Visa (V) 10-K2024 FY Annual report

Visa is one of the world’s leaders in digital payments. Our purpose is to uplift everyone, everywhere by being the best way to pay and be paid. We facilitate global commerce and money movement across more than 200 countries and territories among a global set of consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities through innovative technologies.

Since Visa’s early days in 1958, we have been in the business of facilitating payments between consumers and businesses. We are focused on extending, enhancing and investing in our proprietary advanced transaction processing network, VisaNet, to offer a single connection point for facilitating payment transactions to multiple endpoints through various form factors. As a network of networks enabling global movement of money through all available networks, we are working to provide payment solutions and services for everyone, everywhere.

Visa earns revenue by facilitating money movement across more than 200 countries and territories among a global set of consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities through innovative technologies.

Visa provides payment processing for both non-Visa-branded and Visa-branded card transactions. In the context of non-Visa-branded card transactions, we facilitate payment processing by providing gateway routing services to other payment networks. At the client’s request, we may provide authorization, clearing or settlement services on our network before or after we route the transaction to the other payments network. In those instances, Visa may earn data processing revenue for the specific services provided. In the context of Visa-branded card transactions on our network, we provide authorization, clearing and settlement services and may earn service, data processing, international transaction or other revenue. Depending on applicable regulations, some payment processors may or may not use our network to process Visa-branded card transactions. If they use our network, we may earn service revenue and data processing revenue. If they do not use our network, we earn only service revenue.

Visa’s strategy is to accelerate our revenue growth in consumer payments, new flows and value-added services, and fortify the key foundations of our business model.

We seek to accelerate revenue growth in three primary areas — consumer payments, new flows and value- added services.

We enable consumer payments and help our clients grow as digital commerce, new technologies and new participants continue to transform the payments ecosystem. Some examples include:

Since we introduced Tap to Pay technology over ten years ago, it has emerged as a preferred way to pay in the face-to-face environment among consumers in many countries around the world. Tap to Pay adoption is growing and many consumers have come to expect this seamless payment experience.

Tap to Pay has become the default way Visa cardholders pay in nearly 60 countries and territories, with more than 90 percent penetration of Visa face-to-face transactions, and in over 125 countries and territories, Tap to Pay comprises more than 50 percent of our face-to-face transactions. Excluding the U.S., over 80 percent of face-to-face Visa transactions globally were contactless in fiscal 2024. In the U.S., Visa has surpassed 50 percent contactless penetration and more than 535 million Tap to Pay-enabled Visa cards have been issued. In addition, we have activated more than 870 contactless public transport projects worldwide. We processed more than 2.0 billion contactless transactions on global transit systems in fiscal 2024, surpassing the number of transactions in 2023.

Visa Token Service (VTS) brings trust to digital commerce innovation. As consumers increasingly rely on digital transactions, VTS is designed to enhance the digital ecosystem through improved authorization, reduced fraud and improved consumer experience. VTS helps protect digital transactions by replacing 16-digit Visa account numbers with a token that includes a surrogate account number, cryptographic information and other data to protect the underlying account information. This security technology can work for a variety of in person or online payment transactions. As of September 30, 2024, Visa has provisioned 11.5 billion network tokens.

We have two key objectives in this business area.

The first objective is to grow B2B payments volume through our Visa Commercial Solutions. This part of the business focuses on addressing the $145 trillion of opportunity in B2B payment flows around the world annually, excluding Russia and China. We believe around 15% of the annual opportunity, or $20 trillion, could be addressed

The second objective is to put the power of money movement in our clients’ hands, enabling them to move money around the world. This part of the business focuses on addressing $20 trillion in B2C, $20 trillion in P2P, and $15 trillion in G2C opportunities annually, excluding Russia and China, as well as the cross-border B2B opportunity. These flows are largely addressed through our Visa Direct Platform, encompassing a broad network of eligible cards, bank accounts, and digital wallets, as well as our Visa B2B Connect network.

As a long-time participant in the B2B ecosystem, we have been supporting small businesses, large and middle market companies, and governments with their payments needs. We continue to see opportunity for growth as businesses seek simple digital experiences, similar to those available to consumers. Visa offers a holistic suite of tailored solutions for businesses – providing payment, reconciliation, and data to help manage working capital and drive efficiency, set spend controls, manage expenses, and automate payment processes.

Our portfolio of commercial payments solutions includes small business cards, corporate (travel) cards, purchasing cards, virtual cards and digital credentials. Businesses look to optimize processes and effectively manage working capital by utilizing our commercial payments solutions. To support small businesses we expanded the small business supplier matching webtool so that it is directly accessible to small and medium size businesses, enhancing their ability to use their cards for business payments. For large business spend, we have been expanding our presence in specific commercial spend verticals, such as fleet and fuel, travel and agriculture. We have also extended our products and capabilities specifically for accounts receivable and accounts payable spend, through either embedded finance capabilities, or new solutions like our Accounts Receivable Manager virtual card automation solution in the U.S.

We facilitate domestic and cross-border money movement, enabling clients to collect, convert, hold and send funds across our network, which has the potential to reach more than 11 billion cards, bank accounts and digital wallets. Visa Direct enables P2P payments and account-to-account (A2A) transfers, business and government payouts to individuals or small businesses, merchant settlements and refunds, among other use cases, across more than 195 countries and territories.

Visa Direct utilizes more than 75 domestic payment schemes, more than 15 real-time payments schemes, more than 15 card-based networks and more than five payment gateways, with the potential to reach more than 11.0 billion endpoints, through 4.0 billion cards, 3.5 billion bank accounts and 3.5 billion digital wallets. In fiscal 2024, Visa Direct processed nearly 10 billion transactions for more than 550 partners.

Visa B2B Connect is a key part of our value proposition and considered part of the Visa Direct platform. It is a multilateral B2B cross-border payments network designed to facilitate reliable, secure and cost-effective transactions from the bank of origin directly to the beneficiary bank, helping streamline settlement and optimize payments for financial institutions’ corporate clients. Visa B2B Connect continues to scale and is available in more than 100 countries and territories.

The Visa Direct platform now also includes Visa Cross-Border Solutions and our digitally native Currencycloud capabilities that service new flows and our established cross-border consumer payments businesses with capabilities such as providing real-time foreign exchange rates, virtual accounts, and enhanced liquidity and settlement.

In addition, our Visa+ solution provides interoperability for our clients. In fiscal 2023, we announced the launch of Visa+, which enables transfers between participating P2P apps. Visa+ is now fully live for eligible users of PayPal and Venmo in the U.S. In addition to bringing reach, flexibility and convenience to P2P payment experiences, Visa+

Value-added services represent an opportunity for us to diversify our revenue with products and solutions that help our clients and partners optimize their performance, differentiate their offerings and create better experiences for their customers. Our comprehensive suite of value-added services spans five categories — Issuing Solutions, Acceptance Solutions, Risk and Identity Solutions, Open Banking Solutions and Advisory Services.

Our value-added services strategy has three areas of focus: (1) provide services for Visa transactions; (2) deliver network-agnostic services for non-Visa transactions; and (3) provide services that go beyond payments. We have made significant progress across each of these areas and offer more than 200 products and services as of September 30, 2024, many of which are designed to work together to deliver high impact business outcomes.

Visa DPS is a large issuer processor of Visa debit transactions. In addition to multi-network transaction processing, Visa DPS also provides a wide range of value-added services, including fraud mitigation, dispute management, data analytics, campaign management, a suite of digital solutions and contact center services. Our capabilities in API-based issuer processing solutions, like DPS Forward, allow our clients to create new payments use cases and provide them with modular capabilities for digital payments.

