Who are Visa's competitors?
Visa's fiscal 2025 10-K, filed November 6, 2025, groups its rivals by type. Among global card networks it names American Express, Diners Club/Discover (now owned by Capital One), JCB, Mastercard and UnionPay. On calendar 2024 figures it publishes from The Nilson Report, Visa carried $13,433 billion of payments volume, against $8,014 billion for Mastercard, $1,750 billion for American Express, $319 billion for JCB and $253 billion for Diners Club/Discover. UnionPay is the predominant processor of domestic card payments in China, where Visa applied for a clearing license in May 2020 and says approval timing remains uncertain. Beyond cards, the 10-K names real-time payment networks, launched in at least 80 countries, including FedNow, Pix and UPI; digital wallets and alternative payments providers, which can be partners and competitors at once; local debit networks such as NYCE, Pulse and STAR; payment processors; and value-added service providers. Its risk factors list American Express, Discover, Alipay and WeChat Pay among closed-loop competitors and say Visa expects more competition as generative and agentic AI is built into payments. The rivals are moving on the same ground: Mastercard launched Agent Pay in April 2025, American Express a developers' kit for AI agents in April 2026, and Ant International, Mastercard and Visa began work on a Know-Your-Agent framework in September 2026. Capital One has moved its debit cards to the Discover network and is testing credit cards there (July 2026). Pix took 42% of Brazilian online purchases in 2025, and UPI processed 24.5 billion transactions in August 2026.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
Data as of Nov 2, 2026 · Visa profile updated Oct 22, 2026 · 27 sources cited on this page · 56 fintechs profiled on this site · Markdown
What does Visa's 10-K say about its competitors?
Visa's fiscal 2025 10-K, filed November 6, 2025, says Visa competes "against all forms of payment", from cash and checks to electronic payments, and lists its electronic competitors by type: global or multi-regional networks (American Express, Diners Club/Discover, now owned by Capital One, JCB, Mastercard and UnionPay); local and regional networks such as NYCE, Pulse and STAR in the U.S., Interac in Canada and eftpos in Australia; alternative payments providers, including closed commerce ecosystems, BNPL solutions and cryptocurrency platforms; real-time payment networks; digital wallet providers; payment processors; ACH, real-time payments and wires as alternatives to Visa Direct; and value-added service providers.[1]
The risk factors name American Express, Discover, private-label card networks, virtual currency providers and alternative payments systems like Alipay and WeChat Pay as competitors that operate closed-loop systems "with direct connections to both sellers and consumers". In China, UnionPay "remains the predominant processor of domestic payment card transactions"; Visa applied to the People's Bank of China in May 2020 to operate a bank card clearing institution, and the filing says the timing of approval remains uncertain.[1]
On AI, the filing says: "We expect to face more competition as AI continues to advance and GenAI and agentic AI capabilities become integrated into payments and related services", through competitors' AI-enhanced products and through internal AI tools that make their employees more efficient. It adds that GenAI "can create new and better offerings that compete with our value-added services, such as strengthened risk monitoring and managing digital identification", and that competitors may hold proprietary rights that limit Visa's own AI-based offerings.[1]
Rivals' filings name Visa in turn. Mastercard's 2025 10-K says it competes worldwide with payments networks such as Visa, American Express, JCB, China UnionPay and Discover; American Express's 2025 10-K names Visa first among the card networks it competes with; and Capital One's 2025 10-K says it cannot be certain it will achieve global market parity with Visa or Mastercard.[8][9][10]
Who competes with Visa, where, and how big are they?
One row per competitor named in Visa's fiscal 2025 10-K. Network figures for calendar 2024 are the Nilson Report data Visa publishes in that 10-K; other figures are from each rival's own filing or the press source named. AI claims are each company's own, with dates.
