According to PYMNTS.com, Visa CEO Ryan McInerney declared during the company’s earnings call that “Visa has become a hyperscaler, enabling anyone that wants to be in the money movement or payments business to build on top of the Visa-as-a-service stack.” The company revealed its Network of Networks now handles approximately 12 billion endpoints, including 4 billion cards, bank accounts, and digital wallets each, with value-added services revenue growing 25% to $3 billion. Visa’s blockchain settlement volume has reached a $2.5 billion annualized run rate, supporting four stablecoins convertible to over two dozen fiat currencies. The company also disclosed that over half of its new VisaNet code base was built using generative AI, while tokenization has grown to 16 billion issued tokens from 10 billion in May 2024. This strategic evolution positions Visa beyond traditional payment processing into a comprehensive platform for modern commerce.
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The Hyperscaler Transformation
Visa’s declaration as a “hyperscaler” represents a fundamental shift in how the company views its role in the financial ecosystem. Traditionally, Visa Inc. operated as a closed-loop payment network connecting banks, merchants, and consumers. The hyperscaler model transforms Visa into an open platform where third parties can build their own payment solutions using Visa’s infrastructure as a service. This mirrors the approach taken by cloud providers like AWS and Azure, who provide the underlying infrastructure that powers countless applications. For Visa, this means moving from being a direct service provider to becoming the foundational layer upon which the entire digital payments ecosystem is built.
The AI-Built Infrastructure Advantage
The revelation that over half of Visa’s new code base was developed using generative AI represents one of the most significant enterprise AI implementations to date. This isn’t just about automating routine tasks—Visa is using AI to fundamentally rearchitect its core processing infrastructure. The new cloud-ready microservices architecture built with AI assistance enables faster scaling, easier configuration, and rapid feature deployment. This technical transformation directly supports the hyperscaler ambition by making Visa’s infrastructure more flexible and accessible to external developers. The efficiency gains from AI-driven development could give Visa a substantial competitive advantage in bringing new services to market faster than traditional financial institutions.
The Tokenization Endgame
Visa’s aggressive push toward 100% e-commerce transaction tokenization represents a strategic bet on security and interoperability. With 16 billion tokens already issued—up from 10 billion just months ago—Visa is creating a universal payment layer that transcends individual payment methods. The Visa credential initiative enables consumers to access multiple funding sources through a single tokenized identity, essentially creating a universal payment passport. This approach addresses one of the fundamental challenges in digital commerce: the fragmentation of payment methods and authentication systems. By making tokenization ubiquitous, Visa positions itself as the essential interoperability layer between different payment systems, digital wallets, and emerging payment methods.
Embracing Digital Assets Strategically
Visa’s integration of four stablecoins with conversion capabilities to two dozen fiat currencies demonstrates a pragmatic approach to digital assets. Rather than competing with cryptocurrencies, Visa is positioning itself as the bridge between traditional finance and the blockchain ecosystem. The $2.5 billion annualized settlement volume across Visa’s blockchains, while still small relative to Visa’s overall processing volume, represents significant early traction. This strategy allows Visa to capture value from the growing digital asset ecosystem while maintaining its role as the trusted settlement layer between different forms of value.
The Next Frontier: Agentic Commerce
Visa’s focus on “agentic commerce” represents preparation for the next major shift in e-commerce. As AI agents become more sophisticated in making purchasing decisions on behalf of consumers, Visa is positioning its Trusted Agent Protocol as the standard for authenticating and authorizing these automated transactions. This foresight is crucial because agent-driven commerce could fundamentally change purchasing patterns, with AI agents potentially sourcing from a wider range of merchants based on optimization criteria rather than brand loyalty. By establishing standards early, Visa aims to avoid the fragmentation that characterized earlier e-commerce waves and ensure its infrastructure remains central to this emerging paradigm.
Redefining the Competitive Battleground
The hyperscaler strategy fundamentally changes who Visa competes with. Instead of just competing with other card networks, Visa now positions itself against cloud providers, fintech platforms, and technology companies building payment infrastructure. The risk for Visa is that by opening its platform, it could enable competitors who might eventually build competing infrastructure. However, the greater risk would be failing to adapt to the platform economy and being disrupted by more agile technology players. Visa’s massive scale—processing over $14 trillion in annual volume—gives it a formidable advantage, but maintaining this position requires continuous innovation and platform development.
The Financial Services Evolution
The growth in value-added services revenue to $3 billion, up 25%, indicates that Visa’s transformation is already delivering financial results. As CFO Chris Suh noted, these services—particularly issuing solutions—are becoming increasingly important revenue drivers. This diversification reduces Visa’s dependence on pure transaction processing fees and creates more stable, recurring revenue streams. The challenge will be maintaining this growth while simultaneously investing in the infrastructure needed to support the hyperscaler vision, all while navigating increasing regulatory scrutiny of large technology platforms in financial services.