In early 2024, Visa completed its acquisition of Pismo, a global, cloud-native issuer processing and core banking platform with operations in Latin America, Asia Pacific and Europe. Pismo’s technology platform expands Visa’s offerings to include core banking and card-issuer processing capabilities across credit, debit and prepaid cards via cloud native APIs and also helps enable Visa to provide support and connectivity for emerging payment frameworks and real-time payments (RTP) networks for financial institution clients.

We provide a range of other services and digital solutions to issuers, such as account controls, digital issuance and branded consumer experiences. In addition, Visa offers loyalty and benefits solutions to issuers aimed at creating compelling and differentiated cardholder experiences, as well as Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) capabilities, which allow shoppers the flexibility to pay for a purchase in equal payments over a defined period of time. Visa is investing in installments as a payments strategy — by offering Visa credentials and BNPL solutions to issuers and fintechs.

Visa Acceptance Solutions provide modular, value-added services in addition to the traditional gateway function of connecting merchants to payment processing. Using the Visa Acceptance Platform, acquirers, payment service providers, independent software vendors and merchants can improve the way their consumers engage and transact; help to mitigate fraud and lower operational costs; and adapt to changing business requirements. They can also connect with other fintechs through a global payment management platform to use their services. Using an omnichannel solution with a cloud-based architecture, Visa Acceptance Solutions capabilities, which includes Cybersource and Authorize.net, provide new and enhanced payment integrations with ecommerce platforms, enabling sellers and acquirers to provide tailored commerce experiences with payments seamlessly embedded.

Visa’s Risk and Identity Solutions transform data into insights for near real-time decisions and facilitate account holder authentication to help financial institution and merchant clients prevent fraud and protect account holder data. With the increasing popularity of omnichannel commerce and digital payments among consumers, fraud prevention helps increase trust in digital payments. The Visa Protect suite of solutions include a range of products that empower financial institutions and merchants with tools that facilitate automation, simplify fraud prevention and enhance payment security, such as: Visa Consumer Authentication Service, Visa Protect Authentication Intelligence, and Visa Provisioning Intelligence. These offerings highlight our artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities, for example, Visa Protect Authentication Intelligence uses machine learning algorithms to identify fraud for Visa Secure authentication requests and Visa Provisioning Intelligence is an AI-based product designed to prevent tokens from being fraudulently provisioned.

Since our acquisition of Tink AB, an open banking platform, we continue to accelerate the development and adoption of open banking securely and at scale. Visa’s open banking capabilities range from data access use cases, such as account verification, balance check and personal finance management, to payment initiation capabilities, such as A2A transactions and merchant payments. These capabilities can help our partner businesses deliver valuable services to their customers.

In fiscal 2024, we expanded our presence in Europe and began expanding into the U.S. with a suite of product offerings that enable users to connect accounts and provide trusted parties with access to their financial data, including digitizing and streamlining the A2A payments experience. In fiscal 2025, we plan to launch Visa A2A in the UK, an open system bringing standards, rules and a dispute management service to eligible banks and businesses, enabling them to provide consumers with a more streamlined bill payment experience. Key features will include increased protection, more optionality by allowing consumers to pay directly from their bank accounts and enhanced controls over payment permissions.

Visa Advisory Services offers deep payments expertise through a global consulting practice, proprietary analytics models, data scientists and economists, marketing services and managed services to deliver insights for issuers, acquirers, merchants, fintechs and other partners that help them make better business decisions and scale their operations.

Operating as the payments consulting arm of Visa, Visa Consulting and Analytics (VCA) utilizes our payments expertise and economic intelligence to identify actionable insights, make recommendations and help implement solutions. VCA is comprised of specialized advisory practices such as: strategy and commercial money movement, portfolio optimization, digital, AI, risk and implementation support, which drive measurable outcomes for our clients. VCA Managed Services embeds teams within client organizations to help execute key initiatives.

Visa Marketing Services provides clients with unique activation opportunities with Visa’s sponsorships and utilizes our data analytics and understanding of customers’ transactional behavior to provide marketing solutions designed to deliver effective results, drive brand preference and influence consumer behavior.

We are fortifying the key foundations of our business model, which consist of becoming a network of networks, our technology platforms, security, brand and talent.

Our network of networks strategy means moving money to all endpoints and to all form factors, using all available networks and being a single connection point for our partners and providing our value-added services on all transactions, no matter the network. The key component of our network of networks strategy is interoperability. We are opening up our network and increasingly using other networks to reach accounts we could not otherwise reach and enabling new types of money movement. Visa B2B Connect, Visa Direct and Visa+ are examples of our strategy. Visa has invested more than $3 billion in AI and data infrastructure over the last 10 years.

Visa’s leading technology platforms comprise software, hardware, data centers and a large telecommunications infrastructure. Visa’s four data centers are a critical part of our global processing environment and have a high redundancy of network connectivity, power and cooling designed to provide continuous availability of systems. Together, these systems deliver the secure, convenient and reliable service that our clients and consumers expect from the Visa brand.

Our in-depth, multi-layer security approach includes a formal program to devalue sensitive and/or personal data through various cryptographic means; embedded security in the software development lifecycle; identity and access management controls to protect against unauthorized access; and advanced cyber detection and response capabilities. We use information security tools that help keep our clients and consumers safe and invest significantly in our comprehensive approach to cybersecurity. We deploy information security technologies to protect data confidentiality, the integrity of our network and service availability and to strengthen our core cybersecurity capabilities to minimize risk. Our payments ecosystem risk and control team continually monitors threats to the payments ecosystem to help ensure attacks are detected and prevented efficiently and effectively through pairing our AI capabilities with our security experts.

Attracting, developing and advancing the best talent globally is critical to our continued success. This year, we grew our total workforce from approximately 28,800 in fiscal 2023 to approximately 31,600 employees in fiscal 2024, an increase of 10 percent year over year. Voluntary workforce turnover (rolling 12-month attrition) was 5 percent as of September 30, 2024. Visa employees are located in more than 80 countries and territories, with 57 percent located outside the U.S. At the end of fiscal 2024, Visa’s global workforce was 58 percent men and 42 percent women, and women represented 38 percent of Visa’s leadership (defined as vice president level and above). In the U.S., ethnicity of our workforce was 42 percent Asian, 8 percent Black, 13 percent Hispanic, 3

As Visa strives to achieve our purpose and our growth objectives, we have focused on enhancing our employees’ expertise across our business. We offer unique career pathways for employees and provide them with tools and support to build on their leadership impact and develop their careers. Along with learning support from Visa University and our educational assistance program, employees are encouraged to broaden their knowledge and develop new skills through alternative career pathways and talent development programs including our global technology apprenticeship, military talent and mentorship programs. Visa’s commitment to fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration also is demonstrated through our employees’ adoption of generative AI tools for content generation, productivity and business automation, including an internal, secure version of ChatGPT and our Ask People Team Portal.

We are committed to providing benefits that support our employees. As part of our inclusive “whole person” approach to benefits, Visa offers a robust package of curated tools, resources, and benefits for our employees. While some programs may vary by location, some of our financial benefits include our 401(k) match, employee stock purchase plan and financial wellbeing sessions and resources. In addition to our enhanced mental well-being benefits, we began offering mental health first aid training for employees and are piloting a peer-to-peer ambassador network to create an employee support system.

