Payments and Fintech Communacopia + Technology 2026 — Key Takeaways

Equity Research 14 September 2026 | 8:02AM EDT

Payments and Fintech: Communacopia + Technology 2026 — Key Takeaways

Will Nance | Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

Jack Evans | Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

Chandru Ravikumar We hosted 20 fireside chats, 2 management dinners and sat in on numerous investor | meetings over 3 days this year. Overall, we believe the takeaways from the Goldman Sachs India SPL conference were constructive, and see the industry well positioned to benefit from Ryan Wolf | strong consumer and macro tailwinds, while remaining defensively (and positively) Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC positioned for continued inflationary impacts on spending. In particular, company commentary from the conference suggested: 1) consumer spending trends are holding well, with relatively stable spending levels in August amid a resilient consumer, 2) agentic commerce has moved back into the spotlight following the launch of several new agentic products (Meta’s Muse and Spear Street Technology’s Instinct) which represent steps forward in the availability of accessible agentic platforms for consumers and both come with full featured agentic commerce capabilities (see below). Inside we provide more detailed subsector takeaways from the conference, and also provide a summary of forward-looking commentary on a stock by stock basis.

Agentic commerce is back, and cards are dominating the payments: Investor dialogue around agentic commerce featured prominently throughout the conference, and was much more constructive (in our view) than the prior rendition. The previous conversation around agentic commerce for the payments industry peaked in early 2026 and then subsided as enterprise AI became the focal point of the industry. That debate focused heavily on the disruption risks and the potential for new payment form factors (i.e. stablecoins) to displace carded payments, and contributed to a narrative that the payments space was potentially in the “AI loser” camp. The launch of Muse and Instinct has kicked off renewed focus around consumer agentic products as new products come to market; however, this time, for both Muse and Instinct, card payments are front and center. We believe this reinforces our view that the carded payment ecosystem, and particularly Visa and Mastercard, are well positioned to benefit from the adoption of agentic commerce, including direct participation, as well as significant value added services capabilities around fraud and tokenization. Beyond the networks, investors remain heavily focused on winners and losers within the coverage, with particular focus on: 1) How BNPL companies will benefit and whether their consumer friendly terms will be

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Goldman Sachs Payments and Fintech

advantaged over higher cost alternatives, 2) How competitive dynamics between consumer digital wallets will evolve, with Stripe’s consumer wallet, Link, and Shop Pay featured heavily in Muse and Instinct 3) whether Acquiring/processing share for agentic be heavily concentrated among a handful of modern E-commerce processors (i.e. Stripe, Adyen)

Coming out of the conference, we would highlight the following stocks as among our top picks in the group: 1) The card networks, V and MA, on the back of strong spending trends, robust growth in value added services, and a clean beneficiary of agentic commerce adoption 2) BNPL companies, AFRM and KLAR, on strong secular tailwinds, and a favorable macro backdrop from strong credit and funding markets, and 3) Consumer fintechs such as CHYM, XYZ that are benefiting from de-regulatory tailwinds and strong consumer wallet share gains. We remain more selective in the payment processors (TOST is our top…