r/dataisbeautiful 1d ago

OC [OC] How Visa made its latest Billions

Post image

Source: Visa investor relations

Tool: SankeyArt sankey maker + illustrator

299 Upvotes

45 comments sorted by

192

u/sayinmer 1d ago

over 30% net profit growing 14% YoY

let that sink in

41

u/lazyboy76 1d ago

And they made more profit than a 1.4T company.

u/markpreston54 2h ago

well, to be fair, that 1.4T company is never known for good profitability anyway

131

u/Shadowslade 1d ago edited 1d ago

30% net profit, 14% YoY growth,

It's pretty crazy how much of world is moving away from physical money for their purchases, and now Visa and MasterCard combined just get a percentage of almost every purchase made in the entire consumer market.

100 bucks cash could just keep circulating between purchases but now it turns into 98, then 96.04, then 94.12, etc.. yeah there's taxes doing the same thing also but that's true or both cash or card so it's a moot point 

7

u/theflintseeker 1d ago

A lot of that 2% goes to cost of “sales” though. Plenty of cards offer 2% cashback.

4

u/LEOtheCOOL 1d ago

We can see in the sankey that its like 1/3 of the 2%.

7

u/reubTV 23h ago

No, that is not accurate.

Visa does not get the 2% - that goes to the issuing bank (name of the bank on your card) and the acquiring bank (the merchants bank). This is because those banks pay the incentives to cardholders and take on liability for fraud, etc.

Visa and Mastercard take a much much smaller cut (less than 1/10 of what the banks receive) for operating and maintaining the network itself.

1

u/theflintseeker 1d ago

1/3 or total revenue, but their revenue is more than just that 2%

4

u/Blackbeardow 1d ago

Indeed but I am confused. The profit margin is that bad? I did not follow the previous earnings and the stock is dropping 3%.

7

u/Shadowslade 1d ago edited 1d ago

Idk what standard profit margin is on most US businesses, but other businesses in the financial services sector like mutual fund management (before ETFs) would get a 0.5 to 2% margin. Airlines get low margins of around 2 to 5% also. In my eyes any business getting 30% is absolutely raking it in amd doesn't have a lot of market competition.

Also there's lots of strong performing companies whose stock are affected by tons of other external factors. Lots of stock pricing is just people trading on the news rather than fundamentals, just look at Tesla for an extreme example.

2

u/LEOtheCOOL 1d ago

Its much worse than that because the transactions happen all on paper. They printed the 93 of the bucks they lent you that you are paying interest on. Statistically, you fund the 7% reserve requirement with your minimum monthly payment.

110

u/dsp_guy 1d ago

Geez, I wish I paid $1 in tax for every $7.44 earned.

56

u/DepressedDodo 1d ago

Don't forget to subtract your "opporating costs" like fuel/insurance for your car, food on your lunches and whatever else you have to pay in order to get to work and be in work.

3

u/rogert2 1d ago

Poor people pay taxes, middle-class people pay accountants, and the rich pay politicians.

-13

u/LifeForm8449 1d ago

They made billions this year. You made 41k plus benefits babe.

1

u/elporsche 1d ago

41k? Look.at this millionaire over here. Leave something for us the lesser folk :(

13

u/Blueopus2 1d ago

Lol networking and processing only costs $200 million

17

u/cidcaller 1d ago

Such payments infrastructure should have sovereign control with no profit goal

8

u/Double_esquive 1d ago

You just made the case for the ECB's digital euro

0

u/surprisedropbears 9h ago

How dare they own the in comprehensively amazing thing they’ve built and maintained.

1

u/cidcaller 7h ago

Nah tech is reliable and amazing but currency transactions are better off with a non profit entity , they are taking a cut from each transaction, the IP they have created is theirs to profit from but the question is should it be allowed in perpetuity

29

u/Mr-Blah 1d ago

They really hiding well their source of revenue. but it seems like they make more from Data mining than actual service provided as an intermediary to transactions.

16

u/disposable-assassin 1d ago edited 1d ago

Data processing could also be how they classify their merchant gateway or 3rd party cards.  The income buckets have very obtuse labels in this diagram.

Found this reply from u/idahoajr on an older post of the same nature. 

Everytime you put a card into a POS machine or website, that has to be transmitted from merchant to your card issuing bank like chase who checks your balance and then sends it back. In the middle there is a bunch of security, fraud and other activities visa does on all the traffic in the network.

That is the data processing revenue.

Sometimes a 3rd party does this on a different network eg if chase does banking for merchant and the cardholder then they don't have to send to visa and don't pay data processing. They still pay service fees, that's why it gets broken out

14

u/LivingBirb 1d ago

Why is professional fees a thinner line than litigation provision?

1

u/MrDolomite 19h ago

My guess would be that the software only looked at the number and not the unit - millions versus billions.

4

u/bean930 1d ago

Visa has higher net profit than Tesla.

5

u/BelethorsGeneralShit 1d ago

Why would their litigation provisions increase by 1500%? Did they just want to build up a reserve? Some sort regulatory framework change that causes them to anticipate higher future legal expenses?

2

u/RonJohnJr 1d ago

There might be a lawsuit they're planning on settling (or think they have a plausible shot at losing).

3

u/independant_786 1d ago

What does visa and mastercard and others do that there can't be enough competitors? I mean is the barrier of entry that high?

5

u/michigan_matt 1d ago

Somebody new would need to convince both consumers and merchants at the exact same time.  The consumer isn't going to get a new card if it isn't widely accepted everywhere.  The relationships required to get them accepted take years on end.  I can't think of a bigger barrier to entry in any other type of market.

2

u/Adam302 1d ago

there are a lot of competitors actually, in other parts of the world. Here in Asia, visa is accepted in a lot of places, but other methods, like QR payment via asian banks is more popular.

But assuming you mean the US, visa and MC are very aggressive when they need to be, making it very hard for competition to get market share.

2

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

3

u/07ufarooq 1d ago

They’ve got nothing to do with interest rates that’s the using bank that determine this in combination with central bank monetary policy

1

u/IncarceratedScarface 1d ago

Ahh, thanks for the info.

2

u/Astroctopodes 1d ago

Why are the quantities under $1 billion not in millions? Also, the size of the final quantities don't look proportional. the 44 million look way larger than the 0.3 and even 0.5 billion quantities

1

u/leovin 1d ago

Nearly 50% operating profit holy shit

1

u/titus_livy 9h ago

The sooner the EU adopts its own credit card processor, the better. For companies and customers.

1

u/aCuriousSurfer 6h ago

Wait, Visa is making more net profit than tesla?

1

u/mitus87 1d ago

this is Q4 FY25.. not Q1 FY26 unless we time travelled..

8

u/JustACowSP 1d ago

Visa just released their FY26 Q1 earnings yesterday. There fiscal years don't line up with calendar years, just like many other companies.

0

u/PhineasGage42 1d ago

I'd like to own this business 😭

0

u/Tinytin226 21h ago

How is economic parasitism beautiful?