Based on our latest employee engagement survey, 91% of employees would recommend Visa as a great place to work. We strive to put our people first, and this is exemplified by prioritizing investments to create spaces that encourage collaboration, inspire creativity and reflect our brand in our office locations and data centers worldwide. In 2024, Visa opened the Mission Rock market support center in San Francisco, forming a unified, complementary campus with our Foster City location.

This year, we also recommitted to ensuring that employees feel closely connected to one another and to our business at large. To support this effort, Visa activated Viva Engage, our new internal social network, as a place for all employees to collaborate, share information and connect with company leadership in real time, every day. Since our launch of Viva Engage, 97% of employees had visited the platform at least once, with 82% accessing the platform at least twice a week on average.

To better serve fintechs, Visa has a suite of streamlined commercial programs and digital onboarding tools. Fintech Fast Track, our flagship program for fintechs, is designed to help launch new financial features quickly, such as launching a new card program or enabling the movement of money with Visa Direct. We provide streamlined

Visa Ready, our certification program, helps technology companies build and launch payment solutions that meet Visa’s global standards around security and functionality. With our startup engagement programs, like the Visa Everywhere Initiative, early-stage companies can build payment solutions based on our capabilities. Visa also manages programs including She’s Next, Empowered by Visa, a global women’s entrepreneurship initiative, and the Africa Fintech Accelerator Program to uplift underrepresented communities.

Visa continually explores opportunities to augment our capabilities and provide meaningful value to our clients. Mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic investments complement our internal development and enhance our partnerships to align with Visa’s priorities. Visa applies a rigorous business analysis to our acquisitions, joint ventures and investments to ensure they will differentiate our network, provide value-added services and accelerate growth.

In fiscal 2024, we completed our acquisition of Pismo, and entered into definitive agreements to acquire a majority interest in Prosa, a leading payments processor in Mexico, and to acquire Featurespace, a developer of real-time AI payments protection technology that prevents and mitigates payments fraud and financial crime risks. After closing, Prosa will continue to operate as an independent company. The Prosa and Featurespace acquisitions are both subject to customary closing conditions, including applicable regulatory approvals.

We own and manage the Visa brand, which stands for acceptance, security, convenience, speed and reliability. Our portfolio of Visa-owned trademarks is important to our business. Generally, trademark registrations are valid indefinitely as long as they are in use and/or maintained. We give our clients access to these assets through agreements with our issuers and acquirers, which authorize the use of our trademarks in connection with their participation in our payments network. Additionally, we own a number of patents and patent applications related to our business and continue to pursue patents in emerging technologies that may have applications in our business. We rely on a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws in the U.S. and other jurisdictions, as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions, to protect our proprietary technology.

The global payments industry continues to undergo dynamic and rapid change. Existing and emerging competitors compete with Visa’s network and payment solutions for consumers and for participation by financial institutions and merchants. Technology and innovation are shifting consumer habits and driving growth opportunities in ecommerce, mobile payments, blockchain technology and digital currencies. These advances are enabling new entrants, many of which depart from traditional network payment models. In certain countries, the evolving regulatory landscape is creating local networks or enabling additional processing competition.

We compete against all forms of payment. These include paper-based payments, primarily cash and checks, and all forms of electronic payments. Our electronic payment competitors principally include:

We believe our fundamental value proposition of security, convenience, speed and reliability as well as the number of credentials and our acceptance footprint help us to succeed. In addition, we understand the needs of the individual markets in which we operate and partner with local financial institutions, merchants, fintechs, governments, NGOs and business organizations to provide tailored and innovative solutions. We will continue to utilize our network of networks strategy to facilitate the movement of money. We believe Visa is well-positioned competitively due to our global brand, our broad set of payment products, new flows offerings and value-added services and our proven track record of processing payment transactions securely and reliably.

There are a number of EU regulations that impact our business. As discussed above, the IFR regulates interchange rates within the EEA, requires Visa Europe to separate its payment card scheme activities from processing activities for accounting, organization and decision-making purposes within the EEA, and imposes limitations on network exclusivity and routing. National competent authorities in the EEA are responsible for monitoring and enforcing the IFR in their markets. We are also subject to regulations governing areas such as privacy and data protection, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism and sanctions. Other regulations in Europe, such as the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), require, among other things, that our financial institution clients provide certain customer account access rights to emerging non-financial institution players. PSD2 also includes strong customer authentication requirements for certain transactions that could impose both operational complexity on Visa and impact consumer payment experiences. Visa Europe is also subject to supervisory oversight by the European Central Bank and certain competent authorities in Europe.

In the UK, Visa Europe is designated as a Recognized Payment System, bringing it within the scope of the Bank of England’s supervisory powers and subjecting it to various requirements, including on issues such as governance and risk management designed to maintain the stability of the UK’s financial system. Visa Europe is also regulated by the UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), which has wide-ranging powers and authority to review our business practices, systems, rules and fees with respect to promoting competition and innovation in the UK, and ensuring payment systems take care of, and promote, the interests of service-users. The PSR recently established a supervisory team to specifically oversee payment system operators like Visa in the aforementioned areas. Post-Brexit, the UK has adopted various European regulations, including regulations that impact the payments ecosystem, such as the IFR and PSD2. The PSR is responsible for monitoring Visa Europe’s compliance with the IFR as adopted in the UK.

If widely varying regulations come into existence worldwide, we may have difficulty rapidly adjusting our products, services, fees and other important aspects of our business to comply with the regulations. Our compliance programs and policies are designed to support our compliance with a wide array of regulations and laws, such as regulations regarding anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, competition, money transfer services, privacy, and sanctions, and we continually adjust our compliance programs as regulations evolve. However, we cannot guarantee that our practices will be deemed compliant by all applicable regulatory authorities. In the event our controls should fail or we are found to be out of compliance for other reasons, we could be subject to monetary damages, civil and criminal penalties, litigation, investigations and proceedings, and damage to our global brands and reputation. Furthermore, the evolving and increased regulatory focus on the payments industry could negatively impact or reduce the number of Visa products our clients issue, the volume of payments we process, our net revenue, our brands, our competitive positioning, our ability to use our intellectual property to differentiate our products and services, the quality and types of products and services we offer, the countries in which our products are used, and the types of consumers and merchants who can obtain or accept our products, all of which could harm our business and financial results.

Interchange reimbursement fees, certain operating rules and related practices continue to be subject to increased government regulation globally, and regulatory authorities and central banks in a number of jurisdictions have reviewed or are reviewing these fees, rules, and practices. For example:

Regulators around the world increasingly take note of each other’s approaches to regulating the payments industry. Consequently, a development in one jurisdiction may influence regulatory approaches in another. The risks created by a new law, regulation or regulatory outcome in one jurisdiction have the potential to be replicated and to negatively affect our business in another jurisdiction or in other product offerings. For example, our settlement with the European Commission on cross-border interchange rates has drawn preliminary attention from some regulators in other parts of the world. Similarly, new regulations involving one product offering may prompt regulators to extend the regulations to other product offerings. For example, credit payments could become subject to similar regulation as debit payments (or vice versa). The RBA initially capped credit interchange, but subsequently capped debit interchange as well.

