Visa and Mastercard are both global payment networks. They don’t issue cards or extend credit but instead make most of their money processing transactions. Both companies have experienced growing revenues and are very profitable, but there are some key differences. Visa has a larger market share, as it processes more transactions and has a higher net revenue ($29 billion compared to $22 billion). But Visa is more dependent on revenue from the U.S. About two-thirds of Mastercard’s revenue comes from outside North America. Despite increased competition, both companies have maintained strong operating margins. But Visa’s margin was 9 percentage points higher than Mastercard’s in 2022. The main reason is that Visa had much lower personnel costs as a percentage of net revenue. Thus, Visa is running a lot leaner on labor. As for the future, both companies are diversifying their revenue streams by providing value-added services like: • Fraud prevention …