| Competitor | Where they compete | Dated scale figure | How they compare on AI | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mastercard | Global card network; Visa's and Mastercard's 10-Ks each name the other as a competitor | $8,014 billion payments volume and 204 billion transactions, calendar 2024 | Agent Pay with Mastercard Agentic Tokens, launched April 29, 2025 with Microsoft as a collaborator; Agent Pay for Machines, released with 30 other companies including Stripe and Adyen, June 2026 | Visa 10-K FY2025; Mastercard 10-K 2025; Mastercard, Apr 2025; American Banker, Jun 2026[1][8][2][11] |
| American Express | Global network that also issues cards; Visa's 10-K lists it among closed-loop systems with direct connections to sellers and consumers | $1,750 billion payments volume and 147 million cards, calendar 2024; fourth-largest network by purchase volume per its own 2025 10-K | A developers' kit for AI agents with agent registration and verification; Amex says it will cover errors involving the AI agent (April 2026) | Visa 10-K FY2025; Amex 10-K 2025; American Banker, Apr 2026[1][9][3] |
| Capital One (Discover, Diners Club, PULSE) | Networks it acquired with Discover; Visa's 10-K names Diners Club/Discover among global networks and Pulse among U.S. debit networks; Capital One's 10-K names Visa and Mastercard as network competitors | $253 billion Diners Club/Discover payments volume, calendar 2024; Global Payment Network transaction volume of about $190 billion in Q2 2026 | Chat Concierge, its first proprietary multi-agent conversational AI assistant, for car dealers (March 2025) | Visa 10-K FY2025; Capital One 10-K 2025; PYMNTS, Jul 2026; Capital One, Mar 2025[1][10][5][12] |
| JCB | Global network concentrated in Japan, per Visa's 10-K; also named by Mastercard and American Express | $319 billion payments volume and 167 million cards, calendar 2024 | — | Visa 10-K FY2025; Mastercard 10-K 2025; Amex 10-K 2025[1][8][9] |
| UnionPay | Predominant processor of domestic card payments in China, where Visa awaits a clearing license; pursuing international expansion | Ranked ahead of American Express by purchase volume: Amex's 2025 10-K places itself fourth, behind Visa, China UnionPay and Mastercard | — | Visa 10-K FY2025; Amex 10-K 2025[1][9] |
| PayPal | Digital wallet and alternative payments; Visa's 10-K says alternative payments providers can be both partner and competitor, and PayPal's 10-K lists payment networks among its competitors | $1.79 trillion total payment volume and 25.4 billion payment transactions, 2025 | Supports ChatGPT Checkout with the PayPal wallet and Meta's Muse AI assistant for agent shopping (September 2026) | Visa 10-K FY2025; PayPal 10-K 2025; American Banker, Sep 2026[1][13][14] |
| Alipay (Ant International's Alipay+) | Visa's 10-K names Alipay and WeChat Pay among closed-loop alternative payments systems expanding into e-commerce, offline and cross-border payments | Alipay+ connects 150 million merchants to over 50 digital wallets and banking apps reaching 2 billion user accounts (September 2026) | Agentic Mobile Protocol for AI agents, launched April 2026; Know-Your-Agent interoperability work with Mastercard and Visa from September 2026 | Visa 10-K FY2025; Ant International, Apr and Sep 2026[1][15][4] |
| Pix (Brazil) | Real-time payment network created and run by Brazil's central bank; named in Visa's 10-K among RTP networks that are an alternative to card schemes | 42% of Brazilian online purchases in 2025, edging past credit cards at 41% (Ebanx data) | — | Visa 10-K FY2025; Reuters, Feb 2026[1][6] |
| UPI (India) | Real-time payment network named in Visa's 10-K, which says cross-border links such as UPI and PayNow will compete with Visa's cross-border business | 24.5 billion transactions worth 29,823 billion rupees in August 2026; 84% of India's digital payments by volume | — | Visa 10-K FY2025; Reuters, Sep 2026[1][7] |
How big is Visa's network next to Mastercard, Amex, JCB and Discover?
Calendar 2024, as published in Visa's fiscal 2025 10-K. Competitor data come from The Nilson Report issue 1288 (June 2025). Visa and Mastercard include credit, debit and prepaid cards (Mastercard excludes Maestro and Cirrus); American Express, Diners Club/Discover and JCB are credit cards, including third-party issuers. UnionPay is not in the table.
| Network | Payments volume, 2024 | Total volume, 2024 | Transactions, 2024 | Cards |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visa | $13,433 billion | $15,927 billion | 311 billion | 4,805 million[1] |
| Mastercard | $8,014 billion | $9,757 billion | 204 billion | 3,146 million[1] |
| American Express | $1,750 billion | $1,765 billion | 12 billion | 147 million[1] |
| JCB | $319 billion | $327 billion | 7 billion | 167 million[1] |
| Diners Club / Discover (Capital One) | $253 billion | $266 billion | 4 billion | 72 million[1] |
What companies are similar to Visa?
| Company | Why it is similar | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Mastercard | The other large global network offering branded, general-purpose credit, debit and prepaid card products; $8,014 billion payments volume in 2024 against Visa's $13,433 billion | Issuers and acquirers that want a second global card network[1][8] |
| American Express | A global card network that also issues cards and runs a closed-loop system with direct connections to sellers and consumers; fourth-largest network by purchase volume | Cardholders who want the issuer and the network in one company[1][9] |
| Discover and Diners Club (Capital One) | Global networks, with Discover concentrated in the U.S.; Capital One competes with other networks to attract Network Partners that issue cards on its Global Payment Network | Banks and fintechs looking for a network other than Visa or Mastercard[1][10] |
| UnionPay | A global network with a leading position in China, where it is the predominant processor of domestic card transactions | Card payments inside mainland China[1] |
| JCB | A global network concentrated in Japan; 167 million cards in 2024 | Card payments in Japan[1] |
Where is competition with Visa heating up?