When we cannot set default interchange reimbursement rates at optimal levels, issuers and acquirers may find our payments system less attractive. This may increase the attractiveness of other payments systems, such as our competitors’ closed-loop payments systems with direct connections to both merchants and consumers. We believe some issuers may react to such regulations by charging new or higher fees, or reducing certain benefits to consumers, which make our products less appealing to consumers. Some acquirers may elect to charge higher MDR regardless of the Visa interchange reimbursement rate, causing merchants not to accept our products or to steer customers to alternative payments systems or forms of payment. In addition, in an effort to reduce the expense of their payment programs, some issuers and acquirers have obtained, and may continue to obtain, incentives from us, including reductions in the fees that we charge, which directly impacts our net revenue.

Finally, policymakers and regulatory bodies in the U.S., Europe, and other parts of the world are exploring ways to reform existing competition laws to meet the needs of the digital economy, including restricting large technology companies from engaging in mergers and acquisitions, requiring them to interoperate with potential competitors, and prohibiting certain kinds of self-preferencing behaviors. While the focus of these efforts remains primarily on increasing regulation of large technology, ecommerce and social media companies, they could also have implications for other types of companies including payments networks, which could constrain our ability to effectively manage our business or potentially limit how we make our products and services available.

Governments in a number of jurisdictions shield domestic payments providers, including card networks, brands, and processors, from international competition by imposing market access barriers and preferential domestic regulations. To varying degrees, these policies and regulations affect the terms of competition in the marketplace and impair the ability of international payments networks to compete. Public authorities may also impose regulatory requirements that favor domestic providers or mandate that domestic payments or data processing be performed entirely within that country, which could prevent us from managing the end-to-end processing of certain transactions.

In China, UnionPay remains the predominant processor of domestic payment card transactions and operates the predominant domestic acceptance mark. Although we filed an application with the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) in May 2020 to operate a Bank Card Clearing Institution (BCCI) in China, the timing and the procedural steps for approval remain uncertain. There is no guarantee that the license to operate a BCCI will be approved or, if we obtain such license, that we will be able to successfully compete with domestic payments networks. Co-badging and co-residency regulations also pose additional challenges in markets where Visa competes with national networks for issuance and routing. Certain banks have issued dual-branded cards for which domestic transactions in China are processed by UnionPay and transactions outside of China are processed by Visa or other international payments networks. The PBOC is contemplating that dual-branded cards be phased out over time as new licenses are issued to international companies to participate in China’s domestic payments market. Accordingly, we have been working with Chinese issuers to issue Visa-only branded cards for international travel, and later for domestic transactions should we obtain a BCCI license. However, notwithstanding such efforts, the phase out of dual-branded cards has decreased our payment volumes and impacted the net revenue we generate in China.

Regulatory initiatives in India, including a data localization mandate implemented by the government, have cost implications for us and could affect our ability to effectively compete with domestic payments providers. Furthermore, any inability to meet the requirements of the data localization mandate could impact our ability to do business in India. In Europe, with the support of the European Central Bank, a group of European banks announced their intent to launch a pan-European payment system, the European Payments Initiative (EPI). While EPI subsequently announced a focus on account-to-account instant payments across a range of use cases, the purported motivation behind EPI is to reduce the risks of disintermediation of European providers by international technology companies and continued reliance on international payments networks for intra-Europe card transactions. Furthermore, regional groups of countries, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and a number of countries in Southeast Asia (e.g., Malaysia), have adopted or may consider, efforts to restrict our participation in the processing of regional transactions. The African Development Bank has also indicated an interest in supporting national payment systems in its efforts to expand financial inclusion and strengthen regional financial stability. Finally, some countries such as Nigeria and South Africa are mandating on-shore processing of domestic transactions. Geopolitical events, including sanctions, trade tensions or other types of activities have intensified these activities, which could adversely affect our business. For example, in the aftermath of U.S. and European sanctions against Russia and the decision by U.S. payments networks, including Visa, to suspend operations in the country, some countries have expressed concerns about their reliance on U.S. financial services companies, including payments networks, and have taken steps to bolster the development of domestic solutions. Separately, Russia has called for the BRICS countries (a five-country bloc made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and which has recently expanded to include countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), to lessen dependence on Western payments systems by, among other things, integrating payments systems and cards across member countries.

Due to our inability to manage the end-to-end processing of transactions for cards in certain countries (e.g., Thailand), we depend on our close working relationships with our clients or third-party service providers to ensure transactions involving our products are processed effectively. Our ability to do so may be adversely affected by regulatory requirements and policies pertaining to transaction routing or on-shore processing. In general, national laws that protect or otherwise support domestic providers or processing may increase our costs; decrease our payments volumes and impact the net revenue we generate in those countries; decrease the number of Visa products issued or processed; impede us from utilizing our global processing capabilities and controlling the quality of the services supporting our brands; restrict our activities; limit our growth and the ability to introduce new products, services and innovations; force us to leave countries or prevent us from entering new markets; and create new competitors, all of which could harm our business.

Our business relies on the processing of data across national borders. Legal requirements relating to the collection, storage, handling, use, disclosure, transfer, disposal and security of personal data continue to evolve, and we are subject to an increasing number of privacy, data protection, cybersecurity and AI requirements around the world. For example, our ongoing efforts to comply with complex U.S. state privacy and data protection regulations, and emerging international privacy and data protection laws, may increase the complexity of our compliance operations, entail substantial expenses, divert resources from other initiatives and projects, and limit the services we are able to offer. Additionally, privacy laws in other regions, such as China’s Personal Information Protection Law and India’s Personal Data Protection Act, may have extraterritorial application and include restrictions on cross-border data transfers, extensive notification and localization requirements, and substantial compliance and audit obligations. The global proliferation of new privacy and data protection laws may lead to inconsistent and conflicting requirements, which create an uncertain regulatory environment. Noncompliance could also result in regulatory penalties and significant legal liability. Enforcement actions and investigations by regulatory authorities into companies related to data security incidents and privacy violations are generally increasing. In Europe, data protection authorities continue to apply and enforce the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), imposing record setting fines.

The application of tax laws requires significant judgment and can be subject to uncertainty and differing interpretations. We are currently under examination by, or in disputes with, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as well as tax authorities in other jurisdictions, and we may be subject to additional examinations or disputes in the future. We exercise significant judgment and make estimates that we believe to be reasonable in calculating our worldwide provision for income taxes and other tax liabilities. However, relevant tax authorities may disagree with our estimates, interpretations or tax treatment of certain material items. Failure to sustain our position in these matters could adversely affect our cash flows and financial position.

The global payments space is intensely competitive. As technology evolves and consumer expectations change, new competitors or methods of payment emerge, and existing clients and competitors assume different roles. Our products compete with cash, checks, electronic payments, virtual currency payments, global or multi-regional networks, other domestic and closed-loop payments systems, digital wallets and alternative payments providers primarily focused on enabling payments through ecommerce and mobile channels. As the global payments space becomes more complex, we face increasing competition from our clients, other emerging payment providers such as fintechs, other digital payments, technology companies that have developed payments systems

Our competitors may acquire, develop, or make better use of substantially better technology, have more widely adopted delivery channels, or have greater financial resources. They may offer more effective, innovative or a wider range of programs, products and services. They may use more effective advertising and marketing strategies that result in broader brand recognition and greater use, including with respect to issuance and merchant acceptance. They may also develop better security solutions or more favorable pricing arrangements. Moreover, even if we successfully adapt to technological change and the proliferation of alternative types of payment services by developing and offering our own services in these areas, such services may provide less favorable financial terms for us than we currently receive from VisaNet transactions, which could hurt our financial results and prospects.

