Payments/IT Services: Assessing Impacts to Date from Middle East Conflict

Research evidence excerpt

Payments/IT Services: Assessing Impacts to Date from Middle East Conflict

May 26, 2026

travel vertical YTD (and unchanged spend more broadly), with select pockets

seeing headwinds (airlines exposed to Middle East) and others seeing benefits

(APAC-based airlines). FLYW's travel business was resilient in 1Q, reflecting

its more affluent consumer base. Overall, we believe the impacts seen across

exposed companies have been slightly lighter than initially feared. That said,

while most of our coverage with exposure incorporated 2Q impacts into

guidance, most companies also assumed very little impact for 2H26 given

an assumption that the conflict would be resolved, and some investors were

weary of whether there was enough conservatism built into outlooks. We

believe a formal deal ending the conflict would be received well by investors

regarding conviction in 2H26 earnings.

●Fuel Prices: Higher fuel prices most directly benefit WEX and CPAY, both of

which saw benefits in 1Q (though WEX's benefit was more than offset by EU

spreads). As a reminder, the networks are beneficiaries from modestly higher

inflation (we estimate gas is ~3-5% of total spend at V / MA, and <2% of total

billings at AXP.) Despite elevated fuel spend pressure on domestic wallets,

we note consumer credit and spend trends have remained stable thus far; we

would anticipate more of the same over the coming weeks and would be more

watchful in the latter stages of the year for any deteriorating trends.

●Remittance Activity: While WU has seen a moderate acceleration of outbound

remittances from the Middle East, it also noted impacts to its Travel Money

business (largely in the UK) from a decline in travel to the Middle East. WU

noted if the conflict persists, it could result in less migration into the impacted