AI agents are the newest front. American Banker reported on June 12, 2026 that Visa partnered with OpenAI for tokenized, agent-based transactions while Mastercard released Agent Pay for Machines with 30 other companies, including Stripe, Global Payments, Solana, Checkout.com and Adyen. When American Express launched its developers' kit in April 2026, American Banker listed Visa, Mastercard, Block, PayPal and Stripe among the payment companies also embracing agentic commerce.[11][3]
The networks also cooperate on agent identity: on September 10, 2026 Ant International, Mastercard and Visa began work on a Know-Your-Agent interoperability framework to streamline agent onboarding and identification across networks, while each keeps its own verification and decisioning. The release names Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol and Ant International's Agentic Mobile Protocol among the protocols the three had already rolled out.[4]
Capital One is moving volume onto its own network. PYMNTS reported in July 2026 that it had completed the conversion of its debit cards to the Discover network and was testing credit card volume there, without saying how much it will move or when. In October 2026 American Banker reported that Capital One plans to increase Discover network volume by originating Capital One credit cards on it and has been running tests to determine which existing credit card customers will be moved.[5][16]
Real-time rails are taking share in specific markets. Reuters reported in February 2026 that Pix surpassed the combined number of credit and debit card transactions in Brazil in 2023 and has pressured the share of card transactions that Mastercard and Visa dominate; the Indian government said in September 2026 that UPI has a 49% share of global real-time payment volumes. Visa's 10-K says RTP networks can compete with Visa but can also be customers for value-added services such as risk management.[6][7][1]
What does the Visa profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the Visa AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Oct 22, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 17 dated moves, 11 use cases and 24 sources.
| Use case | What the record shows | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visa Intelligent Commerce | APIs, tokenized credentials and spend controls that let AI agents discover, initiate and complete purchases; hundreds of controlled real-world transactions and closed-beta pilots by December 2025, with Intelligent Commerce Connect in pilot from April 2026. | Pilot | [17][18][19] |
| BioCatch behavioral intelligence (pending) | Behavioral-biometrics models covering account takeover, scams, money mules and application fraud; Visa agreed to buy BioCatch for $2.4 billion in August 2026, with closing expected by the end of fiscal Q2 2027. | Announced | [20][21] |
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 9, 2026 | Visa Trust Index for agentic commerce | A Harris Poll survey for Visa finds only 23% of US consumers trust generative AI to handle payments on their behalf, while 61% say they would trust Visa to handle agentic transactions. | [22] |
| Sep 1, 2026 | A2A Protect adds first Featurespace-based unified score | Visa launches an enhanced A2A Protect with a unified fraud score, its first in-market integration of Featurespace technology; each alert carries a plain-language explanation of why a payment was flagged. | [23] |
| Aug 3, 2026 | Agreement to acquire BioCatch for $2.4 billion | Visa signs a definitive agreement to buy BioCatch, whose AI and machine-learning models analyse behavioral, device and network signals to detect account takeover, scams and mule accounts, from funds advised by Permira; closing is expected by the end of Visa's fiscal Q2 2027, subject to regulatory approval. | [20][21] |
| Jun 10, 2026 | OpenAI partnership, Agentic Directory and Large Transaction Model | At Visa Payments Forum Visa announces a strategic collaboration with OpenAI to enable Visa payments in agentic commerce, an Agentic Directory of verified agents and merchants, and a Large Transaction Model trained on billions of transactions. | [24][25] |
| Apr 8, 2026 | Intelligent Commerce Connect unveiled | A single integration through the Visa Acceptance Platform that lets agent builders and merchants accept agent payments across Trusted Agent Protocol, Machine Payments Protocol, Agentic Commerce Protocol and Universal Commerce Protocol, including non-Visa cards; in pilot with partners including AWS and Highnote. | [19] |
| Oct 14, 2025 | Trusted Agent Protocol introduced | Visa unveils an open framework for agents to pass cryptographically signed intent, consumer-recognition and payment data to merchants, so merchants can tell trusted shopping agents from malicious bots; early partners include Adyen, Checkout.com, Coinbase, Fiserv, Microsoft, Shopify, Stripe and Worldpay. | [26] |
| Apr 30, 2025 | Visa Intelligent Commerce launches | At the Visa Global Product Drop, Visa opens its network to developers building AI agents that browse, select and buy for consumers, naming Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Stripe and Samsung as collaborators. | [17] |
| Dec 19, 2024 | Featurespace acquisition completes | Visa completes its acquisition of Featurespace, a Cambridge, UK developer of real-time AI payments-protection technology, folding it into the Risk and Identity Solutions unit. Visa's FY2025 10-K puts the purchase consideration at $946 million. | [27][1] |
Who are Visa's biggest competitors?