Certain of our competitors operate with different business models, have different cost structures or participate in different market segments. Many of these competitors are also able to use existing payment networks without being subject to many of the associated costs. Moreover, these competitors also occupy various roles in the payments ecosystem that enable them to influence payment choice of other participants. Those business models may ultimately prove more successful or more adaptable to regulatory, technological and other developments. In some cases, these competitors have the support of government mandates that prohibit, limit or otherwise hinder our ability to compete for transactions within certain countries and regions. Some of our competitors, including American Express, Discover, private-label card networks, virtual currency providers, technology companies that enable the exchange of digital assets, and certain alternative payments systems like Alipay and WeChat Pay, operate closed-loop payments systems, with direct connections to both merchants and consumers. Government actions or initiatives such as the Dodd-Frank Act, the IFR in Europe, or RTP initiatives by governments such as the U.S. Federal Reserve’s FedNow or the Central Bank of Brazil’s Pix system may provide competitors with increased opportunities to derive competitive advantages from these business models, and may create new competitors, including in some cases the government itself. Similarly, regulation in Europe under PSD2 and the IFR may require us to open up access to, and allow participation in, our network to additional participants, and reduce the infrastructure investment and regulatory burden on competitors. In addition to the open banking provisions under PSD2, efforts to implement or facilitate open banking and open finance requirements are underway across a number of countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada and the U.S., which could impose additional requirements on financial institutions or others regarding access to and use of financial data. We also run the risk of disintermediation due to factors such as emerging technologies and platforms, including mobile payments, alternative payment credentials, other ledger technologies or payment forms, and by virtue of increasing bilateral agreements between entities that prefer not to use our payments network for processing transactions. For example, merchants could process transactions directly with issuers, or processors could process transactions directly with issuers and acquirers.

We expect the competitive landscape to continue to shift and evolve. For example:

As the competitive landscape is quickly evolving, we may not be able to foresee or respond sufficiently to emerging risks associated with new businesses, products, services and practices. We may be asked to adjust our local rules and practices, develop or customize certain aspects of our payment services, or agree to business arrangements that may be less protective of Visa’s proprietary technology and interests in order to compete and we may face increasing operational costs and risk of litigation concerning intellectual property. Our failure to compete effectively in light of any such developments could harm our business and prospects for future growth.

In addition, we face intense competitive pressure on the prices we charge our financial institution clients. In certain regions, we are increasingly facing competition from RTP networks, other payment facilitators offering lower pricing, and government involvement in domestic and cross-border payments. In order to stay competitive, we may need to adjust our pricing or offer incentives to our clients to grow payments volume, enter new market segments, adapt to regulatory changes, and expand their use and acceptance of Visa products and services. These include up-front cash payments, fee discounts, rebates, credits, performance-based incentives, marketing and other support payments that impact our net revenue and profitability. In addition, we offer incentives to certain merchants and acquirers to encourage them to route transactions to Visa. Pressures on pricing, incentives, fee discounts and rebates could moderate our growth. If we are not able to implement cost containment and productivity initiatives in other areas of our business or grow our volumes in other ways to offset or absorb the financial impact of these incentives, fee discounts and rebates, it may harm our net revenue and profits.

In addition, it may be difficult or costly for us to acquire or conduct business with financial institutions or merchants that have longstanding exclusive, or nearly exclusive, relationships with our competitors. These financial institutions or merchants may be more successful and may grow more quickly than our existing clients or merchants. In addition, if there is a consolidation or acquisition of one or more of our largest clients or co-brand partners by a financial institution client or merchant with a strong relationship with one of our competitors, it could

As noted above, our relationships with industry participants are complex and require us to balance the interests of multiple third parties. For instance, we depend significantly on relationships with our financial institution clients and on their relationships with account holders and merchants to provide our products and services, and thereby compete effectively in the marketplace. We offer incentives to merchants, acquirers, ecommerce platforms and processors to encourage routing preference and acceptance growth. We also engage in many payment card co-branding efforts with merchants, who receive incentives from us. As emerging participants such as fintechs enter the payments industry, we engage in discussions to address the role they may play in the ecosystem, whether as, for example, an issuer, merchant, ecommerce platform or digital wallet provider. As these and other relationships become more prevalent and take on a greater importance to our business, our success will increasingly depend on our ability to sustain and grow these relationships. In addition, we depend on our clients and third parties, including network partners, vendors and suppliers, to submit, facilitate and process transactions properly, provide various services associated with our payments network on our behalf, and otherwise adhere to our operating rules and applicable laws. As our clients expand their global footprint, their legal and regulatory obligations can become even more complex. From time to time, our relationships may be affected by actions of our clients and industry participants that may materially and adversely impact our business, products or services, and to the extent we or such parties fail to perform or deliver adequate services or comply with regulatory obligations, it may result in negative experiences for account holders or others when using their Visa-branded payment products, which could harm our business and reputation.

Our brand is globally recognized and is a key asset of our business. We believe that our clients and their account holders associate our brand with acceptance, security, convenience, speed, and reliability. Our success depends in large part on our ability to maintain the value of our brand and reputation of our products and services in the payments ecosystem, elevate the brand through new and existing products, services and partnerships, and

More than half of our net revenue is earned outside the U.S. In addition, international cross-border transaction revenue represents a significant part of our net revenue and is an important part of our growth strategy. Our net revenue is dependent on the volume and number of payment transactions made by consumers, governments, and businesses whose spending patterns may be affected by economic, political, market, health and social events or conditions. Adverse macroeconomic conditions within the U.S. or internationally, including but not limited to recessions, inflation, rising interest rates, high unemployment, currency fluctuations, actual or anticipated large-scale defaults or failures, rising energy prices, or a slowdown of global trade, and reduced consumer, small business, government, and corporate spending, have a direct impact on our volumes, transactions and net revenue. Furthermore, in efforts to deal with adverse macroeconomic conditions, governments may introduce new or additional initiatives or requests to reduce or eliminate payment fees or other costs. In an overall soft global economy, such pricing measures could result in additional financial pressures on our business.

In addition, outbreaks of illnesses, pandemics like COVID-19, or other local or global health issues, political uncertainties, international hostilities, armed conflicts, wars, civil unrest, climate-related events, including the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, impacts to the power grid, and natural disasters have to varying degrees negatively impacted our operations, clients, third-party suppliers, activities, and cross-border travel and spend.

Geopolitical trends towards nationalism, protectionism, and restrictive visa requirements, as well as continued activity and uncertainty around economic sanctions, tariffs or trade restrictions, including restrictions on the cross-border flow of data, also limit the expansion of our business in certain regions and have resulted in us suspending our operations in other regions. During fiscal 2022, economic sanctions were imposed on Russia by the U.S., the EU, United Kingdom and other jurisdictions and authorities, impacting Visa and its clients. In March 2022, we suspended our operations in Russia and as a result, are no longer generating revenue from domestic and cross-border activities related to Russia. The war in Ukraine and any further actions by, or in response to such actions by, Russia or its allies could have lasting impacts on Ukraine as well as other regional and global economies, any or all of which could adversely affect our business. The ongoing military conflict in the Middle East, and any resulting conflicts in the region, could potentially have similar negative impacts.

A decline in economic, political, market, health and social conditions could impact our clients as well, and their decisions could reduce the number of cards, accounts, and credit lines of their account holders, and impact overall consumption by consumers and businesses, which would ultimately impact our net revenue. Our clients may implement cost-reduction initiatives that reduce or eliminate marketing budgets, and decrease spending on optional or enhanced value-added services from us. Any events or conditions that impair the functioning of the financial markets, tighten the credit market, or lead to a downgrade of our current credit rating could increase our future borrowing costs and impair our ability to access the capital and credit markets on favorable terms, which could affect our liquidity and capital resources, or significantly increase our cost of capital.

