Mastercard Q4 Earnings Call Highlights

Mastercard (NYSE:MA) executives highlighted what they described as another “very strong year” in 2025, pointing to double-digit revenue growth, continued momentum in value-added services, and a pipeline of issuing and co-brand wins as key themes during the company’s fourth-quarter and full-year earnings call.

Fourth-quarter performance and key operating metrics

CEO Michael Miebach said Mastercard closed 2025 with “a lot of activity” and entered 2026 with confidence in execution despite persistent geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty. For the fourth quarter, the company reported net revenues up 15% on a non-GAAP currency-neutral basis, led by value-added services and solutions net revenue growth of 22%.

CFO Sachin Mehra said the quarter’s results reflected “continued growth in our payment network and our value-added services and solutions,” noting acquisitions contributed 1 percentage point to net revenue growth and about 3 percentage points to value-added services and solutions growth.

On operating drivers, Mehra reported:

• Worldwide gross dollar volume (GDV) increased 7% year-over-year on a local currency basis, including 4% growth in the U.S. and 9% growth outside the U.S.
• Cross-border volume increased 14% globally, driven by both travel and non-travel-related cross-border spending.
• Switch transactions grew 10% year-over-year in the quarter.
• Contactless penetration reached 77% of all in-person switched purchase transactions, up 5 percentage points year-over-year.
• Card growth was 6%, with 3.7 billion Mastercard and Maestro branded cards issued globally.

Government grants and expense trends

Mehra said Mastercard secured new multi-year government grants in late December tied to investments in select geographies. He stated the grants benefit both operating expenses and other income and expense, with operating expense benefits expected primarily in 2025 and 2026, while other income and expense benefits extend multiple years beyond 2026.

Mehra said the Q4 2025 impact reflected the “full year value of the 2025 grants,” improving operating expense growth by around 5.5 percentage points and benefiting other income and expense by approximately $135 million in the quarter.

On a non-GAAP currency-neutral basis, excluding special items, total adjusted operating expenses increased 12% in Q4, including a 5 percentage point impact from acquisitions. Mehra attributed underlying expense growth primarily to spending on strategic initiatives such as infrastructure investment, geographic expansion, and product and services delivery, partially offset by the government grants.

Capital One, co-brand wins, and issuing momentum

Miebach emphasized Mastercard’s issuing momentum, saying the company won “hundreds of new issuing deals and expansions globally” in 2025. He highlighted several examples from the quarter, including an extension of Mastercard’s partnership with Capital One in the U.S. and Canada, where the companies renewed their partnership in credit and Mastercard “will be the network for a large portion of newly acquired credit accounts.” Miebach also said Capital One will continue to use several Mastercard services.

In the Q&A session, Miebach said the agreement is a “strong signal” that the Mastercard network is valued and emphasized continued investment in network acceptance. Management did not disclose the extension length, and in response to follow-up questions, executives said the company would not share additional details beyond the focus on new credit issuance.

Other deal highlights cited by Miebach included:

• In Türkiye, Yapı Kredi migrating nearly 10 million cards across consumer credit, debit, and affluent portfolios to Mastercard, supported by consulting and marketing services.
• In Latin America, Scotiabank selecting Mastercard as network partner in Mexico, Chile, and Uruguay, citing security, loyalty, and analytics offerings.
• In South Africa, exclusive deals with several market participants including Nedbank and Standard Bank, supported by a modernized real-time payment switch.
• More than 60 new affluent programs secured globally in 2025.
• Mastercard continuing as the exclusive network for the Apple Card, which the company said will transition to JPMorgan Chase as issuer in approximately 24 months.

Services growth, tokenization, and emerging payment themes

Mastercard executives repeatedly pointed to the “virtuous cycle” between network activity and services growth. Miebach said Mastercard switched more than 175 billion transactions last year and now switches more than 70% of all Mastercard transactions globally, up 10 percentage points since 2020. He added that approval rates in digital commerce have increased by 270 basis points over the last five years.

For full-year 2025, Miebach said value-added services and solutions delivered net revenue growth of 21%, or 18% excluding acquisitions, on a currency-neutral basis. He also said nearly 40% of all transactions were tokenized as of the fourth quarter.

Management also discussed stablecoins and “agentic commerce” as emerging opportunities. Miebach said Mastercard has been active in digital assets for over a decade and described stablecoins as “another currency we can support within our network,” citing progress supporting stablecoin settlement and expanded settlement capabilities “now working with Ripple.”

On agentic commerce, Miebach said Mastercard’s AgentPay framework is designed to foster trust in agent-driven transactions. He said Mastercard has enabled U.S. issuers to participate and is working to enable its global issuer base by the end of the first quarter. He cited partnerships and pilots including work with Antom in Asia, consulting engagements in the U.K., and a pilot in the UAE with Majid Al Futtaim.

2026 outlook, restructuring, and capital return

Mehra said Mastercard’s base case for 2026 assumes healthy consumer spending, supported by “balanced job markets across the globe.” For full-year 2026, he said the company expects net revenues to grow at the high end of a low double-digit range on a currency-neutral basis excluding inorganic activity, with a 1 to 1.5 percentage point tailwind from foreign exchange. He also said the company expects currency-neutral growth to be lower in the first half than the second half due to tougher comparisons, primarily tied to elevated revenue growth from FX volatility in 2025.

For the first quarter of 2026, Mehra said net revenue growth is expected at the low end of a low double-digit range on a currency-neutral basis excluding inorganic activity, with an estimated 3.5 to 4 percentage point FX tailwind for the quarter. He guided to first-quarter operating expense growth in the high end of a high single-digit range on the same basis, with FX expected to be a headwind of about 2.5 percentage points.

Separately, Mehra said Mastercard expects to record a one-time restructuring charge of approximately $200 million in the first quarter as a special item, and that these actions will impact approximately 4% of full-time employees globally. Miebach said a recent strategic review will result in reductions in some areas while increasing investment and focus in others.

On capital return, Mehra said Mastercard repurchased $3.6 billion of stock in the quarter and an additional $715 million through January 26, 2026. He reported fourth-quarter EPS of $4.76, including a $0.10 contribution from share repurchases.

About Mastercard (NYSE:MA)

Mastercard Incorporated is a global payments technology company that operates a network connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 200 countries and territories. The company facilitates electronic payments and transaction processing for credit, debit and prepaid card products carrying the Mastercard brand, while also providing a range of payment-related services to issuers, acquirers and merchants. Its technology and network enable authorization, clearing and settlement of payments and support a broad set of use cases including point-of-sale, e-commerce and mobile payments.

Beyond core transaction processing, Mastercard offers a suite of value-added services such as fraud and risk management, identity and authentication tools, tokenization and digital wallet support, cross-border and commercial payment solutions, and data analytics and consulting services for merchants and financial partners.