing in our people, we will create the next phase of growth for the company and lead Visa into the future.

Our products and solutions are some of the most sophisticated in the world and we’re on a journey to build the future of payments and money movement. We are committed to expanding upon our product roadmap and integrating capabilities like generative AI to bring solutions that address the needs of not only today, but well into the future. This includes investing in our data and risk solutions, processing capabilities and consulting and analytics expertise to serve the next generation of users and help our clients build and grow their business.

Employees at Visa’s Cyber Fusion Center in Virginia build and use AI to detect and secure cyber threats.

At Visa, we do well by doing good, and our purpose guides our long-term aspirations. As we leverage our incredible partnerships to grow credentials and expand the reach of our network, we are bringing more individuals and businesses into the financial ecosystem. One example of how we’re bringing this to life is through Visa Direct, where we allow families to receive remittances more quickly, and facilitate faster access to wages and government disbursements. Finally, we amplify our business impact through our social impact work, which provides the tools and resources to digitally enable individuals, businesses and communities who have historically been underserved by traditional financial services.

All of this comes to life thanks to the Visa team, our talented employees who bring a variety of experience and background, like the many communities we serve. We strive to foster a culture of inclusion and innovation and are committed to our employees’ continued growth through development opportunities to expand their capabilities and skills, and ultimately help them better serve our clients and partners.

In Mexico, Visa employees participated in a reforestation volunteering activity, planting a total of 1,000 trees.

In February of this year, I stepped into the role of Chief Executive Officer after having been Visa’s President for almost 10 years. There has been a great sense of continuity across the company throughout our leadership transition, and I would like to thank our shareholders for their commitment and support. To all of the approximately 28,800 Visa employees, thank you for all of your hard work, leadership and commitment. And to our clients and partners, you are the foundation of our business and everything we do. As an organization, we are focused on and committed to your continued success.

Visa is in a strong position. We have a clear strategy and roadmap, significant opportunities for growth and a leadership team dedicated to driving continued growth and success. At the end of the day, Visa is not just a leader in the payments industry, we are helping to create its future.

Ryan McInerney
Chief Executive Officer