Finally, as governments, investors and other stakeholders face additional pressures to accelerate actions to address climate change and other environmental, governance and social topics, governments are implementing regulations and investors and other stakeholders are imposing new expectations or focusing investments in ways that may cause significant shifts in disclosure, commerce and consumption behaviors that may have negative impacts on our business. As a result of any of these factors, any decline in cross-border travel and spend would impact our cross-border volumes, the number of cross-border transactions we process and our currency exchange activities, which in turn would reduce our international transaction revenue.

We are subject to laws, regulations and other measures that govern a wide range of topics, including those that are related to matters beyond our core products and services, such as matters that touch upon sustainability, climate change, human capital, inclusion and diversity, and human rights. A wide range of stakeholders, including governments, customers, employees, and investors, are increasingly focused on and are developing expectations regarding these corporate responsibility matters. We have established CRS-related initiatives, adopted reporting frameworks, and announced several related goals. These goals may change from time to time, implementation of these goals may require considerable investments, and ultimately, we cannot guarantee that we will achieve them.

Our ability to achieve any CRS objectives is subject to numerous risks, many of which are outside of our control, including the evolving legal environment and regulatory requirements for the tracking and reporting of CRS standards or disclosures and the actions of suppliers, partners, and other third parties. Certain of our regulators have proposed or adopted, or may propose or adopt, rules or standards related to these matters that would apply to our business. New regulations have been enacted and/or are expected in several jurisdictions, including the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the SEC climate-related disclosures that could require disclosure of climate-related information and the State of California’s legislation requiring broad disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and other climate-related information. Prevailing CRS standards and expectations may also reflect conflicting values or objectives, which can result in our practices being judged by standards that are continually evolving and are not always clear. From time to time, the methodologies for reporting our CRS data may be updated and previously reported data may be adjusted to reflect an improvement in the availability and quality of data, changing assumptions, changes in the nature and scope of our operations, and other changes in circumstances. This may result in a lack of consistent or meaningful comparative data from period to period or between us and other companies in the same industry. Further, where new laws or regulations are more stringent than current legal or regulatory requirements, we may experience increased compliance burdens and costs to meet such obligations.

Our stakeholders often hold differing views on our CRS-related goals and initiatives, which may result in negative attention in traditional and social media or a negative perception of our response to concerns regarding these matters. In addition, we also face potentially conflicting supervisory directives as certain U.S. regulatory and non-U.S. authorities have prioritized CRS-related issues while Congress and certain U.S. state governments have signaled pursuing potentially conflicting priorities. These circumstances, among others, may result in pressure from investors, unfavorable reputational impacts, including inaccurate perceptions or a misrepresentation of our actual CRS practices, diversion of management’s attention and resources, and proxy fights, among other material adverse impacts on our business. Any failure, or perceived failure, by us to adhere to our public statements, comply fully with developing interpretations of CRS laws and regulations, or meet evolving and varied stakeholder expectations and standards could negatively impact our business, reputation, financial condition, and operating results.

We indemnify issuers and acquirers for settlement losses they may suffer due to the failure of another issuer or acquirer to honor its settlement obligations in accordance with the Visa operating rules. In certain instances, we may indemnify issuers or acquirers in situations in which a transaction is not processed by our system. This indemnification creates settlement risk for us due to the timing difference between the date of a payment transaction and the date of subsequent settlement. Our indemnification exposure is generally limited to the amount of unsettled Visa card payment transactions at any point in time and any subsequent amounts that may fall due relating to adjustments for previously processed transactions. Changes in the credit standing of our clients or concurrent settlement failures or insolvencies involving more than one of our largest clients, several of our smaller clients, significant sponsor banks through which non-financial institutions participate in the Visa network, or systemic operational failures could expose us to liquidity risk, and negatively impact our financial position. Even if we have sufficient liquidity to cover a settlement failure or insolvency, we may be unable to recover the amount of such

The global payments industry is undergoing significant and rapid technological change, including increased proliferation of mobile and other proximity and in-app payment technologies, ecommerce, tokenization, cryptocurrencies, distributed ledger and blockchain technologies, cloud-based encryption and authorization, and new authentication technologies such as biometrics, FIDO 2.0, 3D Secure 2.0 and dynamic cardholder verification values or dCVV2. As a result, we expect new services and technologies to continue to emerge and evolve, including those developed by Visa such as our new flows offerings. For example, generative AI solutions have emerged as an opportunity for Visa, its clients, suppliers, merchants, and partners to innovate more quickly and better serve consumers. Rapid adoption and novel uses of generative AI across the marketplace may also introduce unique and unpredictable security risks to our systems, information, and the payments ecosystem. In addition to our own initiatives and innovations, we work closely with third parties, including potential competitors, for the development of, and access to, new technologies. It is difficult, however, to predict which technological developments or innovations will become widely adopted and how those technologies may be regulated. Moreover, some of the new technologies could be subject to intellectual property-related lawsuits or claims, potentially impacting our development efforts and/or requiring us to obtain licenses, implement design changes or discontinue our use. If we or our partners fail to adapt and keep pace with new technologies in the payments space in a timely manner, it could harm our ability to compete, decrease the value of our products and services to our clients, impact our intellectual property or licensing rights, harm our business and impact our future growth.

Our cybersecurity and processing systems, as well as those of financial institutions, merchants and third-party service providers, have experienced and may continue to experience errors, interruptions, delays or damage from a number of causes, including power outages, hardware, software and network failures, computer viruses, ransomware, malware or other destructive software, AI technologies by bad actors, internal design, manual or user errors, cyber attacks, terrorism, political tensions, war or other military conflicts, or civil unrest, security breaches of our physical premises, workplace violence or wrongdoing, catastrophic events, natural disasters, severe weather conditions and other effects from climate change. In addition, there is risk that third-party suppliers of hardware and infrastructure required to operate our data centers and support employee productivity could be impacted by supply chain disruptions, such as manufacturing, shipping delays, and service disruption due to cyber attacks. An extended supply chain or service disruption could also impact processing or delivery of technology services.

Furthermore, our visibility and role in the global payments industry also puts our company at a greater risk of being targeted by hackers. In the normal course of our business, we have been the target of malicious cyber activity. We have been, and may continue to be, impacted by attacks and data security breaches of financial institutions, merchants, and third-party service providers. We are also aware of instances where governments have directed or sponsored attacks against some of our financial institution clients, and other instances where merchants and issuers have encountered substantial data security breaches affecting their customers, some of whom were Visa account holders. Given the increase in online banking, ecommerce and other online activity, we continue to see increased cyber and payment fraud activity, as cybercriminals attempt phishing and social engineering scams, distributed denial of service attacks and other disruptive actions. Overall, such attacks and breaches have resulted, and may continue to result in, fraudulent activity and ultimately, financial losses to Visa’s financial institution clients, merchants or third-party service providers.