Visa's fiscal 2025 10-K names Mastercard, American Express, Diners Club/Discover (owned by Capital One), JCB and UnionPay as its global network rivals; Mastercard is the largest of those in Visa's table, with $8,014 billion of payments volume in 2024 against Visa's $13,433 billion. The filing also names real-time networks such as FedNow, Pix and UPI, digital wallets, alternative payments providers and local debit networks.
What companies are similar to Visa?
Mastercard is the closest match: another global network offering branded, general-purpose card products. American Express, Discover and Diners Club (Capital One), JCB and UnionPay also run card networks, though Visa's 10-K notes that American Express and Discover operate closed-loop systems, that Discover and JCB are concentrated in the U.S. and Japan, and that UnionPay leads in China.
Visa vs Mastercard: which is bigger?
Visa, on the figures in Visa's fiscal 2025 10-K. In calendar 2024 Visa carried $13,433 billion of payments volume, 311 billion transactions and 4,805 million cards; Mastercard carried $8,014 billion, 204 billion transactions and 3,146 million cards. Mastercard's figures come from The Nilson Report and exclude Maestro and Cirrus.
Is PayPal a competitor of Visa?
Partly. Visa's 10-K says alternative payments providers can be both a partner and a competitor, and that digital wallets can drive Visa volumes but can also be funded by non-card payment options. PayPal's 2025 10-K lists payment networks among its competitors; PayPal processed $1.79 trillion of total payment volume in 2025.
Do Pix and UPI compete with Visa?
Visa's 10-K says real-time payment networks have launched in at least 80 countries, including FedNow, Pix and UPI, and are an alternative to card schemes. Pix took 42% of Brazilian online purchases in 2025, edging past credit cards at 41%, per Ebanx data reported by Reuters, and UPI processed 24.5 billion transactions in August 2026.
Is Capital One a competitor of Visa?
Since buying Discover, yes, as a network operator. Capital One's 2025 10-K says it now competes with other payment networks for card-issuing partners and names Visa and Mastercard. PYMNTS reported in July 2026 that Capital One had completed moving its debit cards to the Discover network and was testing credit card volume there.
- Visa Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025
- Mastercard unveils Agent Pay, pioneering agentic payments technology to power commerce in the age of AI
- Amex tries to 'grease the skids' for agentic commerce
- Ant International, Mastercard and Visa Initiate Collaboration on Know-Your-Agent Interoperability to Scale Agentic Commerce
- Capital One Tests Moving Credit Cards to Discover Network
- Instant payment system Pix poised to capture half of Brazil's e-commerce market by 2028
- India's UPI fee shake-up: What changes and why it matters
- Mastercard Incorporated Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 (Competition)
- American Express Company Form 10-K for 2025 (Competition)
- Capital One Financial Corporation Form 10-K for 2025 (Global Payment Network; competition risk factors)
- Visa partners with OpenAI, Mastercard pushes machine payments
- AI for Car Dealerships: Smarter Car Shopping (Chat Concierge)
- PayPal Holdings, Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025 (Key performance metrics; Competition)
- PayPal partners with Meta's Muse AI assistant
- Ant International Launches Open-Sourced Agentic Mobile Protocol to Drive AI Commerce
- Capital One wrestles with how to best use Discover's network
- The Future is Here: Visa Announces New Era of Commerce Featuring AI
- Visa and Partners Complete Secure AI Transactions, Setting the Stage for Mainstream Adoption in 2026
- Visa Opens the Door to AI-Driven Shopping for Businesses Worldwide
- Visa to Acquire BioCatch
- Visa to buy cybersecurity firm BioCatch for $2.4 billion amid surge in AI-powered scams
- New Visa Research Finds Consumer Trust is Accelerating the Path to Agentic Commerce
- Visa Launches Enhanced A2A Protect Innovations to Help Financial Institutions Stop Fraud Before Money Leaves Accounts
- Visa Announces New AI, Stablecoin and Token Innovations to Power Intelligent, Programmable Commerce at Visa Payments Forum
- Visa Partners with OpenAI to Power the Next Generation of AI Commerce
- Visa Introduces Trusted Agent Protocol: An Ecosystem-Led Framework for AI Commerce
- Visa Completes Acquisition of Featurespace
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