American Express (AmEx) led the pack with an 8.4% rise in revenue, reaching $77.7 billion. Murthy Grandhi, Company Profiles Analyst at GlobalData, remarked on the performance of AmEx's competitors: “Visa ($40 billion, +11.3%) and Mastercard ($32.8 billion, +16.4%) are growing faster than AmEx despite processing trillions in transactions through their network rails. Mastercard's growth reflects a deliberate pivot into value-added services: data analytics, cybersecurity solutions, and open banking APIs that now account for a growing share of revenue. The card business is mature; the data business is not.”
While AmEx, Visa, and Mastercard enjoyed significant growth, PayPal's performance was notably subdued. The company, which processes over $1.5 trillion in payment volume annually, only saw a 4.3% increase in revenue. This underperformance is attributed to PayPal's heavy reliance on e-commerce checkout, a market where competition has intensified with players like Apple Pay and Shop Pay gaining traction. Despite management's efforts to diversify through advertising and BNPL (buy now, pay later) integrations, these strategies have yet to significantly impact revenue.
The narrative shifts when examining mid-tier challengers such as Shift4 Payments and Adyen. Shift4 Payments experienced a remarkable 25.5% revenue increase, driven by its aggressive expansion into hospitality, stadiums, and gaming verticals. These industries, historically underserved by payment infrastructure, are now rapidly upgrading their point-of-sale technology. Adyen, with a 23.7% growth rate, is capitalising on the demand for a single global payments platform, positioning itself as a preferred choice for enterprise merchants seeking to avoid a patchwork of acquirers and processors.
Grandhi elaborated on the rise of other significant players: “Wise (+19.7%) and Green Dot (+20.7%) represent a different but equally significant trend: the democratization of financial services. Wise's cross-border transfer infrastructure continues to take share from correspondent banking networks, particularly on corridors like the UK-India and EU-Southeast Asia. Green Dot's surge reflects growing demand for prepaid and banking-as-a-service products among America's underbanked population — a segment that has historically been ignored by traditional banking infrastructure.”
The performance of merchant acquirers and payment processors was mixed. Fiserv posted a modest 3.6% growth, while Global Payments experienced a slight revenue decline. These firms are grappling with increasing pricing pressure as merchants gain access to a broader array of payment providers and integrated software platforms.
Samsung Card emerged as the weakest performer, with a significant 27.1% revenue decline. This downturn is likely due to a mix of weaker consumer credit demand, regulatory pressures, and a return to normalcy following previous period strengths. In contrast, SBI Cards and Payment Services benefited from India's expanding middle class and the ongoing shift towards formal digital payments.
Looking ahead, GlobalData anticipates a favourable outlook for the industry, driven by continued digitisation, rising e-commerce penetration, real-time payments, and the increasing adoption of embedded finance. However, the report warns of potential challenges such as persistent inflation, higher interest rates, slowing global trade, geopolitical tensions, and increasing regulatory scrutiny of payment fees, which could impact transaction volumes and cross-border activity.
Grandhi concluded with insights into the future of the industry: “The next phase of competition will likely be defined less by who processes the most payments and more by who owns the customer relationship, data layer, and software ecosystem surrounding those payments. In that race, the industry's fastest-growing challengers are beginning to narrow the gap with its established giants.”
As the landscape of the global payments industry continues to evolve, companies that enable international commerce, offer software-driven merchant solutions, and facilitate business-to-business transactions appear to be best positioned to outperform their peers.