Numerous and evolving cybersecurity threats, including advanced and persistent cyber attacks, targeted attacks against our employees and trusted partners, insider threats, social engineering threats, such as phishing or deepfake schemes, including those using synthetic media, could compromise the confidentiality, availability and integrity of data in our systems, particularly on our internet-facing applications, or the systems of our third-party service providers. Because the tactics, techniques and procedures used to obtain unauthorized access, or to disable or degrade systems change frequently, have become increasingly more complex and sophisticated, and may be difficult to detect for periods of time, we may not anticipate these acts or respond adequately or timely. For example, cybercriminals have increasingly demonstrated advanced capabilities, such as use of zero-day

In addition, as a global financial services company, Visa is increasingly subject to complex and varied cybersecurity regulations and cyber incident reporting requirements across numerous jurisdictions. With the often short timeframes required for cyber incident reporting, there is a risk that Visa or its third-party service providers will fail to meet the reporting deadlines for any given incident. It may take considerable time for us to investigate and evaluate the full impact of cyber incidents, particularly for sophisticated attacks. These factors may inhibit our ability to provide prompt, full, and reliable information about the cyber incident to our clients, partners, and regulators, as well as to the public. In the event we are found to be out of compliance, we could be subject to monetary damages, civil and criminal penalties, litigation, investigations and proceedings, and damage to our reputation and brand.

Any of these events, individually or in the aggregate, could significantly disrupt our operations; result in the unauthorized disclosure, release, gathering, monitoring, misuse, loss or destruction of confidential, proprietary, sensitive and personal information (including account data information) or data security compromises; impact our clients and consumers; damage our reputation and brand; result in litigation or claims, violations of applicable privacy and other laws, and increased regulatory review or scrutiny, investigations, actions, fines or penalties; result in damages or changes to our business practices; decrease the overall use and acceptance of our products; decrease our volume, net revenue and future growth prospects; and be costly, time consuming and difficult to remedy. In the event of damage or disruption to our business due to these occurrences, we may not be able to successfully and quickly recover all of our critical business functions, assets, and data through our business continuity program. Furthermore, while we maintain insurance, our coverage may not sufficiently cover all types of losses or claims that may arise.

As part of our overall business strategy, we make acquisitions and strategic investments, and enter into joint ventures. We may not achieve the anticipated benefits of our current and future acquisitions, joint ventures or strategic investments and they may involve significant risks and uncertainties, including:

In addition, we may pursue additional strategic objectives, such as additional exchange offers, which can divert resources and management’s attention from our existing business and, if unsuccessful, may harm our business and reputation.

The talents and efforts of our employees, particularly our key management, are vital to our success. The market for highly skilled workers and leaders in our industry, especially in fintech, technology, cybersecurity and other specialized areas, is extremely competitive. Our management team has significant industry experience and would be difficult to replace. We may be unable to retain them or to attract, hire or retain other highly qualified employees, particularly if we do not offer employment terms that are competitive with the rest of the labor market. Ongoing changes in laws and policies regarding immigration, travel and work authorizations have made it more difficult for employees to work in, or transfer among, jurisdictions in which we have operations and could continue to impair our ability to attract, hire and retain qualified employees. Failure to attract, hire, develop, motivate and retain highly qualified and diverse employee talent, especially in light of changing worker expectations and talent marketplace variability regarding flexible work models; to meet our goals related to fostering an inclusive and diverse culture or to adequately address potential increased scrutiny of our inclusion and diversity-related programs and initiatives; to develop and implement an adequate succession plan for the management team; to maintain our strong corporate culture of fostering innovation, collaboration and inclusion in our current hybrid model; or to design and successfully implement flexible work models that meet the expectations of employees and prospective employees could impact our workforce development goals, impact our ability to achieve our business objectives, and adversely affect our business and our future success.

The market price of our class A common stock could fall as a result of many factors. The value of our class B-1, B-2 and C common stock and series A, B and C preferred stock is tied to the value of the class A common stock. Under our U.S. retrospective responsibility plan, upon final resolution of our U.S. covered litigation, all class

Although their voting rights are limited, holders of our class B-1, B-2 and C common stock and, in certain specified circumstances, holders of our series A, B and C preferred stock, can vote on certain significant transactions. With respect to our class B-1, B-2 and C common stock, these transactions include a proposed consolidation or merger, a decision to exit our core payments business and any other vote required under Delaware law. With respect to our series A, B and C preferred stock, voting rights are limited to proposed consolidations or mergers in which holders of the series A, B and C preferred stock would receive shares of stock or other equity securities with preferences, rights and privileges that are not substantially identical to the preferences, rights and privileges of the applicable series of preferred stock; or, in the case of series B and C preferred stock, holders would receive securities, cash or other property that is different from what our class A common stockholders would receive. Because the holders of classes of capital stock other than class A common stock are our current and former financial institution clients, they may have interests that diverge from our class A common stockholders. As a result, the holders of these classes of capital stock may not have the same incentive to approve a corporate action that may be favorable to the holders of class A common stock, and their interests may otherwise conflict with interests of our class A common stockholders.

Provisions contained in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and our capital structure could delay or prevent a merger, takeover attempt or change in control that our stockholders may consider favorable. For example, except for limited exceptions:

Visa’s global cyber security incident response team provides monitoring of Visa networks and digital assets across three cyber fusion centers in the U.S., United Kingdom, and Singapore. In addition, Visa’s threat intelligence and research teams monitor commercial and government intelligence sources for new and emerging threats. Our cybersecurity awareness team regularly publishes and shares information with Visa employees on emerging threats, such as deepfake and generative AI-powered social engineering schemes.

To address significant cybersecurity incidents and other crisis events, we maintain a business incident response plan, which identifies key stakeholders, defines escalation processes, and sets the thresholds above which our cybersecurity, legal, and crisis management teams will inform management’s Executive and Disclosure Committees as well as when the CEO and his designee will inform the board of directors of an incident. For cybersecurity incidents below these crisis thresholds, we maintain subordinate incident response plans and standard operating procedures used by our security incident response team. Like many companies, we, and some third parties on which we rely periodically experience cybersecurity incidents. However, as of September 30, 2024, we were not aware of any direct or third-party cybersecurity incidents in the past three fiscal years that have materially affected our business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition.

We proactively manage our cybersecurity risk by continually seeking to identify and mitigate potential cybersecurity threats to and vulnerabilities in our information and technology assets, with both internal and external assessments, as appropriate. For example, public-facing technology assets are subject to both internal security

Our CISO is responsible for day-to-day management and oversight of our information security program and leads our cybersecurity organization, which comprises approximately 1,000 professionals globally as of September 30, 2024. Our CISO and President of Technology receive regular reports from our cybersecurity personnel in connection with monitoring the prevention, detection, mitigation, and remediation of cybersecurity incidents. Our CISO reports directly to our President of Technology and provides quarterly reports on our cybersecurity performance to the CRC.

Our current CISO has over 30 years of industry experience leading enterprise cybersecurity teams and enabling secure and scalable ecommerce and payment platforms at multiple Fortune 500 companies. Since joining Visa in November 2015, he has been a core part of building Visa's Zero Trust Architecture and advancing VisaNet's cybersecurity defense capabilities. Our current President of Technology joined Visa in November 2013 and has over 30 years of experience in leading the development and deployment of commerce and transaction technologies, which includes overseeing cybersecurity risk and transformational technology initiatives. At Visa, our President of Technology is responsible for the Company’s technology innovation and investment strategy, product engineering, cybersecurity, global IT, and operations infrastructure, and for accelerating the integration of engineering and product teams.

As of September 30, 2024, we owned or leased 135 office locations in 83 countries around the world, including four data centers located in the U.S., the United Kingdom and Singapore. Our corporate headquarters are located in owned and leased premises in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We believe that these facilities are suitable and adequate to support our ongoing business needs.

