Americas Payment Technology 3Q26 Preview Expect strong spending trends and more constructive thematics to sustain recent st...

Equity Research 13 October 2026 | 12:01AM EDT

3Q26 Preview: Expect strong spending trends and more constructive thematics to sustain recent strength

Heading into 3Q earnings we are broadly positive on the set up for the group, due to Will Nance | several factors: First, spending volumes have remained robust, defying investors Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

fears around a normalization of spend and ending the quarter on a high note, with Jack Evans | September spending trends remaining strong. Second, the broader structural Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC concerns around the group have also trended favorably with several regulatory and Chandru Ravikumar | disruptive risks fading (see below) and Agentic commerce in particular emerging as a Goldman Sachs India SPL symbiotic growth driver of carded payments. Finally, from a flow of funds perspective, we believe payments stands out as relatively insulated from several Ryan Wolf | broad market concerns, including 1) higher interest rates 2) higher inflation and 3) Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

AI-driven disruption. After several years of multiple compression, the space also stands out as inexpensive vs history (see Exhibit 14). So from a top down perspective, we view the space as attractive, and from a bottom up perspective, stocks to highlight in payments are V, MA, TOST, and GLBE. Into earnings, we are more constructive on the setup on V, MA PYPL, GLBE, and RSKD, while we are more cautious on the set up for FIS, FISV, and FOUR.

Payments 3Q26 Analysis Pack n Visa Guidance: Mapping the F2027 guide to VAS growth: In our view the debate around Visa over the next year centers around the degree to which VAS revenues will decelerate and lead to more normalized revenue growth following a year of standout organic growth and several more one off contributors (World Cup and Olympics marketing, and U.S. fiscal stimulus). Looking ahead to next year, assuming modest deceleration in core payments revenues and assuming VAS growth declerates from mid-thirties to the 20-26% range on tougher comps, we believe Visa could still be in the 12-13% range on organic revenue growth (Exhibit 2), which would be +1-2% vs consensus and likely sustain recent outperformance. n Network Disruption watch: We provide an update on several items weighing on payments / card network sentiment in the first half of the year. This includes 1) U.S. regulatory developments 2) merchant litigation debates 3) geopolitical overhangs 4) crypto and stablecoins and 5 AI / Agentic commerce. All of these were headwinds to sentiment earlier in the year, and for the most part we believe these issues have trended favorably, contributing to the better stock

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Goldman Sachs Americas Payment Technology

performance more recently. For a more detailed update on these issues, see Exhibit 4 inside. n MA’s UAE deal: We spotlight MA’s recent announcement that it will provide network services to power the domestic debit scheme in the UAE. While this is effectively a payments deal, the revenues will flow through VASS revenues and builds on MA’s investments in payment infrastructure. We estimate an addressable pool of roughly ~78bn in domestic Debit volumes in the UAE (Exhibit 5), and assuming this deal comes on at roughly half of MA’s standard payment take rate, this deal could add as much as 0.5% to 2027 VASS revenues and 0.2% to total net revenue growth. n Updated sizing of GLBE’s Shopify partnership: GLBE’s Shopify partnership to power Shopify’s cross border solution (Shopify Managed Markets) for smaller merchants is finally moving forward, with Shopify moving to default-on status for new merchants and taking the product internationally. In Exhibit…