Not applicable.

Our class A common stock has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol V. As of November 6, 2024, we had 319 stockholders of record of our class A common stock. The number of beneficial owners is substantially greater than the number of record holders, because a large portion of our class A common stock is held in “street name” by brokers and other financial institutions on behalf of our stockholders. There is currently no established public trading market for our class B-1, B-2 or C common stock. As of November 6, 2024, there were 657, 215 and 353 holders of record of our class B-1, B-2 and C common stock, respectively.

On October 29, 2024, our board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.59 per share of class A common stock (determined in the case of all other outstanding common and preferred stock on an as-converted basis) payable on December 2, 2024, to holders of record as of November 12, 2024.

Subject to legally available funds, we expect to continue paying quarterly cash dividends on our outstanding common and preferred stock in the future. However, the declaration and payment of future dividends is at the sole discretion of our board of directors after taking into account various factors, including our financial condition, settlement indemnifications, operating results, available cash and current and anticipated cash needs.

This section of the report generally discusses fiscal 2024 compared to fiscal 2023. Discussions of fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 that are not included in this report can be found in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Part II, Item 7 in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2023, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Visa is a global payments technology company that facilitates global commerce and money movement across more than 200 countries and territories among a global set of consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities through innovative technologies. We provide transaction processing services (primarily authorization, clearing and settlement) to our financial institution and merchant clients through VisaNet, our proprietary advanced transaction processing network. We offer products, solutions and services that facilitate secure, reliable and efficient money movement for all participants in the ecosystem.

Non-GAAP operating expenses, non-operating income (expense), income tax provision, effective income tax rate, net income and diluted earnings per share should not be relied upon as substitutes for, or considered in isolation from, measures calculated in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The following tables reconcile our as-reported financial measures, calculated in accordance with U.S. GAAP, to our respective non-GAAP financial measures:

Net revenue increased in fiscal 2024 over the prior year primarily due to the growth in nominal cross-border volume, processed transactions and nominal payments volume, partially offset by higher client incentives.

Our net revenue is impacted by the overall strengthening or weakening of the U.S. dollar as payments volume and related revenue denominated in local currencies are converted to U.S. dollars. In fiscal 2024, exchange rate movements did not have a material impact on net revenue growth.

Our operating expenses consist of the following:

Non-operating income (expense) primarily includes interest expense related to borrowings, gains and losses on investments and derivative instruments as well as interest expense related to taxes.

During fiscal 2024, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published administrative guidance around the implementation of a 15% global minimum tax (Pillar Two). Various OECD member countries have either enacted or are in the process of enacting Pillar Two legislation, which will apply to Visa beginning in fiscal 2025. While we do not expect a material tax impact in fiscal 2025, we are monitoring developments and evaluating the potential impact of Pillar Two on future years.

Based on our current cash flow budgets and forecasts of our short-term and long-term liquidity needs, we believe that our current and projected sources of liquidity will be sufficient to meet our projected liquidity needs for more than the next 12 months. We will continue to assess our liquidity position and potential sources of supplemental liquidity in view of our operating performance, current economic and capital market conditions and other relevant circumstances.

The following table summarizes our cash flow activity:

Factors that may impact the liquidity of our investment portfolio include, but are not limited to, changes to credit ratings of the securities, uncertainty related to regulatory developments, actions by central banks and other monetary authorities and the ongoing strength and quality of credit markets. We will continue to review our portfolio in light of evolving market and economic conditions. However, if current market conditions deteriorate, the liquidity of our investment portfolio may be impacted and we could determine that some of our investments are impaired, which could adversely impact our financial results. We have policies that limit the amount of credit exposure to any one financial institution or type of investment.

In November 2023, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2023-07, which is intended to improve reportable segment disclosure requirements, primarily through enhanced disclosures about significant segment expenses. This standard also enhances interim disclosure requirements and provides new segment disclosure requirements for entities with a single reportable segment. This ASU is effective for our annual periods beginning October 1, 2024, and interim periods beginning October 1, 2025, and requires retrospective application to all prior periods presented. We are currently evaluating the impact of the ASU on our disclosures.

In December 2023, the FASB issued ASU 2023-09, which provides improvements to income tax disclosures. This standard requires disaggregated information related to the effective tax rate reconciliation as well as information on income taxes paid. This ASU is effective for our annual periods beginning October 1, 2025, and requires prospective application with the option to apply the standard retrospectively. We are currently evaluating the impact of the ASU on our disclosures.

In November 2024, the FASB issued ASU 2024-03, which requires disclosure of additional information about specific expense categories underlying certain income statement expense line items. This ASU is effective for our annual periods beginning October 1, 2027, and requires either prospective or retrospective application. We are currently evaluating the impact of the ASU on our disclosures.

We believe that the following accounting estimates are the most critical to fully understand and evaluate our reported financial results, as they require our most subjective or complex management judgments, resulting from the need to make estimates about the effect of matters that are inherently uncertain and unpredictable.

Market risk is the potential economic loss arising from adverse changes in market factors. Our exposure to financial market risks results primarily from fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, interest rates and equity prices. Aggregate risk exposures are monitored on an ongoing basis.

We are exposed to risks from foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations that are primarily related to changes in the functional currency value of receipts and payments related to foreign currency-denominated transactions. We manage these risks by entering into foreign currency forward contracts that hedge exposures of the variability in the functional currency equivalent of anticipated non-functional currency denominated cash flows. Our foreign currency exchange rate risk management program reduces, but does not entirely eliminate, the impact of foreign currency exchange rate movements.

We are further exposed to foreign currency exchange rate risk related to translation as the functional currency of Visa Europe is the Euro. Translation from the Euro to the U.S. dollar is performed for balance sheet accounts using exchange rates in effect at the balance sheet dates and for revenue and expense accounts using an average exchange rate for the period. Resulting translation adjustments are reported as a component of accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) on the consolidated balance sheets. A hypothetical 10% change in the Euro against the U.S. dollar compared to the exchange rate as of September 30, 2024 and 2023 would result in a foreign currency translation adjustment of $2.1 billion and $1.9 billion, respectively.

We are also subject to foreign currency exchange risk in daily settlement activities. This risk arises from the timing of rate setting for settlement with clients relative to the timing of market trades for balancing currency positions. Risk in settlement activities is limited through daily operating procedures, including the utilization of Visa settlement systems and our interaction with foreign exchange trading counterparties.

Our investment portfolio assets are held in both fixed-rate and adjustable-rate securities. Investments in fixed-rate instruments carry a degree of interest rate risk. The fair value of fixed-rate securities may be adversely impacted due to a rise in interest rates. Additionally, a falling-rate environment creates reinvestment risk because as

Our equity investments are held in both marketable and non-marketable equity securities. The marketable equity securities are investments in publicly traded companies and the non-marketable equity securities include investments in privately held companies. As of September 30, 2024 and 2023, the carrying value of our marketable equity securities was $63 million and $163 million, respectively, and the carrying value of our non-marketable equity securities was $1.4 billion for each fiscal year. These securities are subject to a wide variety of market-related risks that could substantially reduce or increase the fair value of our holdings. A decline in financial condition or operating results of these investments could result in a loss of all or a substantial part of our carrying value in these companies. We regularly review our non-marketable equity securities for possible impairment, which generally involves an analysis of the facts and changes in circumstances influencing the investment, expectations of the entity’s cash flows and capital needs, and the viability of its business model.